as a producer i'm offered up actors all
the time
and it's so tempting because i know i'll
get the project made
but it's wrong right it's not right i'm
putting in an actor in a role that
i feel he can't handle or isn't right
for the audience isn't going to believe
now i'm all for yes can will ferrell do
drama
yes but it's got to be the right drama
you know can
can a comedian kim jim carrey do you
know do drama as well
yes if it's it's the right role can a
dramatic actor do
comedy not so much
brian smith here and welcome to the
dream path podcast where i try to get
inside the heads of talented creatives
from all over the world
my goal is to demystify and humanize the
creative process
and make it accessible to everyone now
let's jump
in matthew berry is on the show today
matthew was a los angeles-based actor
casting director and acting teacher
matthew's film career was launched in
the late 70s at the age of 15
when he landed a role opposite jill
clayburgh in the bernardo bertolucci
film
luna in the 1980s matthew landed
multiple roles on television series like
family ties
and cagney and lacey as well as films
like indecent proposal with robert
redford demi moore
and woody harrelson and ed wood directed
by tim burton
and starring johnny depp and bill murray
by the early 90s
matthew found his way into casting
becoming one of the most sought after
casting directors in hollywood
matthew was the casting director on the
nick casavetti's films
unhook the stars with gina rowlands and
marissa tomei
she's so lovely with john travolta sean
penn robin wright penn and james
candelfini
john q starring denzel washington the
notebook starring ryan gosling and
rachel mcadams
an alpha dog starring justin timberlake
emil hirsch
and amanda seyfried matthew was also the
casting director
on conair with nicholas cage and john
malkovich
rush hour and rush hour 2 with jackie
chan and chris tucker
as well as the soon-to-be-release film
all-star weekend
written and directed by jamie foxx and
starring robert downey jr
gerard butler and benicio del toro
if you want to see matthew's full list
of television and film credits
go to his imdb page which i'll link in
the show notes
because there are just too many cool
credits to include in this intro
i've talked to creators from many
industries on the podcast but matthew
was the first casting director i've
interviewed
it was nice hearing from matthew about
how casting directors fit into the film
world
and how important they are to the
process casting is an aspect of
filmmaking that is so behind the scenes
so off the radar to most audiences yet
it's so integral to how film comes
together
so i'm glad matthew took time to sit
down and tell us his story
so let's jump right into my chat with
actor and casting director
matthew berry hey hey hey there
matthew what's up bro hey not much man
thanks for making time for me
you got an old gretchen up there you
know it's a
i'll i'll it's an old gibson
yeah sort of yeah an f whole gibson and
it's um
i i bought it from a friend of mine it
was sitting in his closet for
many many years and it's one of my
favorite guitars now
oh it's gorgeous yeah do you play i did
i'm an old punk from new york
oh yeah yeah yeah i did the cbgb's in
the mud club and all those places
way back in the day oh right on so
what what time frame was that 70s no
early
early 80s in 1981 82 mostly 82 before i
came out here
okay because i know you're friends with
chris kincade and i think chris was in
you know uh playing with rail back in
the 70s and so i thought maybe you were
in that same generation yeah no i was i
was a new yorker born and raised so
yeah i was uh very very inundated in the
uh in the punk scene
so it was right on yeah yeah so
what made you um leave music and head to
uh new york music anyway and head to la
well i think that you know i one i
wasn't very good
uh two i was much better at acting and
making a better living at
at acting than than i probably would
have made it uh making money in music
so but but i had a great time great time
playing with some some great people and
great clubs and just had a good time you
know when you're young
you know you try things out so yeah so
where in new york
did you or were you born and raised i
was i was actually i was born in
brooklyn but i don't remember brooklyn
because we moved to
the projects when i was two years old in
chelsea
and so i lived in the projects until i
was eight
and then my parents moved down to this
huge
artist complex down in greenwich village
which uh i grew up with guys like vin
diesel and uh
dash mihawk who's on ray donovan wow
and a lot of josh hamilton i mean
there's so many great
artists that came from uh from this
place called west beth
and that's basically where where i grew
up
and um it was this huge 385 apartments
and it's just great complex with all
these all these kids all we all grew up
together and
uh quite a lot of famous people too gil
evans was you know the great jazz
musician was
my uh my neighbor and i played with his
two kids miles and noah
um and it's and it's funny i i like to
tell this story where
you know i was playing with miles and
noah and gill who's a very famous jazz
musician
would be composing upstairs
and one day this this guy walks in and
he was the scariest
african-american guy i'd ever seen in my
life turns out it was mild
miles davis what what was so scary about
him
just intense oh he was just so intense
and just like this
you know just these deep set eyes it's
like you take one look at him and he's
just got this energy he just had this
energy and i was like
whoa you know as a kid you know you're
easily intimidated right
right and so and so this this guy walks
in and and
and i was like uh and i didn't know who
he was and my i told my mom
i was like yeah it was just scary it was
like oh yeah that's miles davis no
because him and him and gil were
collaborating collaborating on an album
oh that's so cool yeah yeah so it's i
had a pretty pretty pretty nice uh
childhood i can't i can't complain
i would imagine that that type of being
in that environment would be
formative in terms of your direction
artistically
yeah i mean it definitely we we like to
we all got together and played music we
we had um down in the in the basement of
this building there were all these
studios and basically we we bribed the
management we said look
you can give us one of these studios for
free or we can tear this place down
and so they relented and gave us our own
studio where we could go and jam
and and experiment and play music and
hang out and
you know and do things that you know
teenagers do
and and and we just had the greatest
time
i mean like all day every day just
experimenting and playing
you know playing music who were your
influences
back then zappa frank zappa was
it still is to this day i mean frank is
his music was just so it just
i was probably 11 years old in summer
camp
and and i heard this music coming from
the camp counselors
you know bunker area and i remember i
was so fascinated it was overnight
sensation
um and i was fascinated by this music
and when the camp counselors went out to
go get some some chow i snuck into their
camp
and looked at the the record and that
was one of the very first purchases when
i was 13 years old and made money the
very first
purchase i made was overnight sensation
by frank zappa and then of course
i had to buy the entire back catalog and
it was just
incredibly just inspired by by
by frank and then a little later on it
was elvis costello
you know who came who came out of the
punk scene but was more you know pop
punk
right um and so he was he was very much
much the inspiration but you know
zappa and his music it was it was just
just
incredible so he was the one that kind
of influenced where
where i wanted to go even though i i
kind of geared more than the band i had
was more and more towards the the punk
scene and
you know just having good old rock and
roll you know well
zappa to me is like if if that's your
first
it's what your gravitate gravitating
towards first
the analogy i would use is if you're a
grade school kid
and the first book you open is like a
neurosurgery book
or something like that's the most
inaccessible
difficult music to understand and absorb
you know and you're going right there to
zappa right to the most
right abstract and if and i look at the
charts today and i go
are you kidding yeah you know it's just
wow yeah yeah what what a loss that was
too
but but weasel seems to be kind of
carrying on the the family
he has and i gotta tell you because i've
seen i've seen probably
every one of dweasel's shows when he
when he comes to town or even when he's
not in
you know i follow him around to san
diego or you know when he goes up north
and it's just technically speaking he's
he's much better than frank
except frank had frank had such uh
emotion when he played
frank played with emotion dweezil is is
technically incredible
yeah uh but it's and it's and that bad
that band he has is just tight you know
as frank's bands were um
and i got to see frank a few times uh as
well
um but it was um yeah i've seen dweezil
quite a number of times so any of you
listening to this or watching this
you know look up frank's music you know
go to overnight sensation or one size
fits all
uh just incredible musicianship and if
you know if you're a fan of music then
and you don't know frank
frank's music then you know i i really
uh say that you should go go go listen
and pick up some albums
definitely yeah so how did you make your
way
into acting well i grew up
uh my dad is a broadway playwright and
he ran
a theater company in new york called the
uh hudson guild theater company which
was right down the block from
my school and
when i would go i would instead of going
home i would go to the theater which was
right down the block and i would sit
and do my homework in in the in the pews
i guess
and uh and i would watch him work with
