How’d We Get Here? (w/ Robert J. Ulrich)

with Ryan Murphy on many other shows. And we learned so much and he was he gave away a lot of secrets. Yeah, and I feel like talking to him provided a lot of flashbacks for us for our auditions and whatnot. Yeah, it takes me back to that place. True, Yeah, totally. And it's I also feel like the casting director's perspective is one that's not necessarily hurt as much. You hear all of our versions of the audition stories over and over and over. Um, it's very enlightening to hear um

his perspective of the entire experience. I was also going to say during the interview, Um, I'm really grateful that he has such fond memories of the show as well. It just goes to show again what we're doing on this podcast is like all the joy that was surrounded and all the good people that we were surrounded by, and that we're like lifting us up and supporting us through it all. You know, it's like again and just another testimonial to like the wonderful things that really did

for people. So yeah, it was all very It all felt very joyous and very celebratory, and we got to spend a lot of time with him because he was always included. He seems really grateful. He's just a really good guy in um, Hollywood is lucky to have casting directors like him. So let's get to it. Yeah, enjoy our conversation with the gleecasting director Robert or work Um. Robert or the one and only, the god of us,

basically the reason for our existence. Casting director producer, uh, the one we all at all too Hello, has cast, like you know, over a billion shows. Just I don't know how you have time to do anything that I have. I don't welcome. Luckily, I'm still working. That's the good that's the good news. Yeah, so many shows after Glee was like your big show for sure, Glue was Yes.

I mean I've done I've done Battlestar Galactica, which had its own cult following totally and with my business arnder Eric, and then I had done um oh, when I did a show called Dark Angel and it was not long after Titanic, and I remember hearing it was in development. I loved Titanic. I'm like, oh, I'll never get that. And then I got a call and I interviewed and I got it. So, um, I've done those things. Those were kind of the big things, but nothing likely. I

mean Glee. You know, Glee was a global phenomenon really, you know, and it helped me tremendously and um, yeah, so that Glee was a great thing. Glee's the highlight of my life for sure. Have you worked with Ryan before? Oh yeah, we'd worked with Brian from the beginning, but I hadn't much. Um, we did Popular and we did Niptuck.

We'd already been up proNT in me for Niptuck. When when you know, when Glee came around, Um, and my business partner Ryan offered it too, because I've been in one casting session for Niptuck and uh, and it's a test network, test situation when Eric was out of town for for Popular but I really didn't know Ryan at Also. Ryan offered it to Eric, and Eric came to me a few days later and he said, Robert, would you

be interested to know you're into musicals and stuff. I'm like, yes, and so I So Eric was on at the very beginning for like two weeks and then, uh, it just wasn't his thing, you know, But it took me a while to earn to earn Ryan's trust for sure. I know, it was like it was crazy because I just think he thought, you know, I don't know what he thought, but but anyway, I took it took a while. But during the by the end of the whole pilot casting situation,

than I had definitely gotten distressed. And yeah, I think, so, yeah, you sort of nailed it. You know, what was your initial reaction before you had even taken on the casting, like, you know, but when I just read the yeah, yeah, I mean I thought it was great, and I remember thinking I can't imagine they'll be able to do this, and then the fact that you guys did it week after week is and it just got more and more

and more elaborate. You know. That was my first thing was, I don't know how this will ever come off, you know, And that was probably just that I thought it was really good. The first time I saw it, Ryan had Eric and I over to We watched it like on a computer. It was the editing Bay or whatever, and that was when I was just blown away and right, and I knew that I knew it was special. But you know, who knew who knew? You know? And then I remember they had a party for the episode. Which

episode was it? Where it was? She? It was the song it was? It might have been was the second episode? Yes? Yes? Was that the second episode? Yes? And there was a screening party somewhere I remember, and with like you know, popcorn and all kinds. Yeah, it was like high school was out of high school yet Monica high school. Yeah. And then I just knew that it was you know, it was just so amazing, and yeah, I was obsessed. I used to get the dailies when they were on DVD.

