A Star Is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood's Biggest Movies (Hardcover)

by Janet Hirshenson (Author), Jane Jenkins (Author), Rachel Kranz (Collaborator)
Key Phrases: casting gods, casting department, casting session, Beautiful Mind, New York, Rob Reiner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Hirshenson and Jenkins got their start casting for Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios. When the studio went bust, they opened their own office, the Casting Company, and their book reminisces about the many films they've cast, including Harry Potter and A Beautiful Mind; the actors they've discovered, such as Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio and Scarlett Johansson; and some of the A-list directors, like Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, who hired them. Given the authors' credentials (they have been casting partners since 1981), consider the advice they offer blue-chip. They cover everything from how to handle a call-back to telling actors to send head shots "that actually look like you." Most important, never take anything personally. A great audition doesn't always translate into a role: there are many factors that determine the final decision, such as chemistry, preference and competition. These veteran insiders have a passion for casting major motion pictures, and they use meetings with famous people to illustrate how Hollywood works. Tales of actors' career trajectories are informative without being malicious. For actors, this informative, breezy narrative is like having a frank but loving aunt tell you the facts of life. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Hirshenson and Jenkins, founders of the Casting Company, one of Los Angeles' premier casting agencies, share stories from their 30-year careers in the industry. Both women got their start with a well-known casting director before joining her at Francis Ford Coppola's visionary studio, Zoetrope. After Zoetrope went belly up, Hirshenson and Jenkins struck out on their own, working with such Hollywood luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Wolfgang Petersen, and Ron Howard. Although the big roles are crucial to a movie's success, Hirshenson and Jenkins also illustrate how much thought goes into even the smallest role, using the example of a brief but pivotal part in the Ron Howard movie A Beautiful Mind to show how even a character who is on screen for only a single scene can affect the movie's believability. Hirshenson and Jenkins have done much to demystify the process of matching actors with movie roles in this must-read for anyone interested in acting or casting. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (November 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151012342
• ISBN-13: 978-0151012343
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #714,313 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars perfect for movie buffs, December 20, 2006

By	Reader Views "www.readerviews.com" (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

Reviewed by Joanne Benham for Reader Views (10/06)

If you've ever wondered how an actor is chosen for a particular role or, alternatively why an actor who seemed totally right for a part wasn't chosen, this is the book for you. Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins are the founders and co-owners of The Casting Company, which they started when Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios closed down in 1983.

A casting director's job is to furnish producers and directors with a selection of actors for every role in their production. To do this job efficiently, the casting director needs a huge inventory of available actors in all shapes and sizes to fill every role. From the bottom of the ladder, the Wannabes, to the top rung, the Superstars, each actor has to be matched to a role. Another major consideration for the casting director is budget restraints. And if you have several superstars wanting the same role, you need tact and diplomacy to gently discourage someone from a part while still retaining the option of using them in a future production.

The authors have worked with top directors and producers in the industry such as Ron Howard, Chris Columbus and Cubby Broccoli as well as stars such as Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Julia Roberts and George Clooney.

In between talking about their casting adventures (and misadventures) they discuss their method of choosing someone. First they read the script to get big picture. Then they break the roles down into categories like star, extra etc. Those categories are then broken down further into sections such as hero, bumbler, smart and sexy and on and on. Then they measure each actor they consider against their own inner criteria of how the actor should look and sound to make the script work.

Every evening I turn on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) at 7:00 p.m. without fail. I don't watch too many of the movies, but I do want to watch the introduction done by the host, Robert Osborne. He gives you some background on the movie that will be playing, such as the political climate of the day, stories about the actors and how they were chosen and why some were not chosen. I find this background information absolutely fascinating, even though I'm not a movie buff. If you are a big movie fan, you will probably enjoy "A Star is Found" even more than I did.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Casting Cull, October 31, 2006

By	William Peschel (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Casting directors Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins have cast more than 135 movies and still going, which is why "A Star Is Found" -- a mix of advice, innocuous anecdotes and advertisement for their services -- is frustrating, irritating and intermittently enlightening.

This book is as edgy as a Parade Magazine profile. The stars are all gracious, patient and professional, and Jane and Janet even find forgiveness in their hearts for the callous actors, poor dears, because they probably had a bad day when they came in for a reading, or had to deal with pushy fans who won't let them have a quiet dinner at Spago's.

The stars' assistants who will turn to the extensive index in the back will find nothing to cause their bosses any uneasiness. Tom Cruise was always "warm and friendly." Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton "are extraordinarily gracious and generous" during casting, "unfailingly professional and gave 150 percent in each audition." To the Hollywood insiders in a recent Radar magazine poll, Russell Crowe may be a "nightmare actor" to work with, but here he's "a true craftsman [who] looked for solid training in every single actor he worked with."

As for the casting process, the advice doesn't go much beyond relax, don't be a jerk and accept rejection. Luck, timing and connections also are important. Each star seems to have caught a break in a different way. They pushed Brendan Fraser for a role in "School Ties," even though the director had already rejected him. They sought out Bruce Willis on the advice of a costumer who dressed him for "Miami Vice." Not only did they pressure Michael Keaton to meet with Tim Burton for "Beetle Juice" -- he was "genuinely disgusted" by the script -- they convinced Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and Sylvia Sidney to reconsider as well.

Behind the endless soothing vibes and feel-good stories, there seems to be an undercurrent in"A Star Is Found" that, while the writers and directors deserve credit for their success, Jane and Janet put them in that position first. If they can't be stars in real life, they can do it in this book. They are, after all, casting directors, and it's time for their close-up.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Look behind the World of Casting, November 26, 2006

By	Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

First and most important, A Star Is Found isn't a tell-all book. You won't find gossipy stories about actors with poor attitudes. The authors mention a couple of negative incidences without naming names for the purpose of sharing what can and has happened and what shouldn't be done.

Hirshenson and Jenkins magnify the effort that goes into the process of casting a role with as little as one-line. A Beautiful Mind viewers, recall when Nash went into a bar and bluntly asked a woman to have intercourse with him. This role proved challenging to cast for the casting directors nee authors because of the complexity of the woman's reaction to his proposal in addition to having the right look.

The authors tell engaging stories such as searching for an actor with complicated character traits and casting a baby who can't start walking before the filming ends as well as finding alternate actors when their dream actor isn't available and convincing actors who initially want nothing to do with the movie.

No one should be surprised that casting children has an extra challenge, but the authors explain why beyond the obvious. John Cusack almost didn't get cast in The Sure Thing because he was 17 at the start of filming. Had Reiner decided he'd rather not deal with the pains that come with hiring a minor, it would've been Anthony Edwards in Cusack's role.

We can't imagine anyone else but the selected actor in plenty of famous roles, but they weren't always the first choice. The authors share some of these first choices that we may not know about. The Maltese Falcon? George Raft had first dibs, not Bogart. Imagine Ernest Borgnine saying, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." It was Borgnine, not Marlon Brando who was first choice for Don Corleone role in The Godfather.

Few people are qualified to write a book detailing the casting process from before the script exists to the completion of a movie. Hirshenson and Jenkins exceed the requirement having worked with over a hundred movies and directors like Rob Reiner, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Nancy Meyer and more.

The book will attract actors, employees in the biz, and non-entertainment folks who like to know the stories behind the scenes of a movie or television show. I'm not an actor or involved in the entertainment business. For me, the process behind making movies is fascinating plus I've got the odd ability of remembering character actors and their names.