the actors all day long
and i was just fascinated where you know
where you know watching him direct and
watching him get out of the actors what
what he could get out and i was one day
i think it was eight years old
i said well i want to do that and
um he he said okay you know so he
he you know my dad was a little little
tough a tough irishman
and uh and so he you know he worked me
pretty good he was like all right
this kid's got some natural talent and i
auditioned for this uh off-broadway play
at the
at the roundabout theater which is now
of broadway considered broadway
and i got cast when i was eight years
old in this really bizarre
piece called a piece of fog and that was
kind of my introduction to
the stage uh and then it just kind of
blossomed from there i wound up doing a
tv series when i was 13 years old
called ivan the terrible for cbs it was
terrible
but i got a very very quick education
from
all the great um like porsche belt
comedians
who were who were you know in the show
and they taught me like everything about
sitcoms and beats and you know it was
just
an incredible education um
and then the big break came when i was
15. um i i started in a
bernardo berlucci film called luna and
how that came about
was i auditioned for it and
uh at the time liv omen was was the
great
you know actress liv allman was slated
to play the lead in the movie
and i was deemed too young for the part
so
the casting director put my picture in
the reject pile
and when liv fell out and jill clayburgh
came in uh
by accident bernardo's wife walked into
the wrong room
she was looking for for the exit to go
to the bathroom and she walked into this
other room and she
literally saw my picture standing there
on the top of the reject pile
and she picked it up and she looked at
it and she showed it to bernardo and she
said this she told us all to me of
course
you know post film and she said to
bernardo she goes this is the kid
wow and so they called me back
and i came in and everybody had been
sucking up to to bernardo because he was
italian and they played soccer and
so he's asking me all these questions
and i was just this naive
kid who was just very open and honest
and he was like what's your favorite
sport i was like baseball
he was like really tell me about that
and i was saying went
on and on and on and on about baseball
and the yankees and blah blah blah
and he said okay so he tested me
with eight others and by the time
lunch uh uh arrived there it was down to
three
and it turned out to be me um my friend
todd graff who's
who was an actor and now a director uh
and a friend of mine so we were
we were up against each other and uh
some somebody else and they eventually
narrowed it down to myself and todd
and after hours and hours of going back
and forth
with with jill uh i got cast in the lead
and literally the next day
um they they called my my parents and
they were like well we need to come over
and
talk to you about this because it's you
know the the film subject is a little
heavy and
to say the least yeah and my mom and dad
you know
they were you know they came over and
they were like we've seen last tango we
know what we're getting into
okay that's all you need to see yeah
exactly so so they came over and
literally like two days later on fourth
of july i was on a plane to italy and
with with my dad and i was just like i
had
no idea what was happening and i spent
four months
in italy shooting shooting the film well
i i watched it
last night the italian version on
youtube because i couldn't find it
anywhere else i
i was looking for it on streaming
services it just it just came out
it just came out oh it's on dvd now okay
yeah yeah okay great yeah i'll check out
the the english language version but
yeah i watched it in italian and of
course didn't
really understand some but i could i
could definitely
i read the wikipedia description of it
so i knew what was happening as i was
watching
and i was struck at
a couple of things uh first of all as
a first-time film actor you
are involved in this film this berlucci
drama that i would imagine at the time
you may you may not be understanding
where it's going because these scenes
are so
long and that he lets things simmer
and there's just there's not a lot of
action and
there's a lot of emotion but not a lot
of action so at the time when you were
in the film did you really
were you grasping what what bernardo was
trying to accomplish or the storyline
was it sinking in for you at the age of
15
no freaking idea
you kind of got a grasp of it you know
it's i was i was
i was still a virgin at the time uh and
i lost my virginity on the film on my
16th birthday
so i was getting i was getting a very
very fast
education into sexuality yeah
and uh you know my mom was there
with me uh my dad was there the first
month and then my mom came in my mom was
very
very open uh and we had a lot of
discussions about it
and it was it was
it was a quick education yeah you know
like like any like anything in life
you know we get to we get thrown into it
we we go
you know okay you know all right here
here we go
you know yeah you learn and you learn
quickly it's just like you know the
first time after you you know you passed
them past the bar
you know the first time you were ever in
front of a judge you're like you know
you're nervous but then of course after
the first time you know it gets easier
and easier and easier the more the more
times you're in front of the front of
the judge
the second observation i had was
probably the more obvious one that most
people would ask which is
how did your parents and
the director and you navigate this
these scenes where you are
you're basically in very sexually
provocative scenes with this adult woman
jill clayberg
yeah and um the legality of it i'm
wondering about because
i don't know if italy just has more lex
laws
or what how were you navigating that and
your parents and bernardo do you
remember
i think you know at the time again this
was
77 so it wasn't you know the 70s were a
very weird time you know coming out
of the 60s and 70s was very strange
a strange period to for everybody to
grow up in
um at the time you know at the time it
wasn't as as bad i think until
uh uh what was the brook shields movie
that came out the
the was it the louis mile film oh uh
blue
blue no no no before before before the
yeah the one lolita
oh okay yeah so it was it was you know
there wasn't so much of a controversy
until that film came out
where it wasn't it wasn't as as
prevalent as it is now you know the
the sexual predators and and right and
and such it was kind of it was kind of
uh
you know it was back then it was
understood now it's
it's you know it's you know it's attack
that was called yeah
right right so it was it was it was a
it was a different time so it was it was
a little more understandable
you know so to speak back then where you
know everybody was kind of coming off
the 60s where it was free love and
everything else and so
it kind of you know it was the the tail
end of the of the 70s so it was
again it was it was kind of understood
and and again
europeans americans are very are very
you know tight when it comes to
sexuality europeans are incredibly open
yeah
um if any of you have ever spent to
spend time in europe it's very
it's very free it's not it's not it's
not as as
as emotional as we are in in america
it's very kind of hey you know let's
let's get together and let's you know
let's have sex
and you know america's like oh no we we
can't do that
but there in in europe it was very
hey you know let's let's just have a
good time um and i think that's
if you look at that the films from the
from that era it it sparks to it
whereas in america we were still kind of
you know very very
you know conservative so to speak
compared to the rest of the world or
most of the world
or compared to europe anyway when the
film was released
were you tuned in to like reviews and
how well it was received and
were you kind of paying attention to
that aspect of the uh
the movie i was completely overwhelmed
and when the film came out i was 17 and
it was new york and it was 79 and it
opened the new york film festival
and i had so much smoke blown up my ass
can i say ass on that button sure you
can
yeah okay um yeah i mean it's you know i
remember
the the the premiere in new york it
opened the uh the new york film festival
a close
closing night at the new york film
festival and
i had richard gere come up to me and
just
tell me how great i was and my
performance was
and um played dick tracy help me out oh
warren beatty warren beatty warren
beatty
came up to me and and and was like
god damn kid you know and so and
and i got the greatest lesson i got the
greatest lesson from warren beatty
because i literally said
can i ask you something mr beatty he
smiled he said anything i said
how do you do it he said do what he goes
how do you get all those beautiful women
you smile he smiled at me and he said
just let them talk
great advice it's worked great great
advice
and then woody allen was inviting me to
his to his place to
to to to go you know party with him and
his friends and dianne keaton was coming
i'm
like holy shit you know as a 17 year old
it's like my mind was blown
and then what happened was um
cocaine oh and uh and uh
yeah eight yeah late 70s early 80s and
you know i was invited to studio 54
and so when you give a 17 year old that
and the great reviews and
you know and and whatnot and uh and
you're hanging out and
and andy warhol wants to interview you
and and i'm
i'm just like my you know i was just
like
yeah couldn't handle just didn't didn't
handle it at all
and it's it's it just it was a disaster
how long did that disaster last what was
that time frame
yeah it was it was it was you know it's
you
get you get caught up in the in the hype
and and i mean i i moved to uh to los
angeles i
made a bet with my parents i said i said
