Lisa Miller Katz feels that she has the best job on the planet. She loves casting Everybody Loves Raymond. The people she works with are talented and enthusiastic, two words that describe Katz as well. The passion she feels toward casting is obvious, and her eagerness to do the best job possible is paying off. The entire cast of Everybody Loves Raymond has been rewarded with nods from Emmy. Here’s to Katz, for assembling a family that is everybody’s favorite!
First Casting Job
Casting assistant to Peter Golden at GTG Entertainment in 1987. “We did the original Baywatch. It was on NBC. We did the pilot and then a year of the show,” Katz recalled.
Road to This Position
Katz went with Peter Golden to Stephen Cannell’s office as his associate, then became associate to Cheryl Bayer during the casting of A Different World, Herman’s Head, and the Pauly Shore film Son in Law. In 1994, Katz set out to cast the last two seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Space: Above and Beyond, and The Last Frontier. “Then I got the pilot for Everybody Loves Raymond and all 100-plus shows since then. I also did the pilot and the first two seasons of The King of Queens, plus the pilot that became The Geena Davis Show.
Coolest Casting Gig
“Raymond. This little show which was incredibly well written and so real and so identifiable has become this huge hit. It’s very gratifying in that respect.” Of course, there are many ingredients to a hit show. Katz explained, “In addition to the show being really fun to work on, so many people are still with it who started with the pilot. That’s completely unusual. It’s really a joy. It’s really familial around here. It’s incredibly gratifying to have the world agree with the 120 of us who work on the show,” Katz said.
Key Things She Looks for in an Actor
Enthusiasm and a vibe that they’re happy to be there. “I get hundreds of pictures for every role. The number of people who I can’t hire is mind-boggling to me. So, when someone comes in and it feels like they don’t want to be there, I think, ‘You must pick another career.’ Your job as an actor is to audition. And if you audition well, your reward is getting the part.”
Favorite Audition Tale
Katz enjoys seeing a non-union actor start out in an audition with her and move forward rapidly to stardom. She said, “I love it when I turn to my producers and say, ‘All right, listen, he’s not SAG. We’re going to have to Taft-Hartley him.’ And my producers go, ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter,’ like this guy was so good and fun and interesting and different and new and fresh. I brought in a guy on a pilot who’d been doing tons of theatre and he’s, since then, appeared in a big movie, and he works all the time now. That’s incredibly gratifying!”
Katz reads with auditioning actors, even in the producer sessions, and she prides herself on giving the actor a lot to work with. “I was on a movie of the week and it was about this man who was attacking this woman and the actor had said to me, ‘Do you mind if I kind of go for you a little bit?’ And so, he’d forewarned me. All the execs were all around and he actually pinned me to the wall and it was scary. It was inappropriate.” The audition becomes less about the performance and more about the physical contact in those situations.
Katz has seen producers virtually ignore actors because they become so concerned over what they feel is behavior that crosses the proverbial line. “A lot of people are very intense about their personal space and I think you really have to respect that. If your sense is that it might not be received okay, go with your instincts. If it’s someone you’ve only met a couple of times, I think you have to really trust that the urge may be possibly wrong. Respect the space. Make a move toward someone, indicate, reach for their hand, but don’t grab them. I’ve had a woman sit in my lap! I’m all for confidence, but it’s quite astonishing sometimes.”
Pet Peeves
“At this point, if someone hasn’t seen an episode of [Everybody Loves] Raymond and they come in and say, ‘I don’t watch TV,’ I hate that one! Like TV’s beneath them! They sit in their room and read sonnets all night. But TV is what I cast!”
Katz will give you time to prepare for your reading, “because cold readings show. I can smell a cold reading in an instant, generally at the end of the actor’s first or second line. I’m more than happy to give you the time to work on it,” Katz said.
One more thing: “This is going to make me sound like a crazy person, but I think wearing perfume is inappropriate. That’s just my pet peeve.”
Advice for Actors
“If acting is what you have to do or else you feel that you will crumble off the face of the Earth, then this is totally the right town for you. You have to be prepared to do whatever it takes. I’ve met people who seem to mistake fame for an acting career. I think there’s a difference between the two. I think some people are attracted by the pretty shiny lights and the cameras and the money and the excitement and the glamour and I think there’s a difference between the person who wants to be handed all that and someone who comes here and gets in a class and becomes a member of an ongoing theatre group or takes workshops at the Groundlings or workshops to get in front of casting directors they’ve never met or will work three days for free on a student film just for the tape because they don’t have any – that’s the person who came here to be an actor. That’s what you should be doing. I talked with someone a couple of months ago who was frustrated with his career and I asked him all of these questions about things he’s doing. ‘Well, I got these headshots.’ This is not your permission slip to The Acting Club! It’s just not! You have to do legwork. This is why you came here, right? That’s what frustrates me about this. People think these are steps that can easily be bypassed.”
Katz had further advice specific to the whirlwind that is pilot season. “Try to be as prepared as possible during pilot season. It is about the only time of year that a script should be readily available in the casting director’s office, so there’s no excuse for not having read and prepared the script as much as possible. Ask questions of your agent or of the assistant in the casting director’s office. Know the tone of the show. Is it similar to something already on the air? There’s no such thing as too much information. All of this will be helpful during an audition,” she said.
“Many people have multiple appointments on busy days during pilot season. If you feel the need, ask for more time. Usually that will be an option. If you’re an actor who seems like you don’t care about giving a cold reading, you’ll be quickly dismissed during pilot season; a time when reading 100 actors a day is the norm.”
Best Way to Get Seen by Her
Theatre. “When the flyer comes in the mail, if I recognize one of the names, I’ll pick up the phone and make a reservation. I’ll even go by myself. That’s my job.”
Also, send your headshot and resume to Katz. She looks at them all. “It’s all very random. Sometimes I’m just looking for someone I’ve never seen before.” Of course, comic timing is an integral part of sitcoms, so your resume should spotlight your comedic skills.
Her Opinion on Alternative Submission Methods
“I’m very slowly acclimating to the computer age,” said Katz. “I love to sit with a stack of pictures on the floor. I like the physical act of going through my old lists, stacks of pictures, books.” Katz feels that it is her job as a casting director to know who’s right for a part. “I don’t want the computer to make that list for me,” she said.
Her Operating System
Sitcoms require quick casting decisions. Katz uses Breakdown Services and opens “every submission that gets to us in time, regardless of the return address label. We go over the submissions all at once, no matter who they came from.”
Highlight of Her Week
“Every element of my job is a highlight! I’m a very lucky girl. I work on really great shows and I work with great people. These are smart, funny shows and I’m incredibly proud of that.”
Most Gratifying Part of Her Job
Working on a show “that I actually like to watch, even though I’ve read the script half a dozen times, been to each table [read], each run-thru, and the taping and still watch it on television and appreciate it for the television show that it is, apart from the fact that I work on it.”
This interview was conducted on August 25, 2000, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.