I still have all these Wow you were very special dailies. We all wanted the dailies, but we never got that it was. Let me say, it was hard to get him. I don't know if I don't know if anybody even knew. I'm sure I always kind of to angle my way in and get those things. I don't think. I don't know if anybody knew I was watching them. I was so excited because I, you know, be able to see this stuff that was happening even before the show was cut right right, and I was so into it. Yeah,

what is it like on your end? You know, because we're only privy to very much our side of when you go audition for something, you go into room and you have all those thoughts into your head on your side of things like during the initial casting of this casting the pilot, especially what because this was such a unique and different show and like you said, no one thought it would be able to be pulled off. What were your I don't know what were you looking for?

I guess in terms of like I bombed my initial and somehow, but somehow you were like, yeah, the maniot, you can't say that anymore now. Yeah, but see from my perspective, I was like, yeah, but when you're going in and you're looking for all of these intentionally different, you know, outcast type characters, are you seeing people you're

not normally seeing? Like? What what was that like for you, well, Ryan was You know, Ryan is incredible in in obviously a million ways, but one of the ways is that he knows exactly what he wants and so he's very specific and you know what you're looking for. But at the same time, he's completely open too something new, you know, like the Chris cole for of it all. You know that wast so um So. What I did, uh know though,

was that he wanted real kids. I mean, he said, I want this to I want everybody to seem really real, like you know, real high school students. So that was kind of my um my thought when I went into the casting, and that, you know, he didn't want it to come off at all fake, and obviously everybody had the same um So I had I had done a because at that point, you know, now there's so many musicals.

There wasn't you know, there wasn't there weren't TV musical So I had figured out a system that worked and continued to work the whole time on a pilot that I was involved with a couple of years before, called Rhapsody,

which was an NBC pilot. It was amazing. It was every season was going to be a different artist and the first season was Elton John and so it was all his library music and it was very kind of dark, like a Romeo and Juliet kind of sexy dark thing that took place a little bit in the future, in the in the aerospace. It was very interesting, very good. Anyway, we got all the way to the going to the network test and then they pulled the plug. I think it was just, you know, so hard for anybody to

wrap their head around Ryant. But it was really good. But during that I had kind of had this system where I had people come and sing a couple of songs to me in the office like you did, Kevin, just right across the desk from me, if I remember,

and um and then uh. And then we would go to the producers and I'd have a pianist because I always felt from my musical theater background that that good singers are better with the pianist, and and people that aren't is good or helped tremendously by by a companiment, you know. But that was around American audo, where everything

was just people just singing acapella. But anyway, so I had a piano player and he I for whatever reason, I didn't think it was working, and so I investigated somehow I got Brad Ellis and so when this came around, I thought of Brad, you know, I did exactly the same thing, and we would I get the collection of the people and we go over to to the studio on and Ryan and Ian and everybody was there and um, and that's how we did it. So it all it seemed to just work out great. You know, that's the

way that it worked. And we did that for the whole show, you know. I mean there's been along people saying acapella for the guest spots because obviously they did in our little teeny space in my office. It's crazy. We had people like flipping and doing everything in that little room. Now that they think about it, so bizarre. We also we would because we cast the initial warplers, you know, and so we we um Alanna who worked

with me. I don't know if you guys know Alana, she and Rory who worked with me, and Rory ended up on Glee as bad Girl singer. Um. We they would figure out this little dance routine and um, and they would teach it and we I have videos still where people would be lined up and down the hallway they'd be in. It was crazy doing that silly little routine and that's what we'd send to Ryan, and that's how people got cast, you know. So somebody did have

to dance for their audition after all they did. You know. It's funny because I always hear that they danced for the initials initial auditions and nobody, but none of us would have been cast. So went on. Everybody danced for all the guest spots. Once they realized they made during the pilot, they made a real mistake not having any of us dance. I think I just started doing it. I don't even know. Ryan was so great about letting me.

I mean, we only went to studio I think after you guys one time, I believe, and that was when Cord was cast, because even Darren was just cast off of a tape, you know, and nobody and Diana was cast like the night before he started shooting. No one saw her until she showed. I remember that. What a wild and cookie casting experience for everybody. I know, it

was ugly. It was the most wild, you know, and a lot of times the stuff that was being asked because wasn't there like a circus episode or something where people had somebody had some kind of and the way people doing all these like circus skills in the office. Yeah,

there were there were times when people needed that. Yeah. Yeah, there was crazy and then there was Yeah, there was all kinds of bizarre stuff that you on no other show before since I've ever been involved with you know, now you're just you're prepped and ready to go for anything that come. I've done it since was Zoe for another musical stuff. But yeah, it's crazy, Kevin. Your audition was great and I always always say you'd tell that

and you saying let it be not. I remember all this stuff like it was yesterday because it was so fun for me. Everything is so vivid to me still. You know. I remember when Naya auditioned. We were in a rush and we had because I think that role got written in later, and and she literally we stood and I just said saying something, saying something because their look was so great, and she's saying just kind of standing across the before she went over to sing for everybody.

