Linda Lowy, casting director for major productions including so many of Shondaland’s hit series, shares the unbelievable story of how she found her way into Hollywood. Plus, Katie, Guillermo and Betsy dive into the many secret functions of a casting director and how much the casting process has improved.
Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with Higheartradio.
Micshas and Katie.
Guys.
First of all, we have to say that at the time of this recording, we're just coming together after my one of my best friends in the entire world's favorite day on Earth, which is Halloween.
Halloween.
Whose special holiday is that? Is that? Mister Cci, Oh, mister Cci.
Mister Gierma Diazes. Yes, I love Halloween. I do, I do. And oddly enough, I was traveling. I was in Berlin for about a week, so I was traveling up until the thirtieth. So on the thirty first, on Halloween, I ended up just staying like home in my living room watching horror movies.
And I didn't do anything.
I didn't even dress up, but I was I was fine with that. I was exhausted.
Oh my god. Secretly, gee, you kind of loved that day.
I mean, you've done all the things you could possibly do out to celebrate Halloween. That it's like it's okay once in a while to have a quiet And it was on.
A Tuesday, so it was like, okay, it's gonna stay home and rest.
Yes, for everyone listening. Who who has listened to Unpacking the Toolbox? And it's different incantations. You know that a big part of the show is that we always do six degrees of horror films, and the biggest part of horror films and just what we do in general is the casting of them.
G Oh, oh, you brought that up. I wish we had someone who is the best casting person in the history of casting people around to speak about that. It's so weird.
Yes do we?
Oh? Way we do? Oh?
How like the person that oh, one of the people that I think saved my life and saved Germo Diaz's life along with Yeah, saved all of our lives and countless countless actors. Countless actors have paid their rent, their mortgage, their health insurance because of this. Yes, Goddess, goddess who goes by the name of.
So long, you all have saved me countless times. Betsy, you saved my life so many times, so many times, just by.
Hiring, by the way, that was the smartest. I made some good decisions and dumb ones, but that was one of the smartest ones. We pat ourselves in the back of the luck that we ended up meeting when we did, and how when I also tell you too, because you won't see this that Linda, there's a whole side of our business for people who are listening to this, who are learning about these sides of the business, where there are these agents and agents represent actors. And when I tell you that, Linda Lowie, every time there was a problem, I would look at Linda and say, I can't talk to that person. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm gonna lose my much. She's like, will save you. I'm We're going to save you for the losing the mind part. I'll take care of it. From from the actual casting, the reading, the choosing, the the ad the deal making. It sounds the advocating just advocating for different people, the ability to put an ensemble together, and also being just an all round lovely human being who's the most terrific to be around, and also who also has a baller husband. You can say that again. Yeah, And just so we're clear, we didn't know Linda Lowie had a baller husband. When we hired Linda Lowie. She was just a baller. It turns out it's a what.
No, you didn't know that.
Linda Lowe went along with the one and only Jeff Perry.
For one We saw we saw Jeff Perry moving like a microwave one day and we were like, what's that dude doing here? And Linda said, that's my husband. We were like, that's her husband.
This isn't Prospect Studios, right, this is like the OG. I mean, for all of you guys listening, Linda Lowe and Betsy Beers and Shondaland go back so long before there was a Shondaland, before there was Shondaland. I mean the of the Shondaland was with Linda Lowi And so I'm just assuming you're at your offices in Prospect, and lovely husband Jeff Perry, who is like the most amazing actor, is helping you put a microwave in your office.
I think it was a microwave.
He was walking, he was he was bringing in some boxes from the car because I was moving into my office. It was the only time I ever saw Shonda run. She came running towards me because she saw him out the window. And she one of the things she said was, oh my god, it's so sad. And I said, what's so sad? And she said that that he's moving. Why is that actor who's my favorite actor? Were boxes?
She came back. She was like, it must be really hard and I.
Said that's my husband. She went, oh my god.
Was she mortified?
Was she immediately was just like, oh my god, we can cast him, we.
Can cast him. And I said, well, he could be you know, t R's father. I was already starting to think, though, please got cast it. And she was and she and in her way, the way she was, the wheels were turning. You could see it in her face. You all know that face. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and she was she said, no, not his father, but a different father, like she already knew, and she wouldn't tell me, but she already. It was pretty great. It was pretty great.
And that was so early, super early on.
Oh that his role is so iconic as Meredith Gray's dad, iconic iconic role.
That do you mean that the dad of somebody who might have been on a medical show.
