BACK STAGE WEST
August 29, 2002
If NBC's Tuesday
night staple Frasier
has acquired the old-shoe status reached by only a handful of classic sitcoms,
casting director Jeff Greenberg is among those who keep up the show's polish
and luster with his often inspired choices. As in past seasons, Greenberg has
shown exquisite taste in finding spots for theatre-trained thesps on this
crisply written show--about which the over-used clichˇ that sitcoms are
"like little one-act plays" is completely appropriate.
This season, in
particular, Greenberg gave actors best known for their dramatic work a chance
to flex their comic muscles: from The West Wing's formidable Allison Janney (as
a painfully mismatched blind date) to that droll, often steely little Scot
Brian Cox (as Daphne's gruff Dad). "I was thrilled to be able to use
him," said Greenberg of Cox, best known for frightening turns in such
films as Nuremberg and
L.I.E. "His
comedy work in the past has been very subtle, like in Rushmore--very low-key. This was the first
four-camera work he had done, and it was a different kind of energy than we had
seen from him before." Janney--who basically did one sharp, short scene of
escalating tension with Frasier--was a longtime fan of the show who managed to find two half-days
off from West Wing and
pull it off.
But by far the
season's most striking and delightful bit of casting was musical theatre star
Brian Stokes Mitchell as Frasier's haughty neighbor, Cam Winston, with whom
Frasier engaged in an all-out war of sense and sensibility. If any actor could
match Kelsey Grammer at his particularly competitive (that is, male) game of
conspicuous elegance and hauteur, it's Mitchell, best known for serious roles
in Ragtime and King
Hedley. It was his
delightful turn as a vain actor in Broadway's Kiss Me, Kate, though, that alerted Greenberg to
Mitchell's comic instincts. Mitchell stayed on a few episodes, and the writers
even wrote in his mother (played by Emily Yancy) as a love interest for Martin
Crane (John Mahoney). That Mitchell and Yancy's characters were African-American
wasn't mentioned in the script or the breakdown--a perfect example of
colorblind casting. Who else but Mitchell could match wits and manners with
Frasier?
And who else but
Greenberg could pull together yet another season of class talent? Scanning the
credits for Season 9, I spied a lot of theatre names I recognize: Dan
Bucatinsky, Mary Jo Mecca, Suzanne Cryer, Raye Birk, Hal Landon Jr., Philip
Casnoff, Juanita Jennings, Brian T. Finney, Mark Capri, Jay Karnes, Brian
Kerwin, Tom Irwin, and Stephon Fuller, among others. Perhaps the greatest
tribute to Greenberg's acumen is that Frasier is nominated for three of its guest star
turns this past season: for Brian Cox's, for Anthony LaPaglia's return
engagement as Daphne's loutish brother, and for Adam Arkin's wiggy turn as an
obsessed Frasier Crane fan. All three represent dramatic actors at their comic
best, and that's not a coincidence, Greenberg affirmed: "We're always
looking for good, strong actors that have a comedy bent and don't get a chance to
do it very often."
They, and we,
need look no further than Frasier, TV's repertory comedy theatre.
--Rob Kendt
Artios: Won in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999; nominated
1998, 2000, 2001, and 2002. Emmy: nominated in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2001.
The casting
mission on this ABC hit, for those who chose to accept it, was a real
nail-biter. This J.J. Abrams and Ken Olin-produced spy series is an
ensemble-based, character-driven drama and a star-driven action thriller, all
rolled into one. The pilot not only required an attractive young lead who could
go from girl-next-door college student to kick-ass undercover operative as
easily as changing her eyeliner--it required a large variety of supporting
characters rife with mystery and authority, familiarity and quirks.
Luckily, Abrams
tapped Janet Gilmore and Megan McConnell (best known for their Emmy-nominated
work on The Practice)
to assemble a pilot cast that's like a great theatre rep company, with
venerable veterans Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin, and Carl Lumbly alongside young,
stage-trained pros like Kevin Weisman, Merrin Dungey, and Bradley Cooper, to
support a star, Jennifer Garner, who has exactly the right chameleonic look,
physical stamina, and acting chops to carry the show on her lean, fit frame.
McConnell and
Gilmore had cast Garner as a recurring love interest the season before on
Abrams' Felicity, and
Garner was always the favorite for Alias' lead, Sydney, despite the interest of some name actresses
in the role.
"We played
the name game for a while, but their agents all said 'offer only,' " said
Gilmore, meaning that actresses with clout wouldn't read for the role. Garner
did, along with several others, but all along, said Gilmore, the producers and
casters "all had our fingers crossed that Jennifer could meet the high
expectations for the role." Probably the Krav Maga training didn't hurt.
Cooper, who plays
a dangerously inquisitive reporter, was unknown to the casting directors but
blew them away in his audition, whereas Dungey and Weisman are both actors
McConnell and Gilmore consider "go-to" talents. In describing
Weisman, Gilmore could be summing up the show's acting requirements in general:
"He's incredibly inventive, yet grounded and real."
McConnell and
Gilmore felt so invested in the project that, Gilmore confided, the two CDs
flew on their own dime back East to recruit Garber and Rifkin, even though
ABC's New York casting department would usually handle such duties. It was
hard, then, when the two Manhattan Beach-based casting directors had to make
the choice--for personal and geographical reasons--not to cast the series when
it was picked up. "It was really difficult for Megan and I to give up that
show--it's like giving up a child, and it's so important to you who takes care
of that child. So we were ecstatic that April took it over; she does the
perfect job."
April Webster,
who's currently working on the fifth episode of the second season, has had her
work cut out for her, assembling a global gallery of villains and surprise
guests throughout Alias'
first season, but she calls McConnell and Gilmore's original cast "an
incredible gift" to her. "These are people who know how to work as an
ensemble, so when you bring new actors in, they don't feel left out," said
Webster.
Looking for
audition tips? Specificity, rather than generalized choices, seems to be the
show's focus. "I get things saying, 'They're Arabic, but they're from this
particular region.' It's very specific. I'm trying to find Uzbekis right now;
there aren't many Uzbek actors in L.A." Webster added: "I've spent
the season getting to know what an Alias actor is. What we look for is not
stock characters, like the usual bad sheriff or bad senator--they're
complicated, not the kind of traditional bad-guy characters."
Some of her interesting
choices included the lean, charming Scottish actor John Hannah, whose arc as a
brainwashed hitman went from terrifying, hollowed-eye apparent psychopath to
frail but angry victim. "When you get characters like that, it sparks the
imagination," said Webster. "It makes casting fun."
Another casting
coup Webster cited was David Anders, whose character, the shady Sark, was
bumped up to a recurring role when he caught on with producers. Anders first
auditioned as a Russian, then an Irishman, and finally, over the phone, as an
Englishman. Clearly, versatility isn't just one of superspy Sydney's job
requirements but also one of the key traits of all its actors--not to mention
its top-flight casting directors.
--Rob Kendt
Artios: nominated in 2002.