Casting matters... and so does luck.

Perhaps the understatement of the year... casting matters. As an actor, performance is one of the first things that leaps off the screen at me. I believe it takes a village to make a good movie. You start with a great script, you find a director with vision, you crew up with creative professionals, but never underestimate the value of the thespian. This holds particularly true with a drama like "The Last Out."

Now, casting matters in many ways. In the earliest meetings with Mr. F and Mr. W, we discussed casting with a three tiered approach: who had the talent, who had the value, and who was right for the role. Filling all three qualifications is more difficult than you might imagine. We threw out many names of gifted actors who were not right for a particular part. An actor always believes he can handle the emotional demands of a role. But casting a 5' 6'' actor as a professional baseball pitcher strains credibility. Some well known actors are able to bring financing to a project. However, we don't want to compromise the artistic quality of the film with an actor who doesn't have the emotional chops. We quickly developed a short list of names that we felt satisfied all criteria. The next step was deciding how and when to contact them.

This brings me to an interesting night a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, my artistic endeavors do not yet pay my bills. I have a j-o-b. My current place of employ is a trendy Westside hotel. During this one evening, a celebrity filled event was taking place. As I watched over the Hollywood whose-who, my spider sense started to tingle. I got an extremely strong, intuitive feeling that the number one actor on our list was going to show. Not five minutes after my "feeling," this actor did indeed walk through the front door. Now there is always the question of appropriateness when approaching a celebrity. Are you infringing upon their personal time? Are you circumventing established channels? I've never been one who is in awe of celebrity. That is partially due to being around sets with working actors and also because of confidence in myself and my abilities. So, as the actor approached, I decided to make a move. I went up to him and introduced myself. I gave a quick story pitch and explained my interest in his involvement. I was concise and professional. And he responded. He told me that his manager would be attending the event and that he would direct him to me when he arrived. I said thank you, and he moved on. Well, believe or not, his manager did find me and the script is now in their hands. Sometimes, when opportunity knocks, you need to answer that door.