My New Career

Just in case anyone still checks this blog to see if I still post on it, I wanted to let you know of my new career. His name is Samuel Josiah and he was born on June 12th. I am not really doing any casting right now (other than occassional favors for Toni when she calls). I'll let you know if I ever get back to it, though.

WT & CM Finishing

With all the recent work I have not had time to update my blog. It's been nice to be so busy. It has made my last trimester go by a lot faster.

Walking Tall 2 and 3 are now completely cast out. Yay! Comanche Moon, I think, is completely cast out, too. Both films have already begun shooting. Comanche Moon has a great lead cast, by the way. (Val Kilmer is playing Inish Scull. Steve Zahn is playing Gus.) It's the prequel to Lonesome Dove, if you recall from my prior posts. Walking Tall 2 and 3 are almost entirely cast out of Dallas, which is pretty cool for our local talent.

There Will Be Blood is taking a while to cast. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, is very particular in what he is looking for, which is really what makes him a good director. We need all these people who are gaunt and sickly looking, pretty much. It's hard to find that nowadays in our ever growing society. So if you know of any really skinny people with guant faces and sunken in eyes that want to audition, let me know!

By the way, we lost Texas Lullaby. We were on hiatus because Josh Hartnett dropped out. Then that affected the schedule in such a way that John Malcovich was busy after that. So now they're thinking about picking back up, but they're most likely going to move the shoot to Canada. Come on guys! It's called "Texas" Lullaby. Keep it real! It was bad enough when they wanted to shoot it in Lousiana, but Canada! That's just an outright slap in the face.

One more week of work then I take off for maternity leave!

Keeping them Straight

This past weekend we went to Odessa and Marfa to finish up our open calls looking for the little boy role for There Will Be Blood. It went really well. There were a lot of ranch kids out there who were "real and gritty" - just what the director wants. I'll be excited to see who gets cast.

Anyone ever seen a Marfa light? Just curious. We didn't look while we were out there because we were exhausted. We did go to the original Reata restaurant, though.

Today we started auditioning for Walking Tall 2 and 3. The scripts are pretty decent. I actually thought they were better than part 1. It's hard to keep the films straight in my mind, though. I have to really think about where I send an audition tape when I'm finished so that I don't send it to the wrong production company.

Walking Tall 2 and 3 will be shot entirely in Dallas. The UPM (Unit Production Manager) is my old professor from UTA. It's interesting to work with him now. He's a much cooler guy to work with than to be in his class.

That's all I have for now. Good night! :)

Busy is Good

A while back I started praying for more work because my baby is due on June 6th, and I wanted to keep busy until then. Well, God totally answered my prayers in abundance! Our casting company is now insanely casting 10 films! I can honestly say that I've never worked on that many films at one time. There are the 4 Horror Chronicles, the 3 parts of the mini-series Comanche Moon, the Paul Thomas Anderson feature There Will Be Blood, and Walking Tall 2 and 3.

It's actually a lot of fun because it's going pretty well so far. I'm just hoping that I don't send audition tapes to the wrong production company! We just got back from being in Austin yesterday. Next weekend we're doing a large open call in Odessa then in Marfa for the little boy role in There Will Be Blood. I've never been to Marfa, but I've heard it's pretty cool. The director is hoping that he finds his H.W. in West Texas. He wants a kid who really is a hard-working Texas boy. This film is loosely based on an Upton Sinclair novel called Oil!. Altough, I read an interview with Daniel Day-Lewis, and the way he said it was that the film was "inspired" by the book, not an adaptation. I think that's pretty accurate.

I'm really excited about Comanche Moon, too; it's the prequel to Lonesome Dove, both of which were written by Larry McMurtry. I had not seen Lonesome Dove until recently, and I really enjoyed it. Toni Brock's husband, Brett, was telling me that he was talking to Robert Duvall once, and he said something to the effect of that being one of his proudest works. I can see why. He developed his character, Gus, brilliantly. He stayed in a ranch with this old ranch man for 3 months before shooting the film and somewhat patterned his character after that man.

I just got the scripts for Walking Tall 2 and 3 yesterday and haven't read them yet. I guess I should probably see the first part before I read them.

Well, that's it for now. I'll let you know how Marfa goes next weekend!

Looking for Kiddos for a Feature Film

WE ARE LOOKING FOR 7-9 YEAR OLD CAUCASIAN KIDS FOR A FILM CALLED “THERE WILL BE BLOOD”, STARRING DANIEL DAY-LEWIS.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD - FEATURE FILM

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Casting Directors: Shari Rhodes, Toni Cobb Brock
Casting Associates: Annie Hedgpeth, Sally Allen
Audition dates: TBA
Start date: June 5th
Shooting location: Marfa, TX
Basic SAG Agreement

Please email a PICTURE (INCLUDE CHILD'S NAME, PARENT’S NAME, AND PHONE NUMBER) by FRIDAY 3/17 TO: texascasting@sbcglobal.net

*I will email or call you to set up an audition.