if i can make more money than you
you know can i move to los angeles and
they were like yeah sure so
shortly after the film i went to los
angeles because that's where the fun is
and you know i had the greatest you know
agent in the world ed lamotta was my
agent who was
who was a richard gere's agent who was a
mel gibson's agent who was denzel's
agent who was michelle pfeiffer's agent
so
i went to his house and i'm hanging out
with all of them and i'm like
one of these things just doesn't belong
here
and like madeleine khan became my friend
i'm like holy shit so
and you know and then los angeles in the
80s was quaaludes and
lots of partying and so we partied and
we partied
pretty freaking hard and then
river phoenix died and that was kind of
the
end of the party river phoenix died john
belushi died
and so it was kind of like uh okay
it's it's over kind of a wake-up call
yeah it was it was definitely wake up
the real wake-up call for me
was um dennis quaid was a friend of mine
and uh he had been dating my cousin leah
thompson at the time and they were
living together
and he wanted me to come in and audition
for
a role in a film that really launched
his career called the big easy
and i said okay i said it was fantastic
and and and i said to dennis i said well
let me come in i don't want to you know
i want to get this part on my own i
don't want i don't want
to get this part because i'm a friend of
yours he was like okay okay whatever you
want matt
so i went in and auditioned for it and
crushed it
and the casting director at the time
linked the great lynn stall master who
was one of the top casting directors in
hollywood at the time
turned to dennis and again not knowing
that we were friends and he said
uh don't hire him and he was like
why not he was like he's he's effed up
he's he's on drugs and
and and you know he's a disaster
and of course dennis told me this and
that was my wake-up call
and so you know that was it how did they
know
just by looking at you or by reputation
reputation what
what really what really happened was is
i did an interview uh with interview
magazine warhol's magazine
uh with a couple of his people from uh
from the factory
and basically they got me really really
high so to speak and asked me
questions that they probably shouldn't
have asked
and being the open honest person that i
was i answered them all
and of course they printed them all and
they basically
pissed off a lot of people and basically
admitted to
you know to being this fucked up kid
yeah
um sorry messed up kid and so oh you can
you can cuss that's fine
it's a podcast a new yorker um and so it
that that pretty much ruined my career
uh
at at the time and it took me it took me
a while to kind of get it back and to
kind of prove to everybody that hey
you know i'm i'm cool i'm i'm clean i'm
fine you know i'm back you know
we all deserve a second chance and so um
um eileen starger who is a casting
director really took a liking
to me and put me in a couple of films
that kind of relaunched my
my career yeah was the wraith one of
those films
that was yeah yeah yeah that was that
was the the first film that she cast me
and it was
it was interesting because if the the
description in in the uh
in the in the script and in the
breakdown was
a blonde blue-eyed hunk uh let's you
know strike
strike one the strike two and you know
strike three
and i was a skinny little kid and and
and the director
looked at me mike marvin who's one of my
best friends today
um he looked at me he looked at eileen
was like what what the hell is this
and she was like he's a great actor he's
a great actor just trust me and i did my
thing and he was like
wow these are fantastic and i beat out a
lot of people i beat out johnny depp
um so direct director mike told me so
so yeah that's great is that where you
met nick
yeah yeah we you know it's very it's
very odd that you know
you you do a film you do you you get
very intimate on these films for
you know a couple of months and then you
kind of
go your separate ways and you know you
might have a friend
you know or two you know kind of
acquaintance but
we all became best of friends for
years i mean i'm still friends with
charlie sheen to this day
um you know nick i've known since since
the film and we've worked together now
well if you can
you can see behind me oh yeah two of the
two of the three films um
i've done every one of his films and
we've just been just this
incredible collaboration you know over
the over the years and you know watched
our families grow
um and and and you know wives and
girlfriends and we've just been
incredibly supportive of each other for
how long was that for 30 years ago 30
plus years yeah
um yeah well so looking at the you know
the i
when i was interviewing nick cassavetes
and i said nick it's nick cassavetes for
the listeners
um but when i was interviewing nick i
was
looking at his filmography and then i
was talking to chris
kincade and and i i was looking at your
filmography
and then i'm seeing all of this
crossover
and i'm seeing clint howard is popping
up in a lot of knicks movies and
mike marvin and there's just this it
looked to me
like there was a family this very
tight-knit tribe
of of friends that were sticking
together
you know as much as they could in the
industry is that
how you remember the last 30 years it's
just you
you meet this core group of friends in
the in the 80s and
like nick and mike and and and these
folks that you acted with
um and then you're just in those same
circles for
for decades it's it's loyalty it's very
i've found in my years and years and
years in
in hollywood that you know loyalty is
something you don't often very find and
nick has been incredibly
loyal mike has been loyal and i'm a very
i'm a very loyal
person to a fault and
you know nick grew up with obviously
john cassavetes who
basically his ma his mantra was work
with your friends
and if you look at john's films he
worked with the same people over and
over and over again and
i think that kind of trickled down to
to nick and you know nick has been
you know incredibly loyal and again we
really work
well together and i think it's also
he trusts me i trust him i don't blow
smoke up his ass i tell him
honestly what i think and you know when
i don't like something i
i i tell him and he doesn't like it but
he knows he always knows i'm gonna tell
him the truth instead of blowing smoke
up his ass i'm not gonna
i'm not gonna sugarcoat it i'm just
gonna i mean i've had you know
films that he's wanted to do and i go
nick i hate this movie i don't want to
do this movie
you know i i don't know why you're doing
why you want to do this movie
because i like it i'm passionate about i
go i don't i don't understand why
because i want to do but that's that's
our relationship and that's
you know it's been a a a fantastic
you know uh keith richards mick jagger
kind of
yeah collaboration for for years
so that's how well really if you look
back that's probably how you got the
part
in luna is your honesty with bernardo
bertolucci yeah
just you know you're not trying to tell
him what he wants to hear you're telling
them
what you really feel i i think that's i
that's how i got the tv series as well
because i remember walking into the
audition and you know that i can't
remember what the question but i
remember
they asked me a question and i answered
honestly and i remember them just all
cracking up
yeah and and i wound up doing a uh um
at the same time in the tv series a
broadway play
uh called legend which opened and closed
in one night
and and i got that role as well because
the director made me run around the
stage and then they asked me a question
and they just answered honestly and i
made them crack up
and so that's kind of that's kind of
helped me along the way in my entire
life is just it's just being
just being blatant you know not not
sugar coating right
which hope i'm hoping in this on this
podcast is they're getting a sense of
you know who i am and what i am as well
yeah
but i guess we have to contrast that
with uh with the drug-fueled honesty
in the andy warhol interview we got to
be a little bit careful
sometimes yeah learn my lesson yeah
yeah so so tell me about
casting and being a casting director and
how that evolved
from acting into casting
actors and films it was it was
interesting i was
i was doing some really bad television
shows
um and and i was i was about to turn
30 and i remember i was on the set of
some
really bad tv show that i was doing and
i remember thinking oh i'm just doing
this for the money and it was good money
but i remember thinking i remember
feeling so unsatisfied
and so i wanted to do something else and
so i went to you you see a
film school and you know wanted to learn
everything there was about about
producing in production
and quickly realized i knew everything
because i'd you know grown up on
and sets my entire life so they weren't
really teaching me anything new
and so i had a a friend of mine who
worked for
barry levinson and she asked barry if
she could
you know hook me up and get me i said
look i'll be a pa i'll sweep floors i'll
go get your laundry i'll
do anything i just want to be on the set
behind the scenes learning everything
about what everybody does
i want to know what a gaffer was i
wanted to know what a gaffer is
you know what he and what he did and
what the electrician
did and what you know whatever what
everybody's function was and how to
deal with people and so she introduced
me to uh mark johnson who you know
in his own right is a phenomenal
producer and i've done a couple of
projects with him since and he said okay
you know let me let me see what i can i
can find for you and he called me a
couple
days later and he said well they need
some help in casting you know do you
want to work
you know i said okay i'll work in
casting but you know when it's over you
know i want to work on the set
it was like okay okay you know you know