It was just crazy. Wow. Yeah, but you knew you still saw something in all of us, right, Oh yeah, no, no, for sure. I mean for sure. And even though Jenna came from New York, she's still went to the whole process here and we're up against people here, and that's always I'm so glad that that, um it doesn't exist anymore, and I don't think that it will ever come back.

I hope where people going to the network room and the room at least there it was the same room, right, Mostly you have to go to a different location and right, yeah, it's changed so much now you'll never see suits at home. You know. It was so weird, you sitting in a room with your competitors signing your life away for five years. I mean, it was just a terrible system. But at least with Glee it was there was a piano in the room, so it kind of hit it like a party,

and it was different than than most network tests. What you're just hideous, you know, and having Brad like Brad was the pianist through all of it. I was lucky enough to be in l A the whole time, so I yeah, I got him for three out of the four auditions. Yeah, all except for the one with me. Yeah, exactly.

And and also you know, there's something really I think anybody that meets you, You're like incredibly warm and encouraging to people, and so you and Ryan during those studio and network tests also made a point to make everybody feel comfortable because it is a really if you haven't been through it, such a pressure cooker. Yeah, it's an awful, awful experience. It was just so archaic, and it happened for so many years. Everybody just thought that it's what

the way it should be. And and every time I think about it, just so crazy too, because you're you're asked to perform for this room full of people, and and yet when you're on camera it's going to be like this exactly. Well, it became kind of performative. I

mean it was it's a whole different thing. It turned into you need to know how to audition, but that's necessarily the same skill as acting on a team show or in a film, you know, And there are people that were great auditioners and people that were terrible auditioners. You know. I had nothing to do with actually the talent of getting the you know, the job and doing

it on the show. But that's right. I think we have a lot of listeners probably that are pursuing this as a career, young young adults, and I know they hear it over and over again, but I'm sure hearing it from you, like you want them to be the person you do. I mean it only, I mean even

just from a very self fish standpoint. It just makes my job easier if people are good and right, you know, and a lot of it's been right too, but uh, but yes, and it just yeah, I always wanted everybody to be their best, you know, always, you know, from the and and luckily, I mean maybe because I was an actor and married too to an actress. Actor now

it's an actor. Uh, you know, I had christ have incredible empathy for for the art because it's terrible and trying to get a job is just the hardest thing in the world. We ask you to come in and be vulnerable, and and half the time you're in the past, you were in the waiting room for three hours and you have to come in and you know, it's just it's a crazy system. But unfortunately it's the only system that there is. You know, that's right, that's right. How

is it now nowadays for you? Because the system is so different, so I mean before and people who aren't in this business Um. Now, as actors, we all sort of tape ourselves at home and send in tapes. How I mean, the thing is, I personally prefer that because

I'm a ball of nerves and I hate auditioning. However, the times that I've done the best and these things are like when I was with you, where you are able to have the personal connection and maybe you can see through you know that the nerves and all that to something that even maybe I don't necessarily recognize it myself. How has that that shift been for you in terms

of your work? Well, initially, I was very opposed to it because I love people, and I love my favorite part of my job really was meeting the people, meeting you know, and um, and so I mean I was never I've never been somebody who's enjoyed the negotiating side of or any of that. It's just not my favorite part. But um, but I was super opposed to it. And uh, and I thought you could never do chemistry readings unless

you were in the room and all that. I think that there's you know, and I loved going to my office and everything in my office. We gave up our office. We held on to it for a year and then yeah, it's really sad. That was a lifetime of goodness. I think about it every time I go past I didn't know then the four and twenty next stor every day that's gone. I mean, but anyway, so I am. I was very sad about it. But I think that overall