Yeah, that's exact, that's exactly correct on a medical show.
Linda, tell us a little bit, and tell everybody who's list, say a little bit. So you are have been for years and you are a casting director. What's your story? How did you start? How do you how did this happen?
Yeah, Betsy likes to call it, what's your superhero like origin story?
Yeah?
Because I I don't.
Did you just wake up one day and know that being a casting director is something you could do?
Because we all start as actors. I always figure like.
Yeah, well I started as an actor, but that isn't you know. Look, I think for me it was it was a bit of a different journey. I have to say, say, and Katie, I think I told you this, so I hope you're not bored. I think we you and I talked about this recently. But besides the fact, you know, growing up in New York, growing up in New York was a huge boost because if you grew up in New York and if your parents went to see the theater sometimes they sometimes you got lucky and they took you to Broadway, and they took me to you know, the big Broadway shows. Sound of Music in my time, you know Sound of Music and My Fair Lady and Oklahoma and Westside Store, you know all those big musicals. I was never so happy in my life as when I was sitting there, and I think for a kid, it was more than just I love this. I like wanted to work there. I wanted to vacuum the carpets. I wanted to be an usher. I wanted to see the show every night for the rest of my life. I wanted to, you know, run away from home and just be like join the circus. I thought about it all the time. I had a little record player and I used to play the records over and over and over and over and over again, the musicals, and I just thought that probably I wanted to be an actor. And I think that's where we get confused, because you don't know what the other jobs are, right, You just don't really know. So I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
I did not know that you went to AMDA.
From ninth grade to twelfth grade. I went from just on Saturdays, and I took the train to New York ause I grew up in Westchester County. Anyway, I did really well there, and they invited me into their college program. And they only invited two of us from all of the classes into the college program. So you know, I was going to go. So I went home that night and I said to my dad and my mom, I said, you know, this is what's happening. I'm going to stay in New York and I'm going to go to the American Academy for college. They did not look happy. And it's not that they didn't want me to be an actor. They just said, that's what is that? And I said, it's a two year pro that was it. They were like, that's a junior college. No, yeah, that's how they viewed the world. It was college, junior college. And I was a good student. So my dad and I made a deal that i'd apply to one school and if I didn't get in, it was pretty a good deal for me. I thought, just if I didn't get in, I could go and Harvard and Yale and some of the sort of we used to call them the seven Sister schools. You know, we're off the list, you know, because not the obvious. You're not getting into Harvard, so you can't use that. But I knew about a little school called Northwestern that we used to call the Harvard of the Midwest growing up. They didn't know that, my parents, they didn't know anything about it. It was in Chicago, it was out in the provinces, so to speak. So I said, okay, and I knew they had a good theater department if worse came to worse, you know. So I applied to Northwestern and I got it. So never today could I get into that school, but I got in.
Did you do a lot of plays, Linda, while you were there?
No place?
Really?
I got so scared because at north When I got to Northwestern, you were all kind of mushed together, you know, for auditions and whatnot into a little theater in the heart of Evanston, which was called the Benson Street Theater or Cohn Auditorium, and you were auditioning against seniors and like stars at Northwestern. And that's when I got a taste of rejection. And I thought, oh, I don't like hell I don't know hell no, hell no, I don't know how you all do it. I just was like, this is the most depressing I'm you know, I just but I still like the the literature, you know, and I love the professors, and I loved like my interp class and one of the professors at Northwestern. I graduated early, and I kept going back to the school to visit, and I ran into him and can't even remember his name right now. And he said, look, Lynda, I've been thinking about you. There's a course in England, in the North of England at Durham University that is starting a degree for drama and education and they're accepting applicants and it's just starting and they're only going to take a few people. And I think you should apply. And I know that I know the professor who's running it a little bit, and he's worth he's worth it. So what did I I just thought, okay, you know, I didn't even look at a map. I just thought, oh, Durham, it's probably near London. I mean it was six hours by trying because you'd have to go to the library to look at him. I had never been out of the country except to Canada. On the train going to Durham, it seemed like every stop we made we went back in time, about fifteen years. I thought, by the time we got to Durham, like the women would be wearing like little and I thought there was there was. I thought there was Queen's English and Cockney. I had no idea that there were all the other.
Actual you were raised on. You were waste on my fir lady.
I mean, what else did you Poppins? Which they're just too Yeah, what did I know it's like?
