Casting Director Sherry Thomas

So this is Les from the TV dudes. Do you mind introducing yourself?

No, not at all. Sherry Thomas. I'm a casting director,

So I'm, I'm always interested, uh, whenever anybody has a job that isn't "Actor." "Director." Often we don't know the hundreds of people whose collaborative work makes TV, makes movies, makes things happen. How did you find casting director as your, as your path?

I mean, I grew up in Massachusetts, um, you know, a small progressive, big small town if, if you will. Um, and it was just that you, you know, you were either a performer or that was it, you know. So, um, LA was really Hollywood growing up. It was, you knew that's where they made TV and movies. And I was a TV kid. I mean, it was, I was a latchkey kid. I watched a lot of tv. People would freak today, parents, you know, if, if, if kids were doing what we were doing. Talk about screentime. But, um, I think that, you know, what I didn't realize I was doing as a kid was, um, studying, you know, I would watch things over and over and over again. I would go through the, um, the old HBO guides that you would get. You know, you could see when the movies, what movies were playing when they weren't playing. And I remember playing sick and skipping school one day, so I could watch 9to5 three times. It was on, on repeat. So, you know, you're really studying and you didn't, you didn't realize what you were enjoying about it. I just, I always said, I am gonna live in Hollywood. I didn't know why. And I was a dancer and a singer. And so the natural pro progression would've been an actress. So I came to LA and I didn't know anybody and I, um, I thought that was gonna be my path. And everything in the universe kept pulling me toward this thing called casting, which I learned more and more about. And I just kind of, um, surrendered and fell in love with the idea of being able to be creative, but having a little bit more control over it, if you can. And that's, it kind of found me in a, in a very long, long way to get there. But it, it found me. And once I surrendered, I was like, oh, I, I understand this. This makes sense to me.

When it comes to doing the job. Um, do you often have the, the full finished script? Is it nebulous? Do you, are you meeting with people? Um, how do you go about making your list of, you know what, I think it's these five folks each.

Um, I wish it were that easy. Um, you know, quite often there is a script to work from. Sometimes it's just an idea of where, you know, here's the idea, here's the script that's being written, but we want to get started. And so you try to sort of have these, um, meaningful conversations about something that might not quite be on the page yet. When you do have the script, you, you know, you read it. And sometimes I'll read something and a person, an actor will pop into my head. Sometimes I'll be reading it and a prototype of an actor will pop into my head. Might be somebody who is not available. Somebody who maybe was something at one time but fallen off the path. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think the thing that's most exciting in passing is really, truly the process, the discovery as you go. Um, you know, sometimes it is very, when I read Barry, uh, the class, the acting class was not identified. There were, you know, a couple of of lines, but they weren't really identified as to who those people were. They were sort of generic lines. Um, and know how Hank was something that was very, very specific. And Anthony Kerrigan is somebody that I pictured in my head for the part, but I didn't know if he was, had the facility of language to do the accents. . I knew him as an actor. I knew him as a person. I knew how great he was. How charismatic. And so I just was like, I wonder, I just don't know. And so I called his manager and I said, does he do accents? 'cause I got this thing and I think it's gonna be really great. And she said, let me ask him. And then the rest is history. He came in, he auditioned, he talked about it. He, he, the character was completely identified for him in his brain. . And then what I had pictured was able to, you know, come to life.

Have you, have you ever had moments where the, the writer's written a description in the thing and you know that that's what they're thinking and you're reading it...

Yeah. I mean, again, that's, it's, it's challenging sometimes, you know, the writer or the director quite often, you know, we've worked with people who have their, their ensemble, you know, that they work with over and over and over again. And

Like, I know these people can say Deadwood language.

Yeah. Yeah. And so sometimes like, and you know, when we go and meet on jobs, 'cause we don't just get handed them, we all, you know, um, the panel that I did here earlier today was with Bonnie Zane and Suzie Ferris and myself, and I'm sure we've all been up for the same jobs at one time or another. And we, you know, um, we audition for jobs. So part of that is sort of explaining our process and that, you know, sometimes though it might be a great idea, I might push you outta your comfort zone a little little bit to, um, educate you on somebody or explore a different type or tone, you know, whatever it may be. We may end up at where, where you originally had thought we would . But then you might be inspired by something new that you see.

I would think that it's the part of the real skill of your job is managing that conversation. I'm not, I'm not trying to give you an actor that's the opposite of your character, I'm not trying to rewrite your script. We're talking about the same thing. I'm helping you develop this. Is that something, um, that you feel like you've had to evolve or get better at over time?

Oh my gosh, yes. Of course. I mean, that's, that's maturing as a, as a, as a person, you know, I mean, I, the articulation that I have today is not the articulation I had when I was 27, 33, you know?

When I was 25, I felt pretty strikingly right about everything.

Yes. And were you?

No.

Exactly. Yeah. So I mean, I think that that is part of the growth process and, and one that I'm really grateful for that I came up at the time that I did, where it was okay to listen in on phone conversations. You could be in an office and overhear conversations. You could be in an audition room constantly learning how to direct being with, you know, the producers and the director hardly ever. Does that happen anymore? You know, it's all done.

Has self-tape kind of broken that, or has that changed your job?

Yeah, I mean, it's a big topic of conversation. It's one, you know, I've been, we've been self taping, you know, Sharon Bailey, who's my business partner, and, and, and I have been self taping for more than a decade pre covid. , um, by nature of where our shows, um, produced. Yeah. So Breaking Bad was in New Mexico, Walking Dead was in Atlanta. Um, so we were always identifying talent from around the globe, really, not just the country to see, you know, who made the most sense. So we became quite used to it. Um, and we just, you know, it, it's all an evolution really, you know? But I can definitely, I, I have more confidence to be able to sit with maybe a writer director who is wildly talented, but that doesn't mean just because they're the writer director, that they have more experience or, or expertise than I do. So you have to be able to have those open conversations. You know, I'm not trying to get one on that person or make them, but, you know, understanding that while you are the person that's whose vision we're serving, it might have something to con to contribute.