it is better. I mean, the only thing you miss is, which is a big thing, is the personal connection and the getting to know the casting director and the producers. That and you also miss when you're auditioning. It's now a a job about making a choice that happens to be the right choice because you don't have the cast director that or anybody saying, oh no, that's not what they want to do it this way. You just have to make a choice and hope that you know. So

that's the big negative. But I think that the positive is so much because for anybody that's the least bit nervous that gets wiped out. Also, you can do it a hundred times until you're happy with it. It's also a business about, like I said, being being close up and everybody's you know. So all that I think is

so I think overall it's better. Yeah, And and I don't know when it will ever get back to the other way, because I don't even know a casting I mean, I'm sure there are many casts have kept their own offices, but I don't I know so many that have given up their offices, you know. Yeah, why why waste the money when you're not using it? It's sitting there vacant, you know. Yeah, it's interesting. It's it's interesting because, like you said, for me, taping gets rid of the nerves

for me. But I also take direction really well in the room, and I know that casting directors noticed that. So for me, it's like making the shifts is where I really thrive. And not to be able to not be able to do that and have any direction it really does you know, it isn't beneficial in many ways.

Can we talk about the Glee project? UM, tell us about how Ryan came to you with the project and what he said to you, and what that experience was like for you because we only we were so busy working on the actual show, like we only got little tastes of it. Yeah, the the the Glee project, along with Glee was the highlight of my professional life for sure. I mean it was amazing, um ther Ryan told me we were, there was a party at the chateau for some That's the other thing is as a casting director,

you never rarely meet the cast. And I had never been included in anything or had so many parties. I mean, so I was we were always all together and you Yeah. So I was there and Ryan came up to me and he said, I have something Monday. I'm gonna tell you that's gonna make you You're gonna be very excited. I'm like, can you tell me now? Dangle the carrot? Right, So I never heard anything. I didn't hear anything Monday.

I didn't anything Tuesday, didn't he And a couple of weeks later, Dante called me and said that there was going to be this reality show and UM, could I

start looking for people? You know? So they so initially it was on my Space and that's right, yeah, on my space and they and they they provided initially offices at twenty and I had six people I could bring, and we divided it by alphabet and we'd watch tapes from morning till night and um, and then at the end of the night they'd show me all their selections,

you know whatever. And so that's what started, and we did that, and then we got a call from Dante that Ryan needed a needed to see a bunch of people the next day or something, and I'm like, oh my gosh, we haven't you know. So we stayed up till six thirty in the morning. I rememberly we were leaving, all of the sun was coming up and and then

we never showed it at that point. Then the whole thing went away and was was completely gone, and months later came back and then they had the people from not from Oxygen, but the main producers come talk to me and they said, could I developed some kind of system for auditioning for that? And they said, we're gonna see you know, we saw a hundred thousand people. I mean,

that's what's crazy. But oh yeah, we saw fifty thousand per season and that was the hot to got your it, and so, you know, I never been in a situation like that. You know, Wow, it was insane. And Damien Samuel and Alex Newell were all people that we had seen at twenty century Fox in that little room, and so I remembered them and brought them back into the you know, to audition. Maybe we use there, I don't know,

because it was it wasn't on my space anymore. And then I had a team, and I mean it was, it was amazing. And then when we um, they hired a reality uh company that would set up the open calls, and I did open calls and at that time they I swear to god, they were like American Idol Chicago. People had camped out the night before in the snow. The first person that came in was a pregnant woman. She started singing and had to be rushed to the hospital.

That's the truth. I mean, people have been all night. You know, how did we not know any of this was going on? That's oh it was. It was crazy, crazy And and the first season we just went to two cities, Chicago and Fort Worth. The next year we went to New York, Chicago and Nashville. These open calls were giants. So between the open calls and the online submissions because we had an online thing, and the in office auditions, that's how we came up with the people.