And so when I get off the train and it's a Jordy thing, I thought I was in Scotland and I had gotten off at the wrong time. I couldn't understand anybody, and it started drizzling, and I walked into my classroom and maybe the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life, in my whole life, was standing at the head of I thought it was hallucinating.
And it's not Jeff Perry.
It's not Jeff Perry. It wasn't Jeff Perry. It wasn't my first husband either. But it was Sting.
Oh, no one, the only Sting.
The only only He wasn't Sting. Then he was Gordon Sumner and he was a teacher in a high school in Newcastle.
Please tell me, Please tell me there was love. You guys make out.
And then please take us through you.
Please tell me there was sweet sweet love.
Yeah, and then tell us what I was like.
Truth.
So the reason I bring that up is because you never know how your past is going to intersect with your future. And the reason I got my first big break in casting, which was to do a Michael Apted film. Wow, every casting director wanted to meet him, every single one in the world, And I thought, I don't even know how I got there. Anyway. I was sitting there and I was thinking to.
Myself, how do I make out with Sting?
Yeah? How come I didn't make out with Sting? That's what I was thinking about. I was thinking to myself, Well, wait a minute, he did Bring on the Night. Michael Apted directed Bring on the Night, the Sting documentary, so I thought, oh, I'll talk to him about Sting. You know, I'll tell him what happened. And when I told him that story, it was like his chin had to be lifted off of the desk. He just said, you know, when we were doing Bring on the Night, we were looking for anybody who knew him in that at that time, if there was an American that might have known him during those years when he had that other band. He said, this is so incredible, and he and I got along like wildfire, and I got the job above like I hadn't cast one thing yet.
Wow, Wow, we will be back with more after the break.
My degree never helped me one bit. It was the place and people, so sting that helped before that. Going back now to after graduate school, when I moved back to New York and I lived in the West Village, I lived in the East Village. Sorry, I lived on Tenth Street. And I go and interview with this company. They're called TDF and they support Broadway during previews through a subscription that they do, and they pretty much support completely support off off Broadway, or they did through this thing called a voucher program. It's just to give theater a boost, and they gave Broadway a boost during previews because they sold cheaper tickets to their subscriber based smart right. Any company that was getting X amount of dollars from the federal government at that time that was a not for profit had to start providing for the differently able. Anyway, go for my interview, and I made it to like the third or fourth, I guess it was the third interview where I met that guy who ran the place and he was a brit I didn't know that. And he's looking at my resume and he said, did you actually go to Durham University? And I said, well, you know, I didn't make it up. And he said, I'm from Durham and I've never met an American that's ever spent time there. So we talked about Durham the whole time and where I lived and my experiences and everything, and he hired me off the spot at age twenty three to run this program to make Bad Way cut to I was interested in doing this, getting sign language interpreters in and signing the shows, you know, once a month. We figured we would figure it out. The Schuberts and the Nederlanders wouldn't let us do that because of union rules. They were being so still. It was like we're unionized down to the floor tax and you can't do that or we'll get sued. And we're like, well what do you That doesn't anyway. They just didn't want to do it. They thought it would be I didn't want to do a night for the deaf, and I knew so they could look through the sign language interpreters onto the stage. We'd have a special play bill. It would be an integrated event. And they said you can't start at Broadway. You need to start off off Broadway and I was like, okay, Well, if you're a deaf person and you're taking the bus, to work like every person in the city. And you see marquees for you know, a chorus line. You want to go see a chorus line. You do not want to go see kabuki media down in the east, you know.
Yep.
And it was and I was.
Naked, which Katie was doing in a black box theater when she started.
She was naked and she was reroly running glass.
Yeah anyway, that's hard period.
No, yeah, no, I want to see the show like this is ridiculous.
People.
Yeah, yes, it was ridiculous. So for two So for two years or a year and a half, while that was a fight between my boss and the supert Anitalanders, I went around all the boroughs and got a mailing list, like a huge mailing list of deaf people interested. And Phyllis Freelich was you know, around then, and there were people that were helping me. And but in the meantime, I did a wheelchair access. I did tickets if you were visually impaired. I became like a little box office, and so people could come to me and I could get your seats up front. I could get your seats a nile seat. I could get you what you needed because I became friends with all the box office treasurers. Here was I twenty three, running around God, my friends with all the box office treasurers.
So Great lod.
Hold, Children of a Lesser God comes to Broadway and wins two. And at that point the Schubert's called Hugh Southern my boss. And they said, that little persnickety sassy gal you got back there. Tell her she can do whatever she wants.