calm down so
ellen chenoweth worked for ellen
chenoweth great ellen jenna with
uh and just busted my ass and
and you know i knew actors and she knew
and you know pretty much everybody knew
me from from luna so she was like why
are you doing this i was like i just you
know i wanted i want to
do something new but she was uh
she really took me under under her wing
and i again i worked you know the robin
williams film toys
which is a project i worked on and
really helped her out and
once that was done you know i went back
to mark and i was like okay okay i can
you know i'm ready to sweep floors now
and he said yeah we had to give that job
to
you know the director's friend or the
producer's friend or somebody else so i
went home and cried for two days
and then i get a call from uh vicky
thomas who is
who was just honored by the casting
society of america
uh for being one of the best casting
directors in in in the world
for the project that she's worked on and
so she called me up and she goes uh
jenna says you're you're pretty good i'm
like yeah yeah she goes
can you come down and and interview with
me it's like sure i was like when she
goes
now and so i said okay so i drove down
to
paramount studios and this beautiful
african-american woman
just gorgeous woman and she said look
i've just
come off of working for uh francis ford
coppola on dracula and he kind of beat
the shit out of me
and i just did white men can't jump and
i'm i'm really tired
and i'm dealing with this maniac adrian
line
uh on this film called indecent proposal
and
i just need somebody to kind of babysit
him and
you know just take you know take the
pressure off of me i was like give me
the ball
give me the ball and i said i said when
you want me to start and she was like
now i was like okay
and i was introduced to adrian and
adrian knew who i was from
from you know what the hell are you
doing here i was like i'm here to i'm
here to help you out and so
i had a very very interesting
relationship with
with adrian and one of the first things
that
adrian had me do uh after we had cast
uh uh to me and um
and uh woody was he comes to me and says
listen
matt he says i i need you to find me
this great brit guy
he goes i need you to find me like like
two people to you know that looked like
woody that looked like woody and and to
me
and and i need them to jam i said what
do you what do you mean you need
in the jam he said i want them to jam
man you know and you know
right i was like you want them to have
sex yeah yeah yeah yeah
i was like that's i said adrian that's
that's pornography
he goes yeah yeah you can find that for
me right
so like so i go to vicky and goes he
wants me to find these two actors to to
have sex you know these two doubles to
it was like
just give adrian what he wants so it
turns out i was
i was playing baseball out here with
a guy named randy west who just happened
to be the
robert redford of the uh uh
adult entertainment industry so i said
you want to come in and audition for you
know a feature family goes hell yeah
so i introduced him to adrian and adrian
flips out because he looks just like
robert redford i mean he's you know
he's he could be he was the you know the
robert redford of
of uh of the the the the
adult entertainment industry so is that
okay
so he was happy so now i gotta find the
the demi for him to have
sex with on camera
so so i bring him i i find this girl
dead ringer fur
to me you know but this girl was so
stupid that you know if you blew in her
ears her eyes would spin
so that's a joke you can
so i bring this girl there and she's as
dumb as a box of rocks and adrian
adrian blows up at me and starts cursing
me out and you know the pressures of
being director
and i'm letting him take it out and he
goes what the hell you bring me you know
he's screaming and i looked at him and i
say
adrian if you talk to me that way again
i'm going to come over to the other side
of the desk and i'm going to beat the
shit out of you
and as soon as i said it i went oh
fuck i'm fired and it was that moment
where you look at each other where he's
pissed off and he's got that look in his
eye and i'm like
okay okay you're fired and
then he just breaks out of this big grin
and says
i like you there's your honesty again
and so yeah and so he was like and you
know
anytime because this was before the
internet this was before you know
everything so literally when he was in
vegas i had to drive all
i had to drive drive all of the audition
tapes
to vegas and hang out and wait for
adrian in his room and show him all the
tapes and we had a
we had a great time and then when we had
the we had the um
the table read with uh when we hired
redford it was redford to me
and and and woody and uh adrian called
me in
to read all the other roles and the
stage directions and everything so it
was just basically the
five of us and the producers in a room
in vegas reading the script and i'm
like oh my god this is fantastic and
that was kind of the
the launch of of my casting career and i
i owe it all to vicki because i got to
work you know i i jumped from that
to to working on ed wood with with tim
burton i mean are you
kidding me oh man so it was you know and
i i got i worked with you know and then
jerry bruckheimer
and it was just this incredible
quick fast education and
again i knew a lot of actors from my
days as an actor so i would
bring them in and introduce them to to
vicki and
jeannie mccarthy who in her right man is
a phenomenal casting director as well
um was working with vicky as well so we
had this incredible
casting team i mean it was like an a
plus casting team
and we just worked on these amazing
films and we you know put together
you know conair uh with amazing cast in
in that and yeah and just broke all
these careers
and and so that was kind of the the
launch of
of my career and about four years later
it was you know it was time to move on
and jeannie was moving on and it was
time for me to move on
and uh i asked my my uh
my former agent uh nancy um
who worked at a at a agency called
ambrosio mortimer
and they were going through some
problems and she was looking for a
career change after 20 years
and i loved nancy because she was like a
great agent for me
and i said well why don't you come work
with me and she was like what do you
mean
she's like come work in casting she's
like i know nothing about casting i said
you know actors don't you she goes yeah
and so she said okay and so we branched
off on our own formed our own company
was like okay now what
now we gotta gotta gotta get some get
some jobs so we did a couple of little
films and then our
our big break came from a woman named
valerie mccaffrey
who was the head of casting at new line
at the time
and she introduced us to this young
whippersnapper named brett ratner
and brett and brett as this you know
the rush hour movies and uh and uh uh
he was doing rush hour and his energy
was just fantastic and i loved his
energy i was like
oh yes oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and
he loved us because
you know i was still young and
aggressive at the time
and um he took a spark to me and and
yeah we worked our asses off and he was
very
brett is incredibly demanding and
you know saw that yeah we worked our
asses off and he was like i need i need
every
rock unturned and so we unturned every
every rock to to help him out and then
new line
was was impressed and the film was a hit
and so they gave me a bunch of films and
i think i did
seven or eight films for new line and
that was just you know
my my film you know skyrocketed and then
of course you know the notebook came out
i got a poster of it somewhere oh yeah
turn around the rest of it oh it's over
sorry it's hidden uh then the notebook
came out and that was that was kind of
like the the icing on the cake
yeah yeah that that's one of the the
quintessential
uh casting i mean if you look at the
casting choices in that film
it's it could have been a completely
different
trajectory i think for that movie if it
wasn't gosling to mcadams
sure i mean it wasn't gussing and
mcadams to begin with
who was it to begin with it was i think
at the
time it was it was going to be um oh god
the kid's name is escaping me from star
wars
um yeah he was he was going to
go beat it but he he wasn't the the
greatest of actors i'm sorry to say back
back then
i think he proved himself a little later
on but
he was he was the one of the originals i
think reese witherspoon was was one of
the originals
but she she felt she was too old and
then
nick went and met with kate beckinsale
and
it wasn't quite a chemistry fit between
between the two of them
so uh so
nick turned to me and said who you got
and
we were doing this this other film we
were trying to get this other film off
the ground about a year before
and i introduced him to uh ryan gosling
who
my partner flipped out over when she saw
this little film called
a believer where ryan played this like
neo-nazi
and um and she just flipped for him and
he came in and met and
we fell in love with him and so he was
the first person we we mentioned with
ryan gosse was like absolutely so
he came in was so smart was was just
really right and
newline was smart enough to know that he
was
the next up-and-comer and so they were
like okay we like ryan but you got to
find the girl
and so we started our search for the
girl and uh
and we started you know interviewing
everybody
and um uh i worked with britney spears
for
a couple of days she came in at the
height of her career and
worked with him i still have those tapes
which i have i've shown my students but
i haven't released it to any
to anybody but my students get to get to
get to see it
and and she can't she came in and like a
whole bunch of other we
we flew everywhere uh
interviewing uh actresses on
on on on their sets um
what's what's her name uh justin
timberlake's wife
oh um jessica biel