And and when we got back from the open calls, UM, it was I narrowed it down and Alex Newman and I had Joe McCullum then and Lana and there were a bunch of wenned down the five hundred people from from fifty thousand, and those five hundred we put on the walls in office. The pictures are crazy. It covered my entire office categories, you know, because I really wanted it to be diverse and in in every way, you know,

especially the second season. Um and so uh. From that, we narrowed it down to eighty and those eighty from fifty thousand came to Long Beach. They flew all over the country and they did like a boot camp with Zack and Nicky Anders, who was the vocal remember that. And we narrowed that down to thirty people, and those thirties sing for Ryan and then well for the first season fourteen the next season. But I didn't really know,

and this is also the truth. I did not know until I showed up the first day there that I was on camera. I had I mean I didn't, I had no idea. I'm like, what and they're saying You're getting blah blah blah blah blah, and I'm like, oh my god. And I wasn't. In those days. I was a terrible public speaker. I was so nervous. I mean, I was a mess, and maybe it's better you didn't know then it probably and Darren was Darren was the

first mentor. And because I kind of knew Darren, he made me very very relaxed, and he's good at that and and and I just then after the first day, I was like, I got this, you know, And then I then I really enjoyed it, and it was my Um. I've never had any regrets at all. And that's the honest truth about giving up my acting career. I was not a good actor. I was I was a good classroom actor, but I was terrible. And I had no regrets.

And I live bycarously to my wife. UM, but I was able to live out any bit of that that remained, you know, on the Glee project. And so that's but I didn't know. I'm like, oh my gosh. And then I was. There were five day shoots, which is a lot for reality show, but because of the they had the video and all the music and all that, and I worked four the five days. It was crazy. And at that point, um, somewhere in there, the new normal was happening. And I did some lists for it because

at that point Ryan had only used our company. The result and I got a call from him saying that Dana Walden said that I couldn't do it, that I was talent now and I had to just and I was like, yes, that's all I had to do was Glee and Supernatural and and yeah that was good. Wow, wow, wow wow. I'm sure that kept you busy for enough.

I used to come home and at night and I'd be you know, and I'd getten bad and would be like three in the morning, and the phone would bring it to be Zack and I get my center, and my son was at college, and Kim would go, you know, go talk to your boyfriend, go talk, you know, and so and Zach and I talked every single night during the Glee project. Every night. Yeah, Zack is amazing, truly, what a horse and never complained and did so much. He's incredible. No, not yet, we're going to have him on.

We're gonna happen effort. He's also so busy. He's still so busy. He's always busy, tried to get together count of time. Yeah, he's so wonderful. He's one of the I feel like the publicly unsung heroes of making sure that shows stayed on and working for as long as it did. For sure, the fact that he never got

an Emmy nomination, I can't. I mean, it's so crazy because he he took complete non dancers and then Harry Showman Heather and made me look cohesive, yeah doing you know, several number mini members by the end an episode of Every Style. I mean, he was a genius, I think. And obviously Brooke is incredible too, and Mandy Moore came on for when I worked with Mandy on Zoe's Yeah, cruel people, I mean, I mean, speaking of Emmy's you

want an Emmy congratulate eleven? Right it was the second season. Yeah, yeah, I am. Yeah, I've been up for eight Mmies. But so but the only reason I say that is not from a conceited standpoint, from a standpoint you sit through that show, and in those days it was one night. Now it's two nights, and it was four and half hours, Oh my gosh, and to lose we were either the first award or the last award. Every You're just like, I mean, it's wonderful, wonderful be nominated, and I hope

I am again. But but it was that. But yes, so the first season, I actually I thought I was gonna win because they had Jane Lynch presenting our award and um and I just I don't know, I just because it because it was this whole show of discovery, you know. I thought that that I would probably in Modern Family, which was incredible, and he's the genius caster,

director and one. But so the second season I didn't think I would you know them, And then we did and it was and my wife and Eric and his wife. To show how excited we were when we won, neither of us could remember who presented the award. I mean, we just and the one person of All Blackout, All Blackout forgot to think was Ryan And luckily people were screaming from the audience, right. It was the most excited

I've ever been. Yeah, it was. It was. I do feel that it was, you know, I mean, everybody just deserves it, that's up. But I mean that was really a show of of discovering. That really was. I mean, hardly anyone I don't think anyone in the first season except for Matthew Morrison, who had a major Broadway currently I have had him and I mean obviously you were on Broadway, and so Leah was kind of in the

same situation as you. Really, I'd say Matthew Morrison was the only person, wasn't he that had any kind of major credits? Yeah, ish Yeah, I mean I feel like this was really all of our big ob Yeah that matt had done I think Hairspray at the time, and maybe salth was itself, Pacific and or Light in the Piazza. Yeah, but that was I mean even that, you know, it's such a different scale of what, you know, what they did Sufferent World, Yeah, exactly. This stuff was. It was really,

it was incredible. I was just so proud of it. And I'll allow you guys, I mean every single person cast on that I was so proud of and loved. Yeah, very I mean, it was just it was an incredible show. It was and I know that you know, there's all the trashing of it at certain points, but that basically happens to any show, but especially oh uh, you know big. It was just so big. How did that feel too?