No way.
So we started and I hired the I had the ability to hire a few of the actors from the National Theater of the Deaf to be like my board, you know, to be like my to make sure that the signing, that the signage of the interpreters was correct, and to just to just lend a hand, so to speak. And so what happened was I started casting, and I didn't know I was casting because I wanted the sign language interpreters, and there's a lot of them in New York, to look like the shows. So if we were doing chorus line, I wanted them to look like dancers. If we were doing you know, best Little Whorehouse in Texas, I didn't want them to look like I wanted them to look like something else. And so that's that's that isn't so, you know, incredible. So I didn't really know I was casting though until I came to Hollywood.
That's amazing.
We keep start hearing this. That's what's interesting because I think certainly I can relate to a lot of what you're talking about. Is I always say when people ask them, like every single thing you do will lead you to what ends up bringing you joy or you feel success full or confident doing every single job you do, every single thing you study. I mean, the fact that you've just pointed out that the location you were in, which was in Stick City, England, that I mean, then the stink connection, the fact that you had the experience you had, all of that added to a job and it's like it's like spirits were going like, this is your job, but you don't know it yet. You're just gonna build it. But there's a job. And that's one of the things we keep saying in this podcast is listen, like what you did. That's amazing story because you've absolutely encapsulated what I would call an incredibly inspiring but successful path of accepting what comes in your lap. It's like, for me, I gave up acting because I needed to make money, and I read scripts and it turned out I was really good with scripts and material. All of a sudden there was a job.
At that point, I thought maybe I was going to turn into Betsy. Do you remember the producing team in New York for theater Now Nation and Len McCann. Yeah, I thought I was going to be them with a different person, you know, like I'd have a partner and I produced theater. I had no idea how you did it, but I just loved, you know, that cold New York thing. And to tell you the truth, when you would go see movies. I didn't really watch television, but when you would go see movies, casting directors did not get upfront credit for a very very long time. It did not become a thing. I think Lynn stall Master.
I remember Wody Allen. It was a big thing. Like it happened relatively early.
Alan gave it and also Mike Fenton fought for it, and I think it started somewhere around Kramer versus Kramer, people started getting, you know, main title credit. Lynn Stallmaster got it early, I think for something that he had done, but it didn't stick. It wasn't like every have know and that was it, and.
It was like a one off with different directors too, so it's like it was a it was a cluster. But it's so interesting when you look at that, and this is a whole other area of the business that obviously it's relevant to all of us. And when you look at credits, if you're just a viewer, there's a lot that goes into figuring out like who's before the show starts or the movie starts and credits on TV or sort of wacka doodle.
Yeah, And also for you listening, there's shared cards or single cards, which means some actors get their name by themselves. Some actors have to have their name alongside one, possibly two other actors. And these are all things worked out in the deal before you start working. And that's the stuff that Betsy was talking about in the beginning that when she's like, ah, this sucks, because it does, Linda Lowe, that is a muge part of casting is like these deals.
That's the biggest thing is credit.
The deals are and to the it's it's such a big deal. And when you think about like basically what I've always thought is okay, cour with the people you couldn't make the show without right for the genesis of show. You can't do Jack Poop without a great casting director, like you can't because the whole show the same way, the look of it, I mean, every single thing like and the fact that it was sort of treated as I would say, a chick job for years. It's like the casting ladies. I mean, there are men too, but it was sort of like it's it's not a supporting roles, it's every single thing. And I think what's interesting to me, Lenny is it's like, you know, you started looking at theater and then you ended up in movies, and then in a way you skip movies for a second where their leads and their stars, and that's so much of it. And you go back to your comment about ensembles, which to me is so much theater and TV. It must have been really interesting to make the transition for movies to televisions.
Because because even in theater, and we all have experienced this with theater, and we all experience this with with I mean Girmo and Katie. You know what I'm talking about when I say there's a difference between what feels canned and you know, we ordained compared to what feels in the moment, and that's how I conducted every audition I ever. Did you know how much did you rehearse this at home? And how much can I get out of you right now here in the moment where I feel something and you're telling me the truth and it's exciting and it's not just just something you worked on at home, which I can tell that you're not veering off from. And that's what all my direction was always about. And for me, that's been a continual signpost right up to right now.
You know, Oh my god, And you can really tell for all the actors listening, Like when you go into other auditions rooms, it might be in like a big conference room that's like massive, and you're trying to like fill the space with your voice, even though it might be like a very intimate scene. Or you might be in like, oh my god, I've been in casting offices that I am not going to name names where such fucking insanity is going on.
