Casting partners Sarah Halley Finn and Randi Hiller first came to my attention during my research for the “How To Become a Casting Director” feature [BSW July 4, 2002]. These two casting directors are young, well-trained, and open to sharing information about their journey to the successful partnership they now share (Finn started out as an actor, Hiller as an agent).
The outer office of Finn Hiller Casting is simply decorated with feng shui touches and walls of posters autographed by filmmakers thanking the duo for a job well done. Somewhere on this wall—among Blue Crush, The Scorpion King, Life as a House, and Tomb Raider—the ladies will have to make room for forthcoming releases Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Godsend (starring Robert DeNiro), and the Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez feature S.W.A.T. It’s been a busy year!
First casting job together
Finn and Hiller had each worked with Risa Bramon Garcia. “Risa was our mentor,” Finn began. “She had been directing at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York [where Finn was working as an actor] and was approached to cast Desperately Seeking Susan because she knew so many great theatre actors. We reconnected at the Ensemble Studio Theatre here in L.A. a few years later. I had come out here to produce theatre and Risa had said, ‘You’d be great at casting,’ because I always draw upon what I know about acting when casting.”
Hiller came to casting by way of the Triad Agency’s comedy department (first in New York, then in L.A.). “I was hired by a production company to do a sketch comedy pilot for PBS. I then went to work for Jane Jenkins, Janet Hirshenson, and Roger Mussenden [their associate] during Outbreak and Apollo 13.” After several other jobs in casting, Hiller was associate to Garcia for Twister. “She was working on a one-act festival and I got a job at a radio station back east. Risa gave me 24 hours to decide whether I wanted to come on board as a partner. Of course, I did.”
Finn and Hiller first worked together on the feature Paulie: A Parrot’s Tail. Hiller focused on adult casting while Finn handled the search for young actors. “Kids’ auditions are very improv-heavy. It’s really hard work, but we use toys, games, and play to get their creativity going without having them read lines. I loved it. It was great to find Hallie Eisenberg at four years old,” she recalled. After Paulie, Finn was hired at Paramount Pictures but kept in touch with Hiller. Their partnership began in February 2000.
Biggest benefit to their partnership
“We support each other during the challenges. We know we have the same taste, when it comes down to it,” Finn said. “We embrace our disagreements.” “Our working methods are complete opposite,” Hiller added. “Sarah is visual and I’m much more auditory in the way I process information.” “And I’m more administrative while Randi is intuitive,” Finn continued. “I understand the studio mindset, having worked at Paramount. I like the budget stuff and deal memos. Randi is creatively brilliant and is really a walking encyclopedia, which I can’t do. She can name five credits for any obscure actor I name.” “Yeah, but you have the negotiating tactics. Mine are like, ‘Here’s the money we have. Do you want it?'” Hiller admitted.
After sharing an off-the-record story about producers who try to play the partners against one another, saying that each one made a promise in previous conversations, Finn insisted, “We communicate about everything!” That statement reminded the duo that they needed to discuss a pitch they’d gotten to cast a reality program for the upcoming pilot season. “Uh, no,” Hiller indicated. “We’ll talk,” Finn assured.
Coolest casting gig
For Finn, that film would be crazy/beautiful, the Artios Award-nominated feature starring Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez. “That was a real grass-roots effort and it changed the lives of so many members of the supporting cast. We went all through East LA and South Central and looked at thousands of kids to find people for this film,” Finn recalled. “[Director] John Stockwell is so demanding in what he’s looking for, but that is so rewarding at the end of the day. We got these kids who had never been out of their neighborhoods into a feature and they’ll never forget that.”
Hiller’s coolest gig, however, remains multi-award-winner In the Bedroom which was her last solo-cast project. “I had met [director] Todd [Field] on Twister,” Hiller began, “and I believed in him so strongly as an actor and a filmmaker even then. He came to me with this script and it took three and a half years to get In the Bedroom off the ground. I knew he was going to make this movie even when we had money and lost money and had money and lost money. He is amazingly talented and I consider him one of my many mentors.”