From your perspective of, you know, you cast the pilot, we do the first thirteen and nobody's really seen anything. Then all of a sudden it does become this phenomenon. You're now on TV yourself. That was crazy, Like what I mean the like, how did your I guess professional life besides the Glee project? Like what was that? Yeah? Like, well, I mean I got um, I began to get you know, in which people still do to this day. Um, people

buying me, you know, which they've never done before. You know, where they pay money and it goes to a charity. And we had lunch and stuff like that. That whole thing have started. Happy we should never happened. Um. I started getting you know, fan mail and a lot of people reaching out, Um, a lot of kids reaching out like in need, and so I would be onto the Trevor Project and all that stuff that I'd never been

associated with. You know, I just um because casting directors were always kind of in the background, and I got when I was on the Glee project. I have to say that the casting community was so wonderful to me because they were happy that I was representing it well because the only insight the castracts at that point, and TV had been kind of a lot of snarky and I'm just I'm just not I mean, it's just not my not my personality, you know. Um. So um it

was wonderful. I mean, there was nothing negative. It was wonderful me. Who wouldn't you know? It was like I was talking to Alex Newman the other day and we're like, oh my gosh, that all that time during Glee when they'd be like there's a party this week, there's a party next happened in the community. For me, at least, I remember speaking of we um. I would always kind of have to sneak my way into like the SAG Awards or any of those kind of things and manipulate it.

And and the year I was on the Glee project, I got a call and they said, um, what time do you want the car to come get you? I said, what do you mean the car to come get me? And they said, well, you know, to go to the SAG Awards. I said, no one's ever called. And I said, you're talent on that same word, and I'm like, well, that's fun. And then I was seated between Jane and Corey. That's the night that I was like, I've made it. I made it in the world of cast I mean,

if anyone deserves to be at the SAG Wars, it's you. Yeah, that room is in that room without casting directors. That's right, I gotta says is the best one because it is your peers and and everybody understands why they're there, and you know, it's just so I remember, I remember at the SAG Awards, I think the first year, did you

guys won the first year? Didn't you? Yeah? Yeah, And so I was kind of on the prop or whatever, but I was talking to Diana and it seems like a bunch of you are around, and Meryl Street walked up to them, I think the whole per picture. She said, can I have my picture taken with you guys? To that to you guys, and I'm that is crazy. Yeah, that was That was very surreal, like holding holding our thirteen pound marble men with like you know you had like Meryl and then like yeah, we said was there.

You're like, what is this life we live? Really really really wonderful? Um? What was your favorite role? To Cass do you have one? No? And this is not me bs, and I really loved every single role and was happy and proud of all of you and every roll. That is the truth. The most difficult roles were, um, Finn and Mercedes for sure. Um yeah, they were for sure because because you know, Ryan really wanted um Finn to be like this believable high school jock, you know, and

yet to sing great. And we had flown people out from New York. We had so many auditions. And one night it was like two in the morning. I was in my office and Alex was out there and she was going through tapes and she said, Robert, comes see this guy. She said, he kind of looks like she

reminded her of Ben Affleck. But I went out and watched him and he was drawing on this tumber where and he sing and I'm like, well, he's amazing, but he didn't say so um, So we called him, went back on tape and and then drove himself out here and that all and was you know, not in time to even um get his visa. Yeah, so that was crazy. So that was fun. And then Amber was also crazy because we had flown people in from all over and they were just ready to hire somebody who was not

a singer. She was a rapper and she was great and fun and a wonderful actress and and but Ryan kept saying, I really want that voice. And my friend at the time, his girlfriend was either Amber's roommate or saying with the Amber in church or something. Yeah, so you said you can see this, and so I said okay, And so she came to my office set across from me, and she told this story. We won this, um my business partners, and I won this thing called the Artist,