I can't even begin to.
Tell you, like such like like twenty I know we're all dog people here, but like twenty dogs in the audition room like jumping on my lap and I'm trying to have a break down like craziness, but like you go into Linda's office and it feels like you go and there's a cat like it's very intimate and informal, but formal at the same time, it's like you know and you know you better do your work because in the business, everyone knows Linda Lowie's a theater person, she's a real actor's casting director, she's married to Jeff Perry.
You got to know your shit.
But then when you get in there, it's all about like honesty and truth and yeah, it's really I mean, I know ge you feel like that when you go in Oh totally.
Yeah, well we had so much fun. We have so much fun. But there's no room in it. Like the last time I was casting, there was a room. Now there's no room. It doesn't seem like as I go back into you know, the casting world arena.
I really, I really hope that there rooms because we need it. I still believe, especially for chemistry readings. And I think we've talked about this a little bit on this podcast, but that's something we all do. When we have a couple of actors who are going to work very closely together and the casting director puts the two actors in a room so that and tapes it so we can see it if we're not there or if we're sitting there, we watch it so we can sort of feel if there's real if there's a real vibe between the actors, right, And I think at the I still think that there's something about in person. And I also can say as a producer in Linda Lwi's office, it's a little bit like how do I put this, It's like a cross between a spa and a church, but now but with a sense of humor. I'm never in that office, I did, no, but you coming in like there there'd be water and there'd be sort of like it'd be kind of quiet and nice, and people would be coming in and out and feel.
Kind of sacred. Like it didn't.
It doesn't feel like did like you're part of this huge machine. The other like cool thing about Linda is like, you know, some of these rooms you go in and there's five hundred people, like you feel like you're in a meat market. I mean it is bananas. And I feel like, Linda, you do so much of your work knowing all of what the actors are currently doing, what's on what are they working on, so that when a park comes up, you already know who would be quote unquote right for this, and also who are all the outside types that might or completely not what we've discussed but could be very fucking right and different.
Yeah, you know, for me, usually every actor, you know, I want them so bad to get the job, and I always want them to leave the office feeling good about what they did. And I always do. I get behind because I direct a lot and I you know, always tip them off to sort of what the real reel is. You know that it's not really going to be this actually because we know we changed all the sides a lot of the times.
No, you you do. And and the thing a lot of people don't know is, and this is sort of rare for Linda because I've worked with other casting directors at different points, is very often you'll have an actor in that you think actually has real possibility or you feel like could use it, and you do a precession so right, because you know, thank you for that us. All thats for us, But it's also as a producer who's coming in and like Linda, look, I know what it's like to fail in rooms because that's all I did when I was an actor, so I how it feels. But it's there's something about going in because I just walk in and I just want, like you said, I want everyone to be good and to know that somebody's already had they've already had that begetting leg up so that you can really get into it is a gigantic piece of the success I think of the work you do because it's not a game. It's not like the actor is getting tricked into guessing what you're thinking, because then you'd have to be a freaking weird psychic and you should be an actor. You should make a lot of money on like being clairvoyant television. It's not your job, it's Linda. It's our job to know what we want or be able. And then so many times Lynn, it's like we will see somebody and kind of go that person's great. Either you'll put them in the this is a great person room, which I'm sure both of you know what that's like, and always go back and say, wait, is this the right part?
Wait?
Is this the right part? Because you fall in love with an actor and it's not true. Everything is like the part. Then the actor you fall in love with an actor, and all of a sudden, a part emerges, because I can say it from working with Shonda or and all the other writers we've worked with. All of a sudden, you write for somebody you know, and that's only because the way you spend time with people, and so many.
Times when you were in the room and Shonda was in the room, we would look at each other and say, save that one for episode three, or that person's going to make a great senator and we have a senator coming up. Or And I always say to actors, you never know when you're auditioning for something what's going to happen, because we might be saving you for a bigger part. You might look too much like someone else who's already been cast in the scene, so we can't cast you now. But we love you, so we're going to bring you back. And it might even be for a series regular. I mean, look what happened to Kelly McCreary, you know that kind of thing, Or and a million.
Every doctor on I don't know if we can say it's a different show on a show that was like a off of the medical show you all worked on together that took place in Hawaii or Doctors Without Borders starring Mamie Gummer and uh all those girls. I went in a bunch of times for inside the Sarah Drew situation. Like I just mean to say, I was knocking on your door.