jessica biel yeah we flew she was she
was doing
uh the texas chainsaw massacre and so we
flew down to
to texas to to where they were shooting
and in her trailer we auditioned her
then we flew to new york
and interviewed all the you know the top
people in new york
and meanwhile our uh nancy
and my agent at the time was uh
uh rachel mcadams agent at the time and
rachel had
just come out in this rob schneider film
called the hot chick
and we didn't we didn't want to tell
nick you know hey she's the girl from
the hot chick she should be staring in
the show so we're like
you know so so uh kenny her agent at the
time
called up nancy and says hey i've got
this this girl will you just meet her
and nancy said sure you know i'll we'll
do anything for you kenny we love you
so rachel came in met with nancy nance
was like yeah
this girl's got something so he said
here's 14 pages come back on sunday this
is on friday come back on sunday and
and come in an audition so we fly in
we're
this was a saturday we spent all all day
auditioning people in new york and
flew back on the on the red eye got
barely a couple of hours of sleep and we
were
and and we had all this this big session
set up with all the heavy hitters
all you know you name them back then
they were they were
they were they were there uh and
sat there and we looked at the list of
everybody that's coming in and we're
like
who the f is rachel mcadams and nancy
was like i liked her i met
her it's 15 minutes you know let's give
her a shot
all right nobody knows who she is
rest is history um you know on
online is like one one scene that that
they've shown but
no she literally there's three scenes
that again i have never released
uh that i only show my students but it
was literally a 14-page
audition and she crushed it never in my
in my history up until kat williams came
in and blew me away
have i ever had an actor come in and
just
floor me and she came in and floored me
and
the rest is history so i i don't
understand
much about the casting process and how a
casting agency
gets paid and works with studios and
directors
can you tell my listeners
the process from start to finish of okay
we have we've been hired to
cast this film how soon before
shoot do you actually begin the process
of finding
talent how do you do it and then what
type of contract do you
enter into is it a is it a flat rate is
it an hourly
and i'm not asking for numbers but i'm
just curious about that relationship
because i would imagine if you're
casting an independent film
that's much different than if you're
casting a big you know marvel movie or
something like that
uh for for a variety of reasons you've
got a lot more decision makers and
people to answer to with the bigger
films oh yeah but can you tell us more
about that
dynamic back in the day
um basically we're always the first on
and the first off which is
really depressing sometimes because you
know when everything's
just about to go we're like okay we need
your offices get out
so we're always generally the first on
i think it's it's the casting directors
and the dp
and maybe the first ad who are always
the first on so
you know there's there's barely anybody
in in the offices
uh we're the ones that are uh that sit
down with the director and everything's
calm because
each week that's go bu that goes by the
director gets a little more
tighter and tighter and tighter until he
explodes because the director is always
under tremendous pressure
so we're kind of there to guide him or
her along
and to collaborate and to to argue
our points and the director will argue
his or her points
and to basically you know it's it's you
know
it's a puzzle and you have to everything
has to be right it has to it has to look
good i mean if you if
those of you who watch movies and tvs
you go everything's perfect we just
watch them
you know but everything is meticulously
planned out and argued about
and and and put together because
otherwise you know you can't have two
people that look alike because the
audience will be confused
okay so we're always the first on and
you sit down and we always have the
director's attention
and you make your lists of that you that
you think will be i'll be right for the
for the part and then you
call the agents and you set up meetings
and and and
independent independently you know you
make offers and
eventually somebody will stick um
what happens is as you you you go
you go along and back in the day i'm i'm
trying to
my brain is working faster than my mouth
my
before you used to get used to get like
a flat rate or you get you get like a
step
deal where okay you know we'll pay you
this amount of money until we get going
and then once the film gets going we'll
pay
this amount um years ago and
i i won't bore you with all the details
but i was on a a plane when i was doing
rush hour two
and i was talk i was sitting with uh one
of the
uh the teamsters and he was talking
about union this and union that i'm like
we're we're not union
he's like what do you mean we're not
union
long story short by the time i landed
back in
america i was introduced to the
teamsters and
fought with the teamsters for five years
to get a contract
with the studios for the casting
directors and so now
so now all the casting directors are
union and so nobody can can
screw us over because casting directors
used to get screwed over royally
and so thanks to the wonderful steve
dayan
who's now the president of the of the
teamsters um
he put together an incredible package
for for the casting director so now even
if you're independent there's
there's rates right for all of us and so
we can't
quite get screwed over because they have
to sign a deal you know with with the
casting directors so
so realistically as of as of now it's
it's become a lot tougher than it than
it was
you know now everything is pre-sales and
and tax credits so it's it's it's a bit
more difficult
to to cast a film because you need those
names and everybody's doing the same
thing and there's
there's charts everywhere and lists
everywhere that you can
you know you can get on the internet
that that you know has
foreign value and there's a lot of
brokers out there now who you know
who will broker a film and they'll
they'll sell the territory so to speak
and this is long and boring for your
listeners and viewers
but so to speak basically we
round up coming coming back around we're
on first
it's usually a 10-week deal uh you'll
you'll
kind of get your your names settled and
then the rest of the cast kind of
fills itself out and you use a service
called breakdown services and you put
down
uh you know what you're looking for and
all the
pictures and resumes come in as opposed
to how it used to be where the agents
used to
you know come to your office and and
pitch and we'd say oh yeah we like him
we like her oh this
guy's interesting tell me about him tell
me about her okay we'll meet them
you know now everything is you know you
can do self tapes and everything's
online which is wonderful
um but but basically you know you get
you get to pick and choose
and you set everybody up and you still
talk to agents and
everybody comes in the audition and your
director makes
makes their selections and and your film
is cast
yeah and if you're part of the union
you're going to get a minimum
rate yeah right and then if you're
really
well known in the industry and sought
after you're probably going to get
paid more yeah i mean i mean look it's
just it's generally how it works i
i it's we're not making as as much
as as we used to i think back in the
late 80s and 90s when it was when it was
it was it was a lot of fun uh we made
we we made a very good living no
complaints at all
now it's very corporate you know
everybody has to you know everything is
you know by the book by the you know
it's
one two three four five you know there's
six or seven
people having to you know make a
decision
on one liners so it's it's a little
it's a little tougher these days and
definitely not as much fun
where you know it was really a
director's medium
uh and it still is in the sense for the
independent world
uh but the the studio-wise it was
definitely very it
it it changed it it very much changed
one of the most uh dip when i applied to
law school there was this law school
admission test
that i had to take and the most
difficult types of questions were called
logic games
and logic games were uh there's a dinner
party
and there's 15 people and here are the
rules
you ha you're in charge of the seating
chart right susan
has to sit at the head of the table
jerry
cannot sit you know closer than two
seats away from susan that type of thing
and what you described to me sounds like
a really complicated logic game
you know all of these these moving parts
that you're trying to get a handle on
with the director and the producers and
the actors and
there may be a great fit you know rachel
mcadams and ryan gosling might be
perfect but
maybe ryan's attached to another project
and so that's going to slow down when
the shoot starts and
man it just sounds like uh kind of a
nightmare frankly
to be it's it's not easy it's it's
definitely it's
it's not easy i mean i'm going through
it now because you know i think
independent films it's been really
really
tough over the years to get any
independent film financed
just because of the criteria yeah and
and the agents
know it you know it's they they know
that it's it's foreign sales and tax
credits now
uh and and so they know what their their
clients are worth
and so you know you you make your pitch
and you know they all want to make sure
that their clients are going to get paid
and these are not going to fall up a
fall apart because
you know it's it's everybody's doing
pretty much the same thing
and saying well you know i've got this
great film and yes i've got i've got the
financing i've got the financing but in
reality you don't have the financing
until
the star kicks in so it's kind of this