*We’re looking for Grapes of Wrath-type kids for this film. They should be farm/ranch looks and have a “real” quality about them…gritty, stoic, shy, used to hard work and being outdoors.


A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector in the early days of the business.

SEEKING THE FOLLOWING KIDS’ ROLES:

[H.W.] 7 years old. Caucasian. He is the adopted son of the successful oil prospector, Daniel C. Plainview. His real dad was an oil buddy of Daniel’s in the early years of drilling and died in a drilling accident. H.W. is with Daniel all the time and is learning the business from an early age. He knows when to be quiet and when to speak. He is trained well and very smart. His demeanor elicits a feeling for the fury of those times: stoic, shy, hard-working, real.

[MARY] 7 years old. Caucasian. She is a farm kid who is used to hard work and ranch life. She is the daughter of the very religious man from whom Daniel buys a plot of land. Through her friendship with H.W., she expresses to him that her father hits her when she doesn’t pray. Her oldest brother is the very religiously oppressive leader of a fanatical cult. She is a good girl and, like H.W. is a bit stoic and shy and real.

Making the Change

I was pretty skeptical about the whole blog craze that has seemed to take over people's lives, but as I would sit in many a social setting listening to people talking about their blogs, I realized that I needed get with the times. I decided to start writing one last year about local restaurants, but I found that I didn't have the discipline or time to stick with it. I recently started another blog using my My Space account blogging about my latest projects at work. I was kind of tired of using My Space for blogging, so I have decided to start over using Blogger.

So here are the few posts that I have started so far that were on My Space:

Thursday, March 09, 2006
There Will Be Blood

"There Will Be Blood" is our latest baby. I'm SO excited about this one. I know it sounds like another horror film, but it's not. It's actually a film about the oil industry in Texas at the turn of the century. The director is Paul Thomas Anderson (director of "Punch Drunk Love" and "Magnolia"), and it will star Daniel Day-Lewis ("Gangs of New York" and "Last of the Mohicans").

It will be shot in far west Texas. (Although I won't be able to be on set because my baby is due the day before they start shooting.) We're going to be looking for our children's roles first for this film because we want to make sure to get the BEST kids. They really have to be strong actors. We're going to be looking in Texas and surrounding states. After that we'll start on the other roles.

As I was typing this the script came by FedEx! Woohoo! I can't wait to read it. I heard it was excellent.


Thursday, March 09, 2006
Horror Chronicles

We have started casting the other three series of the "Horror Chronicles". They are called "Undead or Alive: A Zombie Western", "Buried Alive", and "Zero Dark Thirty". They're all being shot in Santa Fe. "Undead or Alive" is a typical zombie movie but it's set in the old west. It should have a lot of comedy to it. "Buried Alive" is your typical college-kids-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods movie. I found it to be the scariest of all of them (but I'm easily scared). "Zero Dark Thirty" is about a guy who comes back from the war in the Middle East, but there's something strange about him. Perhaps his mom summons him from the dead. HBO has bought these films already, but they are going to try to market them all (with "Living Hell") as individual films rather than a series.


Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Horror Chronicles: Living Hell

We're now working on a series of four sci-fi and horror films we're calling the Horror Chronicles. HBO has already picked up these films. The first one is a sci-fi film called Living Hell. It's actually not terrible. It's about this guy who's dad created this biological weapon that would take over the world and this guy's blood has the power to kill it. [Sigh]..anyway.

Shari Rhodes is the primary casting director for these projects, and we (Toni Brock and I) are her "casting associates". I normally don't prefer scary movies, but my role in these films is pretty small since they're casting it primarily in New Mexico and I'm in Dallas. We will be working on these 4 films for the next few months.


Thursday, January 26, 2006
Texas Lullaby

I have decided to use my blog space to update my fabulous readers on my current casting projects. Our current casting project has been a film called Texas Lullaby. The script is a modern adaptation of Hamlet set in the Gulf region of Texas. The film will star John Malkovich, Alison Lohman, and Tom Waits. Josh Hartnett was all set to play a lead role, but we recently lost him for reasons of which I am not sure I am supposed to share.

We are doing the location casting, which basically means that we cast every speaking role that is not one of the leads. (Lead roles are usually cast out of L.A., as in this film.) We are not casting the extras for this film. The shooting for this film, which is actually being shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been postponed a few different times.

We started casting in early December and should be finished by now, but the film has been put on a brief hiatus as they find a replacement for Josh Hartnett.

That's all that's going on for now. I'll keep you posted about our upcoming projects.