It's like bel.
Kept being like throwlos in there, like throw her in there at some point, and thank god it was the one.
That I got. Yes, I think definitely, because the other on a couple of the other ones not so much.
Well, they didn't have as long as a shelf life.
Now this is just an off the walk question because we're talking about this, but do you know what like the weirdest or most gigantically strange thing anybody's can you remember? Because I can remember one thing that I thought was incredibly strange, a bit weird. In your experience an actress done to get apart or in the process of an audition, do you have does anything stick out in your head?
Something one thing sticks out? I don't and I have no idea, but I auditioned. This is early in my career. I I auditioned actress and before she left, she handed me some toilet paper, and on the toilet paper it said I want this role or you know the role you have, like as she walked out of the room, and I thought, that is so desperate. And I kept that toilet paper for a very very long time until I just couldn't keep it anymore. To a roll of toilet paper that had her name all over it. God, I want the role.
Well put Oh my god.
We'll be right back.
Guys.
I've told this story before where I didn't. I didn't even want to go in to audition for the political show that we all worked on because the character in the sides was described as a much older gentleman who was sort of nebbish and nerdy, and I was I remember being angry at my managers and being like, why am I going in on this? I don't. It was during pilot season. You know, you have fifty thousand auditions. I was like, no, no, and my manager kept saying, geirmo, Linda Lowe knows who you are. Just go in. So that's just a so our listeners have a peek into what sort of Linda Lowe and a lot of casting directors are. Like. I was thinking about it last night. I thought, you guys are are also magicians in a way, and like Crystal ball readers because you you somehow were like, no, I want to see Ghirmo Diaz. And I even remember walking into the room and just being like, oh, I'm not what felt like, it's not me? Yeah, and then I yo, But then I started doing saying the words and something happened and I thought, I remember getting chills. And then at the end of my monologue, I looked at Shanda and she was just staring at me, and she said, you're a very interesting actor. And I felt in my gut. I was like, oh my god, I think I'm gonna get it. And and that's that's I mean. I would have never gone in the room to even audition if Linda had not told my managers I want to see him. I see something in him, even though the sides describe the character much different from who he is, Do you know what I mean?
So yeah, Oh that's so good, Piermo. I remember that moment, I really do. I remember so many of the elements well.
Casting directors, because you're married to Jeff, and you really are inside, like you're just so inside. You're like you're such an inside baseball casting director and I and I think that you.
Are the secret gatekeeper.
Like, I don't think enough actors who are listening to this understand it is the same three casting directors that have employed me my entire twenty years, you know, and like one I was a nanny for.
So by the way, you know, people like Laurie Metcalf could say the same thing. I'm not kidding. Do you have your favorite you have your ensemble ever casting director?
Yeah, one of my favorite casting stories of all time. Talking about different people reading stuff and correct me if I'm wrong. There's a certain character on a certain medical drama that's still on. It might be the longest running medical drama or drama of all time.
It might be that.
I think originally the role was for Kristin Chenowith type that's correct of Bailey, and then Chandra Wilson ends up booking it. I need to know in what world that's what we're talking about, where it's like get out of your own way.
Well, also, by the way, let's just I will add to that and say there was only one character and that whole script. My memory is that was described because one of the things from the beginning we Shanda never did and we never did, was we never identified look type an age race age race like. We were like not doing it except for one character.
One character a Shonda, both of you, all the producers. They was like, you cast it the way you see the world. Cast it the way you see the world. And that's another thing, by the way, for casting directors, you got to see a little bit before you can cast it. I had been inside a courtroom. I had been inside a police station. I had been inside you know, I had traveled a little bit. You can't just be like a you know, go from teenager in LA to like an adult in LA. And I want to be a casting director. That's we can talk about that in a little bit. But you have to see some stuff to be able to reflect that back into your work, you know.
So yeah to that to your tier point, Katie, that's that's true story.
Type. And you did not.
We cast the greatest actress, one of my favorite actresses, and also directed some of the show that she and I were on.
She's unbelievable.
We saw a tape from her in New York.
Remember we saw she put herself on tape in New York. It was a VHS tape. May I just say that I pulled it out of the machine. I watched it, I pulled it out of the machine and I thought, this cannot be denied. I walked down to where you and Shonda were in that hospital. We were in that hospital that that rented that It was a closed hospital that we were using for offices and to shoot. Yeah, okay, and I had an office in there, and I just walked down there and I said, you have to see this. You know, at that point, Chonda, we were just all we might as well have all been in the same room. We were all just always just talking to each other, and I just walked in.