roundabout
catch 22 that you're always dealing with
um and very very frustrating and it's
it's it's
it's difficult to get anything made but
i think nowadays
if you can find a film where you can
make you know for half a million to a
million dollars
you're gonna be golden you know so
you're going to you're going to start to
see a lot of road pictures
pretty soon you're going to see you're
going to see you're going to see easy
rider again
you know yeah you know good good old
motorcycle movies you know
so so what are i you know when i look at
your filmography
i i i noticed kind of a lot of what i
noticed about nick's
filmography because you worked together
a lot with him
but one thing that struck me is the new
talent
that emerges from these films like alpha
dog and the notebook
and what what did you see in amanda
seyfried and um
justin timberlake camille hirsch ben
foster
i mean ben foster is one of those guys
that every movie i see him in
he is he just blows me away with his
intensity
yeah um and also you know he he doesn't
have to be intense in every movie but
there's
he's just this effortless guy but what
did you see in these actors
that led to casting them and
now they're just huge stars ben foster i
had my eye on
since he was 18 years old and i have a
picture which i show my students i have
a whole collection of
first pictures and resumes and i had
ben's first
picture and resume and he had come off
of a barry levinson film as well
and i had him come in and and meet me
and he was just so
incredibly smart and he looked at my
refrigerator and he was like you got any
beer in there i was like i sure do he
goes can i have one
and so we just literally sat on the
floor drank a beer and just shot the
shit i was like i
fucking love this kid and so alpha dog
when alpha dog came around a few years
later
he's the very first actor i brought to
nick and nick
didn't know he was i said you've got to
meet this kid
and so nick came in nick generally
doesn't read anybody he just likes
meeting actors and
and and he he said his criteria with me
is like only bring me three actors
because i want to hire them all
and you know the everybody thinks you
know they their
their their client got got the role
because they have such a great time with
nick
that i have to go no no that's just how
nick is he didn't
get the role you know we're just meeting
people you know tell them that hold on
but with with ben ben came in
and sat down with nick and was
exactly how i expected ben to be just
incredibly bright
smart terrific and
nick said so you know which role you
like you know thinking that he wanted to
play
jesse james hollywood you know the lead
and he goes i like this role
and nick perked up went really tell me
why
he said because i think i can do you
know i can do a lot with this role this
is the kind of role
that i want to play and and and
proceeded to tell nick
everything about him and literally nick
said roll's yours
and friend looked and was like really he
was like yeah roll is yours it's yours
wow and so that was that was the first
first one
amanda which is which is a funny story
amanda uh her
agent was uh a gal
by the name of abby bluestone and we
went to high school together in new york
and abby was like my only friend in high
school uh because we went to the
professional children's school because
we were all professionals and and abby
called me up and she goes you got to
meet this girl you you got to meet this
girl
okay you know i'll do anything for abby
so
so this girl amanda walks in i had never
met her
nicki never met her she sits down and
proceeds to cry
and she was just like she was 17 years
old and she was like i don't want to do
your movie
i just want to go home i just i just
missed my family and she was like crying
the entire
she literally cried the entire time for
real like for real
like really like like it's like she's
like please don't hire me
i don't want to be in your movie i just
want to go home
and and and so of course nick logan
decided to torture her and kept her
there for an hour
and she was just so lovely and
vulnerable and so we had we just we had
to find something in the movie for her
how can you not work with her how can
you not and
and he was just like so there's nudity
in this movie you have a problem with
that i don't care i don't care she was
17 at that time she was going to be 18
by the time she
she was shooting and so we immediately
we immediately were like i was like abby
she's in the movie she just let her know
she's in the movie
so she went home got to see her family
and then of course she got really
excited
and uh pretty m and i mean pretty much
everybody in that movie became
became a star i mean you know amber
heard was in the movie
you know she had just she she just came
in and was just like
she was a tornado and it was like you
could now just the
energy just her energy was like oh yeah
she's got to be in the movie
um a meal was uh was
was interesting because it was down to a
meal and another another actor
and this other actor we had hired ben
and this other this other actor came in
and they were auditioning together and
literally what happened was they they
were doing this intense scene i think it
was one of the one of the intense scenes
in the movie
and they literally got into a fist fight
in the
in the audition it turns out later that
they knew it that they knew each other
but you know i'm like i'm having to go
in and break it up and nixon you know
behind the table laughing his ass off
you know he's like i love the intensity
so it was literally down to
to emil or this or this other guy and we
we went with a meal because
emil was was he was kind of this
good-looking kind of punky kind of
he fit the part he fit the part a a
little better than this other actor who
was
who was probably a little bit of a
better actor but
emil was kind of softer so you knew he
was he would kind of
fold a little bit as his character um
uh olivia wilde was another one who
nobody really knew and what had happened
with olivia
was she came in and she was just you
know just
wild and open and didn't give a shit
about anything
and what happened was is that we brought
back three girls for
for that role and what we didn't tell
them was we had hired all the guys
and we brought all the guys in and they
had them sit behind the table
and the girls came in and all nick told
the guys to do is to give her shit
olivia walks in the first thing she said
was like
you know is is that a you know something
she made some comment about about one of
the guys like having a small
you know penis oh she gave it right back
then gave it right
right back and it just kept going on and
on and on the guys were like hooting and
hollering and they were like
she's in she's because she's one of she
was one of the guys yeah
yes and so uh uh timberlake
we had we had wanted we met justin uh
on a previous picture that didn't go and
we loved
uh timberlake and nick nick had
suggested
justin early on and i said hell yes
i said anybody who's a musician let him
come in let him talk to you about it and
he said okay you know can i just make
this this character fun
absolutely and every nobody liked the
idea
it was one of those where this is the
worst idea this is horrible he can't act
he's a you know he's a boy band guy
and we're like no no against we went
against everything and he was
phenomenal just phenomenal in the film
it's one of the
it's it's it's a cast one of the cast
that i'm incredibly proud of just
because
everybody almost everybody on that on
that poster just blew up after that
yeah you know and it just and it just it
really to this day makes me
incredibly proud to to have put that one
together
um and what a job and what yeah i i
watched it leading up to
to nick's uh interview and and i was
struck it was the second or third time
that i've seen the film
maybe more because it's it's one of
those those movies that you can
go back and watch again you know once a
year and it's still
fresh it still holds up
and it ages well but one of the things i
i noticed about the film the last time i
watched it was
it is a real pressure cooker of a movie
with all of the intensity from all of
these actors
and and there's also the subtlety and
nuance
of the performances because for for
instance to meal hirsch
when he's when he's looking at the
intruders in his house
and he's he's watching one of them take
a shit on his carpet
you know and he's just kind of cowering
and you realize
this kid is he's not a badass
he he has a lot a lot of bark and no
bite right
and there were so he needs these people
who will do these acts for him
because he doesn't have the courage to
do it right and it's that type of nuance
that i
love in these performances but then it's
also like watching a train wreck too
because
it's like you see these two trains
coming at each other and you're like oh
shit
like this this is not gonna end well you
just know
right from the beginning this is not
gonna end well
well and as an audience too it's like
you think okay how is this kid gonna get
out of it
right and he and he doesn't that's the
whole thing is that that's the shock
about yeah to an audience because you
know you watch these films and you go
okay somebody's going to come by to save
the day you know somebody will somebody
will come by
something will happen and and this kid
will be saved because you feel for him
and then all of a sudden you just and
and when when he's shot it's
so freaking heartbreaking
it's heartbreaking and and it's just
and it just leaves you just with this
with this this feeling in your gut of
like
oh my god this this didn't end the way i
thought it
thought it would you know how's this
how's this going to play out now
yeah and the the beautiful thing about
it too is that
nick was able to capture this story
and he just grabs it it's it's out there
and he grabs it and puts it on paper in
a screenplay right