Best way to get seen by them
Hiller began, “We do look at everything.” “Yes, we open everything,” Finn concurred. “We have an open-door policy, really, but it’s hard when we get calls—with this new management system—from five people representing one guy,” she continued, regarding the pitch element of pre-screening actors for roles. “That’s time we could use to audition actors we’ll never have time to see now.”
Finn listed the importance of the actor’s best tools: “Have a great headshot, a good resume, and great training. If your picture is not representative, that’s going to be a problem. Your headshot needs to capture your personality—an essence of who you are, your attitude. It should have a point of view.” “And no retouching!” insisted Hiller. “We want real people. You could retouch yourself out of a job because you don’t look like a real person. Why waste your time trying to look like a 22-year-old in your picture when you’re going to come in the room and compete with 22-year-olds and not get the job because you’re 35?”
Currently casting
Disney’s Miracle. They’re taking a well-deserved break soon, as they’ve poured a lot of energy into Miracle and the Johnny Knoxville feature Grand Theft Parsons. Set for the new year, along with that possible reality series, is another feature with an indie film producer/director. Considering the fact that this duo has cast 17 features in their three years together, you can bet they’ll have another few projects gearing up soon.
Advice for actors
“Be the best actor you can be,” former actor Finn stated. “Believe in yourself, know your stuff, study your craft, and work hard at it. Know that casting people remember you. Show up, do your work, and know that you can’t control anything beyond that.”
“It’s all so subjective,” Hiller agreed. “If you don’t get a callback, it’s not necessarily about you. So many times, an actor is not cast because he can’t play ‘of that period’ or she can’t play ‘that man’s daughter,'” Hiller said.
“Auditioning is part of the work,” Finn explained. “It has to be. And we can help with that.” Hiller added, “People know that we really root for them. We train our staff to help the actors. We made them watch The It Factor so they would know what an actor’s life is like. We really try to make it fun here. The more fun we have, the better job actors do, the better we look, and the more jobs we get. So, of course we want you to come in and be comfortable!”
Further advice related to being findable. “You should be in SAG, be listed in the Academy Players Directory, and update your information with them,” Finn listed, stressing the importance of keeping your listing current. “We spent half a day trying to find a guy for a role that shoots day after tomorrow. The original actor had to drop out due to a death in the family and I just knew if we could find this actor, he could do the part. But he is nowhere to be found, so we’ve had emergency sessions all day long,” Finn lamented. “Every number we called for this guy, it just rang and rang and rang. And that part was his,” Hiller agreed.
Their greatest casting challenge
“Staying grounded is hard,” Finn admitted. “There is a barrage of phone calls and it’s hard to not let the stress get to you. We try to see as many people as possible for every role, but it’s hard. It can get to you when you want to be there mentally, emotionally, totally for these actors who have spent hours preparing and we try to work with agents…” Hiller interjected, “But they’ll pitch 40 actors. We’ll see 38, but still, we’re getting pressured about the two we couldn’t fit in.”
A further challenge concerns honesty on the part of the actors they read for roles. “It’s about meeting the basic criteria, sometimes. We had this project where we needed ice skaters. They had to play Olympic-caliber hockey, and we knew they would have a 45 minute hockey test as a part of the audition,” Finn recalled. “We set up the test for 500 actors whose agents swore up and down that they could skate. Only 60% even showed up and only 30% of those passed the test! It’s like they figure, ‘Well, they’re never gonna find someone who skates, so I’ll go in anyway and they’ll hire me.’ No! We needed skaters. It’s a hockey movie!” Hiller insisted.
What they would change about the casting process
“I want casting to have a less-negative connotation,” Hiller remarked. “Actors need to know that somebody wants them to get the job. We are not the enemy. In fact, we’re the converse of that.” Finn added, “Some people are fueled by their nervous energy, others are engulfed by it. It’s very human to obsess about an audition, but the more you audition, the less you’ll obsess about it.”
Most gratifying part of their job
“Finding interesting, fantastic actors that everyone is thrilled with because they’re so brilliant, fresh, and exciting,” Finn concluded. Hiller remarked, “When I’ve believed in somebody for so long and I finally see them get the break they deserve—whether I’ve cast them or someone else has and I see them working—it’s great to see a good actor get a good job.”
This interview was conducted on November 25, 2002, and it originally appeared in Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews by Bonnie Gillespie, available at Amazon.