We did a lot of casting actually out of the old office that I used to work in, and we were all in this It's right. We were all in this conference room that was tiny, and we'd have all the additions. We met Dempsey in that one.
It was.
Yeah, West La off of Olympic, and we met everybody in there. And I remember like Jim Pickens going in and like Cape Burton going in. And the thing about pilot season, as you all know, which is it was the first time we'd ever made a television show. Neither us knew what the hell we were doing. It was Lenny, it was your first television show or like one of your second ones.
I had been hired. I had been hired. I didn't do the pilot. I had done a handful of pilots, but I would never stay on them for the show because I didn't understand television. I didn't think would be good at it. And television and film were pretty separated until around this moment when films started to lose a lot of foreign financing and all of us became super frustrated, and the ship was sinking and we had to like jump off or sink with it. So Betsy jumped off. I jumped off. Shonda jumped off. That's why people jumped off.
Were doing movies.
Yes, we were all doing movies, and we were trying so which which added to some of the hilarity of Betsy and I doing these deals, you know, as time went on, because we didn't know what the hell had happened, and I you know that. But anyway, Shonda, Shonda, I just said you have to see this, and I shoved it into the machine and as soon as it started, she was like, no, but I want and then she stopped talking and she just we were like me, and she just said this is, this is, this cannot be denied. We have to test it.
I am flabber gasted. Wow, by the way you used to have to, which Linda and Betsy know more than gen I, although I did it a few times, like when you would screen test for a pilot, means it's so awful.
Everyone listening. It used to be this old way of you do.
You would have to do the audition for all the studio and you would either get cut or passed, like you could move on to network, and then you'd have to do the audition again for like a ton of other people in suits who were told like not to react, not laugh.
Don't give you anything. It was a night mare.
I remember when a friend of mine audition had a certain network and a certain head of the network at that time, who was you know, he had roped off seats like please like the house seats, so you know we had a Anyway, she said that when she went in, you know, auditioned her little heart out. When she left before the door closed, he yelled at what about And he said an actor's name that was like twenty five years older than her. So just to know you're not getting the role and to know that, like he you look older than you are. I mean, it was just all bad. It was a very bad way you did do any bad system and actors and actors had to sign their deals there.
Yeah, we had to sign our deals before you go auditioned.
Yeah, and a lot of times you were held up. You were held up.
And everyone saw the deal didn't make and the person went home. I mean I saw that happen too, so it's yeah, it was sesty.
And also a lot of times you're fucking broke as shit and you're seeing like, holy crap, I'm signing this piece of paper that my entire life would change. If I just booked one episode, I would make more money than I've made this year.
Oh action, is it time to go?
And then you would have to just act in front of all these people. It was so such a mind game.
It sucked well and then it sucked for the producers too because in a little show that was about football that took place in Texas, the character of Riggins, we found a perfect person we thought was the perfect person. He was sitting there before he goes in for his test. I'm sitting there with Pete Berg and all the people and it was we were at NBC, and you know it was Kevin Riley who ran NBC. He find he had been He was so new to town that his manager at the time didn't even know that he was a series regular on another show. Didn't even know until we were like getting to the legal stuff. He was like, oh, I thought he was just recurring. No, he had a deal. He was a series regular on a show called like Models Ink or something. We all had to go home and go to bed. Pete Sarah mean, we all were just I was so freaked out because he was the only one we had. And then for the next week I went back and back into all the we all went crazy, and that's how we found the one who really did play Riggins.
That actually happened on the Metal Coach Shows pilot, where somebody we were planning and casting somebody. Then it turned out that they in fact had to deal with another show that they couldn't get out of, and then we ended up having to recast that part. But the happy part of that story is we left that person so much that on another show a role was built specifically for that person and it ended up being a long running show.
Okay, Okay, so a couple more questions I want to know. So you guys, what I was thinking about was how I think you three, Betsy and Shanda Linda really changed the game in terms of we're not going to have the actors do this testing thing anymore. Like when g and I were, you know, going in for our DC show. That was the first time I had ever heard of us making tapes in a casting dutcher's office, and that somebody was big enough to just show the tape to studio and network and make them sign off on it.
Right, Like Ge, you didn't have to go test.
But I was so happy that we didn't have to tell you it was.
The greatest thing in the world. How did you guys make that happen?