Right? Yeah. You have a deeper knowledge of your job than...

Yes. Because also, don't forget, we send them, depending, depending on what the project is, if it's film, television, whatever it may be, we send them a percentage of what we've seen and have seen for 20 years. Right. Right. So while they may look at an actor and go, Nope, they don't have it. I can point to 10 examples of why they do. Right. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? They auditioned for me. It's not on this list for no reason. They auditioned for me for this. It was completely, it was a complete departure. I'm happy to share that audition with you. Like it's, you know, we have a wealth of knowledge and curating of relationships over the years Okay. With actors.

I mean, I might, I might look at somebody and think of one show they did. And that's not what you saw. That's not what you know about NoHo Hank. You introduced that actor to me. I would swear he's an overnight success. Obviously he knows he's been working for years, there are no overnight successes.

Correct. And I knew him, you know, in his previous life before he, you know, um, really sort of became who he is today with, um, you know, his much talked about alopecia. So I knew him when he was, um, considered in Hollywood to be, you know, the, the 25-year-old hot leading man of that season. Um, and to watch his journey over these years, the one thing that never changed was the talent. Right. So, honestly, it, you know, when you hear different stories about people or why they're not getting the jobs, booking jobs is it itself takes as when you're just not right for the job. Probably has nothing to do with your lighting, your sound, none of that. 'cause if you look at somebody like Anthony who was here and successful, and now is a complete departure of who that person was, he's successful. I mean, that's fascinating. I'm just talking about this for the first time and it's like really interesting.

For the first time, about a month ago, I saw a pitch deck, uh, that had been partially AI generated. I mean, not generated. Written out by a human. But some of the images were, were AI generated, and it was some of them, um, cast stuff. And it was shocking to realize that we all know the AI pulls from existing art, and it's not original. And one of the people in there was just Kerry Washington. I mean, like, AI just generated a headshot where I was like, that's... I know her. That's Kerry Washington.

Yeah.

Has, um, have you started to see weird encroachments on your, uh, expertise there?

Again, maybe I'm naive, I don't know, but, you know, aesthetic and taste like... Those are mine. They're in my brain. They're, it's not, I understand how it can happen with a writer or even somebody's visual art, being a director, but nobody can get in my brain and see how I read a script and it translates in my head to how I see something. They could say, take this show, like, Breaking Bad was cast, but you're just emulating, you're impersonating actors. You're not, I, I don't know, and maybe I'm naive. I'm not, I'm not sure. Yeah.

I'm deeply trying to not, um, just hate the new 'spell check'. Like, just, just despise AI entirely. I don't, I don't wanna be too excited about, um, the usefulness of a new tool, but at the same time I feel like it's applied against things it doesn't need to be and can't do.

Right.

And like, we're all excited, but calm down, guys.

Right. I'm not excited about ai. I don't really understand what the, what the benefit for me could be at this point.

Yeah. It threw me off to see that. And, and so I was just curious if, is that something that you had seen yet, or

No, but I, I wouldn't, you know.

If somebody's project, uh, has you on it, why would they even lean on that. One last question. Do you have a moment in your career where you cast shows that I think just simply couldn't work with other actors? Um, but that always seems, that's always the vibe actor, you know? , you just can't see it with someone else now. Have you had a moment where you felt like, I helped, I helped bring this together. I put a perfect person that wasn't necessarily in everybody's mind.

Probably the, I mean, Anthony's probably the biggest example of that. Um, I, I also feel that, you know, when you look at Breaking Bad, um, when you look at a show like Breaking Bad, that was all through process. There wasn't one person that, you know, was attached to that show. There wasn't one person that was, you know, but the, but the, when Sharon and I went and we met with Vince Gilligan on that show, um, we had just had the privilege to see Brian Cranston come in for a play that we were doing, um, written by Aaron Sorkin called The Farnsworth Invention. And we were, we had only been watching him for five years, or seven years or whatever, however long it was on, you know, his sitcom on, on Fox Malcolm in the Middle. So he were, he, he, I mean, first of all, he looked completely different and his facility of language, and I mean, he's a genius. And so we really got to see firsthand the dynamic and the dichotomy of what he can do, comedy and drama. So when we went in to meet with, with Vince Gilligan, there were, you know, you go in with some ideas to share your aesthetic and your taste. And at one point we just were like, you're gonna think we're crazy, but what about Brian Cranston, you know, the dad from Malcolm in the middle? And he said, well, it's funny you should say that. He starred in my episode of the X-Files that, and I have always had him in my mind. So, so all the rest of us were like Hopkins dad. Right. Got it. Yeah. Because that's what our job is, is to expose ourselves to not the norm. I mean, that's the most exciting thing is to expose yourself to not the norm. And Aaron, we had known, and, and Betsy, you know, we had been reading for many years and, you know, it just, it all sort of, um, comes together. So that show, there wasn't anybody that should have, could have, would've, it was, it, it happened exactly how it, it was supposed to. And I would have to say that I feel that way on most of my shows. I don't look at them because there are so many circumstances that go into casting somebody, you know, you could have a choice that is the best choice, and then a deal can't be made for an availability issue comes up that wasn't communicated in the beginning. So you have to course correct. But that course correction in my mind is always, I guess that's what was meant to be. I don't know if that's a little too, like spiritual or woo woo, but it's, I, I, I, it's just kind of how I've always seen it. Thank you so much for making time. Yeah, you're welcome. Really appreciate talking. You're welcome. You're welcome. It's such a pleasure to meet you.