Donna Isaacson began her career in theatre as an actor. She attended the High School of the Performing Arts and NYU School of the Arts. “I was working, but I wasn’t so easy to cast,” she recalled.
Her no-nonsense style and eye for talent is evident in features such as Quills, A Life Less Ordinary, Broken Arrow, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and ten years’ worth of Joel and Ethan Coen films. As Executive Vice President of Casting at 20th Century Fox, Isaacson may have a supervisory role, but she’s still as hands-on as she was over 20 years ago.
First Casting Job
Isaacson reminisced, “I was typing scripts, working freelance to make money. I went out as an assistant to the writer and producer for a Broadway-bound show. Actors were fired from this show on a regular basis and I was assigned the task of organizing the replacement of these people. I realized I was pretty good at it.”
What she refers to as her first real casting job was at the Manhattan Theatre Club, where Isaacson started in 1980 and then stayed for 14 years. She did freelance casting on other independent projects and then formed her own company in 1983.
Road to This Position
“In 1992, I was hired by Hollywood Pictures to do a feature film. They canceled the picture while I was out here, pregnant, and I was told I had to stay in bed. I was stranded in Los Angeles,” Isaacson exclaimed. Within a few weeks of giving birth to her daughter, Isaacson received a call from 20th Century Fox to start a casting department. “I came in to talk about it, and I never left.”
Coolest Casting Gig
Isaacson wouldn’t name a specific film as her coolest, with good reason. “In over 20 years of casting, I’ve done ten years with the Coen brothers and ten years with Phil Kaufman. I love to work for them. Those are gifts. It’s the people, not the project sometimes.”
Best Way to Get Seen by Her
“It changes. Timing has a lot to do with it. We’re doing several pictures right now, and I oversee all of the divisions,” Isaacson revealed.
Will a mailed submission get to her? Yes. “If you don’t have representation, it’s challenging. We get so much material. That being said, an eye-catching headshot will help. A demo reel is good. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want it returned. We do generals all year long. We are always available for generals unless we’re swamped. Send a flyer for your show. We cover as many as we can. Between my staff and myself, we try to see everything.”
According to Isaacson, theatre is a great way to get seen, to work out, to launch or restart a stalled career. “Theatre really impresses me,” she said. “It’s a great route you can take to really hone your craft.”
Key Things She Looks for in an Actor
A sense of humor and a sense of irony. “That ability to access wit separates a lot of people from the megastars. There’s a mystery: that thing you can’t put your finger on,” she explained.
Also important is what Isaacson identified as a work ethic, of sorts. “I’m concerned that I’ve seen a lot of talented people over the years self-destruct. You wish they could just keep their eye on the work,” she said, noting that some incredibly talented people find it hard to accept the level of attention that is thrown at them. “Know what your body and mind is telling you. There’s no logic to the industry. Just realize that and go with the flow,” Isaacson advised.
What about a bad audition experience? “I never say that a person can’t change. I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t love actors. If an actor failed, I say they failed at that. I will really try to give the actor another shot. I’ll put you on tape if a producer or director won’t see you. If I believe in you, I’ll go to bat for you.”
Pet Peeves
No-shows. Isaacson explained, “The agent or manager pushes and begs and gets to get an appointment for the client. Then they call back and say, ‘Oh, he read the material and doesn’t respond [to it].’ I’d have thought, if you were campaigning for an appointment, you would’ve exposed your client to [the] material before pushing me to see the actor. ‘No, no. I don’t want to show them the material until I’m sure I can get them an appointment.’ So, I’m left tap-dancing for the director when there’s a hole in the schedule that could’ve been filled by an actor who had seen the material and had responded to it and really wanted to read for it. This is a huge pet peeve. Never no-show with a director. It’s a very compromising position.”
Another item on Isaacson’s list of pet peeves is the ever-popular response; unprepared actors. “Directors want to see what you came up with first. If you haven’t made a choice, the director doesn’t know where to begin making adjustments with you to see if you can take direction,” Isaacson explained.
Advice for Actors
“Be responsible. Be prepared, but don’t be over-rehearsed. If you read with someone, you can’t predetermine their reactions. So, be open to listening and responding. Be loose enough to adapt to what they give you rather than carving out immutable space,” she advised.
Isaacson firmly believes that if you get off on the wrong foot in your audition, you should stop immediately and ask to begin again. “You’ll get one restart. After that, there’s no grace period. I have a lot of respect for someone who needs a restart and nails it on the next shot,” she said.
Bring one headshot and resume with you to the audition. “Make it one. Don’t come in with a portfolio and force us to make the choice of which headshot we want to keep. Choose a headshot that is close-up and that is representative of you.”
Isaacson tries to defer to the actor, in terms of where she would like to stand or which scene she would like to read first. “What I find is, they’re so terrified to be wrong and to have no one to blame but themselves, that even though it’s their time and their space, I’ll sometimes make the choice for them because it’s obvious that they’re uncomfortable with choosing which scene to read first,” Isaacson admitted. “It’s your time. Make it work for you. Never apologize. Never qualify. Come in from a position of strength,” she continued.
How is that accomplished? “Sit in the waiting room with blinders on. Don’t look at your competition. There is no competition. Keep your eye on the work at all times. There are 90,000 things that will come in to distract you. The director might be late, the phone might ring, the camera might break, the mic may be a little too far away from you. You have no control over anything but your connection to the material,” Isaacson insisted. “When I look at Kobe Bryant at the free throw line with all of those squiggly things waving at him from the stands, I think that’s the level of distraction you, as an actor, must tune out.”
Isaacson further advised that the actor be professional. “Know who you’re reading for. Treat yourself like a business. Make notes from auditions. Use index cards. You are a business and you should create a file on everyone you meet. I do my homework on you when you come in. You should do the same thing. If you get up every morning and remind yourself that you are a business and you are not getting rejected, you’re just running a business, you can get past taking the rejection personally,” Isaacson explained.
Most Gratifying Part of the Job
“To find someone new, give them an opportunity, and then see them succeed.”
This interview was conducted on June 25, 2001, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.