which is like a lifetime achievement thing. I'll have to send you guys this ceremony because you guys are in the video in the clips and stuff. Um. But anyway, so, um uh Amber told the story there. So I'm saying what you know, she said that she came in and she didn't even have a picture. We had to print it off of I think my space off of the computer and and um, and she's saying something and I was like, you know, I just knew it wasn't the voice that that Ryan wanted. So I said, you know,

what can you sing? Um, what's the name of it? Telling you I'm not going from Dreamgirls whatever that? And I'm telling you, yeah, yeah, and I'm telling you And she said, oh, well, I've never done it, but and she's sang it, and I was like, oh my god, we have it. And when we took her over, when I took her oh it was. We used to play her audition over and over and it was just like, oh my gosh. Took over to Ryan and we knew we had it. She was, I never heard that, I've

heard the Corey one. I didn't really, and like, you know, cut to her winning an Olivier Award. You've got to listen to her things, she said, And then I went on to with the Olivia Award. Yeah, that role. I mean, it's so pretty special. So I don't think that song was in the show or anything at that point. I know it ultimately was. I think I just thought of it because I knew they wanted a big bel turn. I think a CULTI song. Off the top of my head, that's the one. That was one song the first season

the good Way Project. Dante or Ryan or somebody chose the ten audition songs. The next season. I was involved that season. One of the audition songs was that song, which I used to love. Oh, and you'd have to wait kind of to the end, Yes, silly see that singing and it was so long we couldn't fast forward on my Space. Yeah. I remember those college auditions. They'd be like, these are the songs you don't sing in an audition. The nos. But see, that's the beauty of

being I think a great casting director. It's giving people the opportunity that you think can rise to the occasion. Sometimes they don't. But Amber did you just and she and then they found out later coincidentally that she'd worked for Ryan as a little girl, right, and she had audition for American Idol, which everybody was asking her like, I can't believe you got turned away and she's like, you guys know, it wasn't that big of a deal. And now she's the first person to win. I said

that to kill last night. She's just the greatest. No, truly, we are like honored to walk in her presence. Truly, we're very lucky that you put the exact group together that you did. Yeah, we have been obsessed with each other since, you know, the moment we all met. So it's wonderful and so you know, I yeah, it's just when it was like that lightning in the bottle. And and I have to give Ryan all the credit because Ryan, like I said, was always open. There was never anybody

to outside of the box for Ryan. There just wasn't. I mean, he he was just open to anything, and it was amazing. I mean I every New Year's Eve I write him and just say thank you for my career. You don't have to respond, It's just I want you to know that you know he's been He's been amazing to me. And it also you know, it takes someone I think at the head like him having an open mind and someone like you also being able to have an open mind and search it out and find the magic.

Thank you, Thank you, Robert. We are indebted to you and also grateful that you've come on the show and and shared. I'm sure everybody loved to hear these kind of BTS stories, So thank you so much, and it's just something for both of you soon. I'm we'd love that. Kevin and I really like to work together as well. Just you know, if you need like dead body number two and three, where are your men and women? Anyway, we really appreciate it, and we we love seeing you

and chatting with you, and thank you so much. Good talk to you. Thank you for having me. I mean so much, thank you, Robert boy. That was good. Yeah. I think as like a selfish actor, I think you can't hear too much from a casting perspective. It's true, and he's one of the nicest ones. He's one of the nicest people. And um, you don't like when you go into a room, like I said, you are so focused on and like he said, the choice you're making, Like you have to make this choice. Do I know

the tone of the project I'm going in for? I have to if it's a show that's not on or a movie that's not on, you just have to sort of make a decision and roll with it. And you know, it's it feels like life or death almost every time you go in that room because you want a job, You desperately want to be able to work and show your abilities, and then you have somebody who is the decider of your future, you know, sitting on the outside of the table or now it's the person you don't

see receiving your tape. And so it's nice to hear that people care that much and that people are putting in the effort to understand and see the best in you when you go in there. So thank you Robert for coming on. It was a delight to hear from you. And I hope people you know have learned a lot. I sure did. Yeah, and thanks for listening to another

episode and we'll see you next week. And that's what you really missed, Bye bye bye, Thanks for listening, and follow us on Instagram at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. See you next time.