and he he puts this film together
in a way that i i don't think you know
you could read this story in a gq
write-up or vanity fair or rolling stone
or something and it
just would not hit the way that it came
together
through through your casting and through
through nick's direction
and it's it's one of the the best uh
teenage
you know sort of thriller dramas i think
of of that decade
i i think it still holds up to and
anybody who's who's listening to this
who's who's young should really watch
watch that film because it's it's kind
of
i mean that was you know what 12 13
years ago
yeah maybe maybe longer but it's still
holding up
to this day you know with with the youth
that's you know the the
the anger and and angst that that the
youth of today
you know the pressures of the youth of
today you know
have and just and just the the the lack
of of parenting um
that's you know and these these kids you
know a lot of them you know they weren't
poor kids you know they were
you know some of them were well off yeah
most of most of them were well off
and wow the decisions you you you know
you make as as as a young adult and if
you're a young actor listening to this
it's one that it's a film that you
should study uh especially
all of the characters uh in you know in
the film
you know it's it's an it's a just a an
incredible piece for all of the actors
you know not just not just you know
justin's performance but
you know and but emils and and and and
and ben's and every everybody in the in
the film
yeah it's i think it's a good example of
the duality of man
in it showing that every character
in that film has the capacity for good
and evil
and every in every scene they have the
ability to
make a different decision and it's just
almost
by chance that they decide you know
to keep going on this path that's going
to lead
to something horrible happening but they
could just as easily make a different
decision pick up the phone and call the
police or something
right and then everything would be
completely different right
um but it's it's a fascinating study in
that respect
well i mean again look look at look at
what's going on in the world right now
you know i mean it's like the the
decisions
you know it's it's it's it's that close
i'm a big believer
in we make choices you know we we all
have i don't believe in regrets because
you you make choices you know if if you
decide to cheat on your spouse
well that's your choice you'll live with
that choice
you you have to suffer the consequences
you know what choice you're gonna are
you gonna make are you gonna make the
the right choice or the wrong choice we
all we all make choices again as as a
lawyer
you know as well we make choices and
those choices affect you know if you
wind up in court or not
right so uh uh yeah it's it's hard one
one one uh actor i i
stupidly failed to mention was the
incredible anton yelchin um
the late great anton yelchin um who
again
you know nobody knew except my partner
who had seen him in a film
and they were i can't remember the other
actor they were trying to push on us to
to play that role
and nancy was was like no it's got to be
anton it's got to be anton it's got to
be anton
and anton came in and i think it was he
was 16 at the time
and he was just so innocent and so
beautiful
and just it was like oh yeah absolutely
absolutely i give i give my partner
nancy full credit for that one
so he he passed away yeah he was
he he um unfortunately he was he had a
driveway
uh that had a steep hill and he had a
jeep at the top of it and he thought he
had put it in park
okay and and he didn't then it it backed
into him and and crushed him
i remember now yeah i remember the story
yeah
absolutely incredibly heartbreaking and
and just
incredibly talented i'm getting choked
up just thinking about it
um and his mom was just such a
sweetheart just a
just a lovely incredible woman and to
lose to lose him that early and to lose
you know everything that that that he
had done in his career
um was just was just this is really
really sad
one more casting question sure before we
move on to your acting
classes um the she's so lovely
movie nick talked about it
a a read or an introduction with john
travolta
and i think sean penn was there and
there was some drama
uh i don't know if you heard that
interview or not but um
with robin wright penn and sean and were
you involved in that particular meeting
that nick was referring to where uh
john travolta showed up and the kind of
the stars aligned
and he agreed to take on that role
i was there the day that that he said
yes i remember that
i remember that that that sean and robin
had come on and we went after
to to when i went after john and he said
yes and everybody
everybody was was excited yeah um i
don't know what happened
it happened afterwards but i know sean
really took you know
was really really invested in the film
um
and i know that that like after the
first day of shooting they had shot
john and and and nick and sean had some
some difference of opinions and so we
had to do
re-shot that scene um but i thought they
were they were all
all terrific and gandolfini the late
james
jimmy yeah what a great listener oh was
so great in that
and and yeah was that one as one of his
first films
i was one of his i i actually i met i
put james
okay here's a funny story and i hope
nick is not listening to this because
he's not gonna like
what i have to say but i may have told
him this i may not have but i'm gonna
i'm gonna kind of out myself here so i
was doing a film
when i was working with vicky uh called
money for nothing with uh john cusack
and we were looking for john's brother
in the film and we met this this guy he
was working
he was working as a dock worker i think
in pittsburgh
and he came in uh and was just
incredible and uh nick had come in
in los angeles of course nick was one of
my best friends
and it was down to nick and james
candelfini to play
cusack's brother and we watched the
tapes watch the tapes and
you know the director said you know
asked everybody's opinions and
and said matt what do you think and i
went
gandolfini yeah i had to i had i had to
vote against
against my you know one of my best
friends but i thought gandolfini was
better for the
better for the role oh yeah i think
he'll forgive you because it was
gandolfini if it was anybody else maybe
not but
i'll give i'll give you one one last
gandolfini story i know you pre
pressed for time but one last candle
feeding story so i'm doing a film called
uh crimson
tide and uh we're looking for for
this one of his characters can't find it
can't find it can't find it can't find
it can't find it
he wanted uh tony scott had wanted
gandolfini because he had done
a true romance with gandolfini but again
finney wasn't available
so so couldn't find it couldn't find it
couldn't factor we're close to close to
filming close to filming
at the last minute the schedule changes
and i look at the schedule and i call
his agent and i said
wait is gandalfini going to be available
and he called me back and he said well
he's shooting a film in france
but his last day is your first day of
filming
so i said can we make it work and of
course gandolfini wanted to work with
tony scott
and wanted to be with his film with
denzel and so
it works out so gandolfini flies flies
in
literally sleeps in his trailer on the
set first day of set first day
first day very first day of filming
and we're on this thing called a gimbal
and a gimbal is basically a
set that's on these gigantic hydraulics
because we're in a submarine
and so they need to move the you know
the submarine for the angles
and the cameras are are off they have to
push the
you know the entire set away so they can
move this
gigantic set so they can go on an angle
and so
all it is is the actors and then the
camera crew is on the other side
of of the of the gimbal
and so the very first scene is a
confrontation scene between
denzel's character and gandolfini's
character
and so we rehearse it where you know
gandolfini puts his hand on denzel and
denzel slaps it away and everybody draws
their guns
and cut that's that's the first right
first take and action
gamble finney grabs denzel denzel hits
him gandolfini doesn't let go
denzel hits him again gandolfini doesn't
let go
they they start to tussle they start to
tussle
gandalfini punches denzel oh my god
and since we're on at this this angle
this gimbal they start going
out of frame out of camera and us as
actors i was
actually on the set at the time i drove
the submarine
we're going what the hell what the hell
and everybody says going hey hey hey hey
hey
they started they are not in the script
no they start tussling you know they're
trying to get the gimbal back up to
regular so we can you know
denzel is furious and of course you know
since i worked on the film
casting it i was i was working with
vicki at the time
i was like oh my god we don't have a
backup please don't fire him please
don't fire me and denzel was hot and
this is again this first day and
ruckheimer's there and tony scott's
there and so about
an hour later you know gandolfini comes
back and apologize he said look you know
i'm a method actor i just
i haven't had time to really get into
the character and i just i just went i
apologize
and so of course everything was cleared
up but it was like oh my god the first
day of filming
yeah and denzel was big at that time it
was huge yeah
yeah it was a big hit big hit too
well uh so i'd like to ask you about
your your acting
classes and matthew berry teaches
because i've looked at your website
and i am just so impressed with the
talent that
comes out of your class and how loyal
talking about loyalty how loyal they are
to you to um
to give you those types of um
you know accolades on your website when
did you start teaching acting
uh it's about nine years ago um
somebody in a a friend of mine in san
francisco
said you know hey you know what would