I actually think that started to be a thing too. We may have been at the head of it, but it started to be a thing because as management changed at the studio in which we were working. Lyn, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I think we were at the canary and the coal mine, frankly, because you didn't want to do it.
And then it started to change. It started to change all over because people just started to keep bel and it just wasn't working. It was so different and as tape right better, you know, as this was way before cast. It once cast it became a thing, and then that started to really improve and you know, update itself. It was pretty much no more live because you know, we're not doing theater here. It was better to watch it right at your desk.
It was now I can't speak to comedies because my memory is comedies were the last to go. And then, as we all know, for actors, the next waterloo is the table read. In the old day is because it's funny because I work on a British show, and the first table read we do with the British show, they were all very nervous because they'd heard in America you could get cut after the table read, and I had to explain to all of them that that was not the case. And in fact, we were pretty sure that we were in good shape and we were filming the next week, so I think it was all gonna be okay. But they'd heard these these stories of and they were all incredibly nervous. Where we started and I was doing stage directions and I stopped everyone. I was like, and it's like, well, you know, we might get cut. Oh no.
I remember feeling that way at the network table read of our political show. It was like the Cutwork's gonna call an hour after I walk out the door and they're gonna say, get her out of there.
She's not good at.
Don't I don't like the cut of Girmo's jib.
I remember feeling like I could be cut, like after season three, right after like episode I was like, oh shit.
When me and Katie werew.
Was like, are they going to kill us off? Are we going to get cut?
Yeah?
Yeah, wait Linda, before we lose everybody? What are what's your favorite?
What we need to hunt?
We need to part We may do a part two.
What's just interestriate thing about casting?
My favorite thing about casting is being in the room with the actor and how the reason I know after uh, you know, it's funny how you can hit potholes, you can hit you just can hit something very bad, whether it's the beginning of your career or as I like to call it, the last lane, the last lane of my career. And you know, a not very pretty thing happened in August of twenty twenty two, which was the HBO Max thing. It was sort of the unforeseen disintegration. So that was a gigantic thing. And the reason I know that I want to keep doing it is because I just like, I was just in London and I just saw you know, I just saw Mark ry Lance, I'll just say it in Doctor shermel Weiss. And then we saw a play a key at the National called The Effect that was written by one of the writers of Succession. Blah blah blah. And I find myself still all these years later, you know, leaning forward and leaning forward. And it's not just that I love it. It's more than that. It's that I want to take the actors with me to the next thing, and I want to find stuff for these people, all the people. I want to be able to cast, all the people I've seen in the last four years or five years, you know, because I got when I got the HBO Max job, and I wasn't really a casting director anymore. It's more overseeing everything, and even though I cast some people, it was different. You know. The great thing about television, and the great thing about being a casting director for television is you see every age all the time, every week, amaze, all the time. In movies, you could be four years out. You're like, I haven't seen a forty five year old woman because I haven't had the need for one, you know what I mean, you really could go a long time. But in television, that was the big secret that I never thought about. So I like to be in the room with the actress. I like to find people and then push them in to the light. That's what I like to do. So I have a whole list of people for my new bat Cough that I'm starting.
Gary Diaz and Kittie's.
Everybody could have worked together. I My thing is, I would love so much to all work together again. You know, I just I love working with the people that I love and me and I just love it. I just want to work with my friends. Everybody else.
Tired.
I'm too much of a hag to meet new pupils. Well.
Linda Lowing, Oh thank you Linda, Linda. We love you so much.
We're so grateful for you coming on the show and telling and like giving us a peek behind the curtain of the toolbox of casting.
I loved everything and go second and Betsy, I need to see you more. Bets and Bruce. I love that husband of yours.
He popped his little head in and wanted to know what the hell was going on in here, because I was having such a good time yet I was alone, So I think he thought that I was going crazy because all he can hear is me talking.
He's right now, Are you Matt's Betsy, just going crazy?
Do we need to put you in a rubber room again? It is so wonderful to get to talk to you here. We will be making plans immediately when I get off the podcast.
Yay.
Thank you so much for doing this and spending the time, I think for anybody listening to this, you learned so much about so many different possibilities that are available in the beautiful world in which we work, and Linda has made such an eloquent and gorgeous case for how special and how meaningful and how important this job is. So thank you so much for that, Linda.
One actor at a time, you too.
We love you so much, Love you all so much, and see you again soon.
Scandal is executive produced by Sandy Bailey, alex Alcea, Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and editor is Vince de Johnny, with music by Chad Fisher. Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.
Yeah