you think about you know coming up here
and teaching a class and this is
probably you know the height of my
career i was like yeah okay i've never
done it before but you know sure why not
so i went up there
and loved it and realized i was
good at it and again i growing up in new
york
i had worked with uh lee strasberg at
the at the actor studio and i didn't get
along with lee very well because i
didn't
really like his methods at the time and
i did and i did study as well at hp
studios with you know a variety of
teachers including the great utah
haggins so i had you know i had kind of
a
you know a vast education on theories
techniques uh and basically i decided
i'm not gonna enforce
my technique on them i want i want
actors to be organic
and i want to try i can i can definitely
get the the best out of every actor
and so i quickly realized hey this this
is a lot of fun
and it kind of grew and grew and grew
and everybody and everybody
kept asking hey well you know will you
you know can i work with you can i work
with you and i was just like oh my god
okay i just don't i don't have the time
i know the time and then and then as the
years went went by
i found myself enjoying it more and more
and more and helping actors
you know live their dreams and
as the business changed i found that
i was enjoying you know educating and
teaching
actors i love actors and and it really
coming being an actor and making the
mistakes that i made
i can help actors to not make those
mistakes to be professional and to teach
them all about
being a professional uh not you know a
lot
you know letting you putting your ego
aside and just
doing the work and basically
the advantage i had over a lot of other
teachers was i was
a was a successful actor and i was a
successful casting director so
i know what i know what i'm doing
and so i took that knowledge
and and impart that onto my
students who obviously have an advantage
over
your traditional acting studios where i
know how to work the camera i know how i
know what a
great audition is like i know how to
work you know there's a big difference
between stage acting acting
and art and auditioning but a lot of
people don't know the difference
and so i teach them the difference
especially when it comes to camera work
and especially being on the other side
i wish that i had known half the things
i knew
you know as an actor that i do in
casting i probably would have booked a
lot more jobs
like you know not using props for
example
is you know all the things that can cost
you a job there's so many ways so many
things that
will cost you a job that i
try and eliminate them all so that the
director
focuses on you and your talents
and so that's another another way
my job is to get the best out of you you
know like like
like whether it's you know a baseball
coach or a football coach their job is
to get the
the most out of you know your athletic
ability well my job is to get the most
out of your emotional ability and so i
you know i i'll push you i'll push you
i'll push you
until you are just so comfortable that
you can do anything
and that is incredibly rewarding for me
not only that but it it
it it's so rewarding for me to
help people achieve their dreams you
know we all have dreams we all have
goals in life and
and if i can be a part of that it's it's
so rewarding it's
it's it's a great feeling like you know
when i'm working on a film and you
cast a perfect cast it's rewarding it's
a great feeling
it's you know when my students book and
they tell me they you know they've
booked it's
it's a great feeling when they're you
know booking tv series when they're
going on to have great careers
it's a great feeling and so i continue
to do it and i opened this you know this
wonderful studio i have here in sherman
oaks and you know i have
you know nice nice comfortable leather
chairs and good seating and
you know good food and snacks and and
and
a a nice environment for for the actor
to kind of nurture because you know
actors can be a very very fragile group
and
you know my job is to is to give them
that confidence
you know to go out there auditioning
sucks you know i i
you know doing doing casting for 28
years it's horrible
you know it's nerve-wracking you know
being in front of somebody and saying
you know
please i know you're judging me but you
know please can you just give me a shot
and it's like no just go just to try and
you know impart
on the actor that no just go in and not
give a crap
you know we want you you know we want to
see you we want your personality come in
and just be you that's what gets you
the job that and talent of course yeah
um but it's just
it's nice to see when it's not phony
when it's not when it's not nerves
of course it's going to be you're going
to be nervous it's nerve-wracking
so i try and and teach everybody how
not to be nervous just to go in do your
thing and and
the rest is complete it's out of your
hands you never you don't know
you don't know you know what goes on
you know but behind behind the the doors
i remember
when i was an actor i went there was a
tv series we all wanted to do called
hill street blues and i
went in all the time and the casting
directors loved me and i went in and
there's one role
worked on it all weekend went in and
just crushed it i was like you know
this job is mine nobody's better for
this role as mine you know and i'm
waiting for the phone i'm like you know
is my phone working you know when i'm
checking this i'm checking to see you
know
why is my agent called i call my age if
you heard anything i didn't get the job
why about six weeks later the the show
comes on
on on the air i go okay who who got the
job who who got who was better than me
and i watched watching it and okay here
comes i know i know the script here
comes the scene
oh it's forrest whitaker
you know it's if i have my choice
between
hiring forrest whitaker or matt barry
i'm hiring forrest whitaker
right you know so it's so as an actor i
try i try and
impart that on you it's like you don't
know what goes on you know
behind closed doors you know another
film i went back
three times for this tv movie i was
fantastic director loved me producer
loved me
phenomenal phenomenal role the role was
mine
i didn't get it and so film comes out
you know comes on
if you know a year later or so who got
my role who got my
oh jim carrey got my role okay
and jim was great and i went oh
that the funny guy this guy got my
well and i gotta hand it to him he was
he was better than me
yeah he was he was more right for the
role than me i get it
well i i saw an interview with um an
austrian actor by the name of christoph
walls
yeah from glorious bastards and it was
just
last night i was watching this um it was
he was on uh jerry
seinfeld's comedians and cars getting
yeah yeah i saw that i watch that
and uh but he said if if you put a
great actor in the wrong role you're
going to get a bad performance
yep and i i think that reminds me of
what you're talking about which is
these producers these directors these
catching directors
are probably looking for not just great
actors but
the right actor for this particular role
and you can never know that as an actor
so you can't take it too personally it
sounds like
you can't you can't i mean it's it's you
know as as a producer i'm offered
up you know actors all all the time and
i
and and and it's so tempting because i
know i'll get the project made
but it's wrong right you know it's not
right i'm putting in an actor in a role
that that
you know i feel he can't handle isn't
right for the audience isn't going to
believe
now i'm all for yes you know can you
know can will ferrell do drama
yes but it's got to be the right drama
you know
can can a comedian kim jim carrey do you
know do drama as well
yes if it's it's the right role you know
can a dramatic actor
do do comedy
not so much you know i've had that
experience
you know where they go oh he can be
funny he is funny but
you know sometimes it works like you
know the other woman you know um
you know uh uh nikolai costa waldow
nobody ever
thought he was funny but we knew he was
funny
and we showed the studio he was funny
and guess what he was funny
he was so it's it's it's it's got to be
it's got to be
it's got to be right and sometimes you
got to convince convince people that
you know that they're they're right for
the for the job
well matthew it's been great talking to
you can you
can you let our listeners know where
they can find you
on social media and the web
uh the website is www
do we you still have to say that now no
i don't think so um
matthewberryteaches.com that's with two
t's m-a-t-t-h-w matthewberryteachers.com
a lot of information anybody can reach
out to me if you uh
you can answer it i answer every
question from from anybody
um you know agents managers you know
anything
that that you know actors have uh it
might take me a day or two to get get
back to you but i
will answer everything uh i'm on all of
this social media i'm on
facebook uh twitter is big my mouth
barry because i'm a big hockey fan and i
have a big mouth when it comes to hockey
so
um big mouth bury is my twitter handle
but
the rest is uh matthew barry on or uh
matthew berry teaches on
on instagram i'm not on tick-tock yet
but i guess i have to get a get on there
oh another one yeah yeah figure that one
out
oh it's all the kids we're getting we're
getting old man we're getting old can't
keep up
can't keep up yeah well it's been a real
pleasure talking to you matthew thanks
for sharing your story about your life
thank you well thank you for for doing
this it's wonderful that you know and
thank you everybody for listening for
taking the time
uh to to you know sit through everything
that that you have to offer
yeah yeah it's been it's been a lot of
fun yeah i had a great time thank you
all right hey
thank you for listening and i hope you
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