Allison Jones
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And one woman hired me, Judith Wiener.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, she was. And that was at Sunset Gower. And I remember walking in on the Gower entrance on Sunset Gower and looking to my left and there was the Hollywood sign. So it was like, wow, this is cool. Again, goalless, but just like, this is bitchin'.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The first thing you do as a casting assistant, back then it was answering the phones. And my first office job was with Judith, and we shared an office with the late Tim Flack, who was the casting director, and they were doing the pilot of The Cosby Show. Oh. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And we were working on a show called Benson, all at Sunset Gower, which was an amazing old historic studio to work at, because even today it looks the same as it did probably in 1925. Literally inside, if you've ever shot anything at Sunset Gower, looks like you're in the 1920s. The old school payroll windows and stuff, that's really, really cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And they shot some magnificent old movies there, including The Three Stooges, which was my big comedy influence growing up as a kid with a bunch of brothers. We hit each other all the time, and it was all because of that. Because we were joking and not joking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They're calling. Those days, I was learning how to put people on hold and say, hold, please, and get back to someone. And my boss would say, don't keep anybody on hold for more than two seconds. So I'd be going back and forth, hold, please, hold, please, hold, please. It was like, oh, my God, there's a big agent on the phone. What do I say to a big agent? So it was a lot of answering phones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was nowhere near as hectic as it is now. Oh, it's gotten more hectic. Much more hectic. Oh. You have tenfold more agents, managers, representatives calling you all the time. So much so that you can't get your job done. So we've had to pretty much switch to email and texting. Right. But back then, in the early 80s, we were working on a show called Benson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Tim was doing the pilot for the Cosby show. And we were doing a show called Condo. And... A pilot. So there was a lot of casting sessions to set up. And in those days, you had to call the agent, talk to the agent's assistant, give the time, the place, leave the sides at the Gower Gate for the actors to come pick up. In the days, there was no fax.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I assume they're called sides because it's two sides of a playbill or something. I never figured that out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We'll find out for the fact check. I think it has to do with one side, two sides of something. Interesting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That happened way before we came into streaming. I mean, managers started getting busy on us about 25 years ago. I think actors, for some reason, they decided they needed an attorney, they needed a manager, they needed an agent as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And so I remember sometime in the 90s when suddenly the breakdowns, which is a service that sends to agents the parts that we're casting and then they submit handouts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, exactly. And that is how they disseminated the casting calls, basically, for every new project that came along. It was breakdown. There's kind of a monopoly on that one company. Suddenly, for some reason, I remember the first manager I ever heard of was Keith Addis, who represented Sting. He never would bother any of us, but it was like, oh, what does a manager do?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Anyway, so then for some reason, there was just like an onslaught of managers who started to call us. You'd have an agent calling about the same client that a manager would call about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Young River Phoenix was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And Tom Hanks. Yep. And you already had Michael G. Fox. And this was all my boss, Judith Wiener, and her associate at the time, Donald DeLine, who's now a big producer. My favorite person in show business. He produced Without a Paddle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He's hilarious and was just as funny then. Wait, the line did the pilot of Family Ties? He was the associate at the time. Really? I think he was the one who probably turned Judith on to Justine Bateman as being a good one in the group, because sometimes associates would pre-read the people, which doesn't so much exist anymore. Now you'd call it self-tape as a pre-read.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, I got a question about that. Anyway, many, many young people came through the Family Ties coffers. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I think as a seven-year-old, played a bully with them. Do you guys even know Family Ties? Yes, I grew up watching Family Ties. You didn't? I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't think you can get it anywhere now. And it's a show that would catch on because of the conservative liberal thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was great. And it was Gary David Goldberg's family story, basically. He was liberal and a hippie and his kids were conservative. I believe so.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So you loved Alex P. Keaton.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Who was Skippy? Mark Price. Yes, of course. Literally the definition of the goofy friend next door.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, with Judith. We did the pilot.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Estelle definitely made herself look like an old granny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was not even discussed. The women that were considered were all probably in those days considered elderly, and they were in their 50s.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. You still see that from time to time, though. But then it was not even a question. There was just people in their 50s were going to be the elderly people. But Estelle came in to audition for something on Family Ties. I keep everything in my storage units. And I went back to see the way we got to Estelle. And she had auditioned for something on Family Ties.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I saw the producer session, which I typed on a select typewriter. And then you make copies of it. Then you pass it out. She had come in for a part that she did not get. But then about a week later, Judith brought her in for Golden Girls just to pre-read her. We didn't tape or anything. We had to bring them back in person for all the producers. Tony Thomas and Paul Witt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Susan Harris didn't come to the sessions. Sam Harris's mother. That's right. Wait a minute. Oh, Sam. I'm sorry. What does he do now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Other than the comic who's not that Sam Harris.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, no, I knew that her name was Sam. I think the reason she got into writing was because she had to support Sam. Yeah, she's a single mother. Yeah, she said, I can do that stuff, and she wrote a spec script for one of their shows at the time, and then she just got huge. She created Soap, and she was a very, very important person, not just female, very important person in comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then she and Paul Witt made the greatest comedies in the 80s and 90s. Wow. the third floor on Sunset Gower.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
All the time. It's almost the rule, not the exception.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, we're keeping that in our heads.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Seeing every movie and every TV show and memorizing every actor. Anytime I'd go to a movie, this was before Internet Movie Database, I have a ton of little notebooks. I stay at the end and I would write down all the cast. I noted like Roseanne Barr. Her first bit was on Johnny Carson and I wrote Roseanne Carr. And then I wrote Riding Vacuum Cleaner. That was her bit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So I remember her bit was writing down. And then I ended up seeing her at the comedy store. Anyway, everything was handwritten those days. So I had tons of writing down everybody. Ellen De-something. I didn't think I could spell her name, but I wrote it down. DeGeneres? Yeah. Oh, this is so funny. Yeah, so I have all kinds of little notebooks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I would say that most of the folks I started out with, Sally Steiner and Meg Lieberman and Donald, who started in casting, we just had scraps of paper everywhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Later, I would get Time Out New York when that started, and I would rip things out about the comedy people that they would talk about. That's how I remembered people like Rory Scovel and Ben Schwartz. I still have their little things ripped out of the Time Out New York.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, they have the Archie Bunker's chair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But it was all scrap paper. Our walls were covered with little thumbtacks with somebody's name. Names.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, it doesn't ruin it for me because I still love it. But at those days, you had to stay. Sometimes I'd have to see a movie twice because you can't go to IMDb and I'd have to look at the- And it's going fast.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, exactly. So I would have to go sometimes twice. And there's many people who I would bring in the next week and they got a part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, all the time. That was then you had to do it on your feet. You had to go into the comedy store. When I was working for Judith, she let me do some sort of new, which never really aired, late night comedy show that NBC wanted to put on. adjacent or after SNL at the time, talking 1980s. That was my first flat out comedy thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I had to learn comics like I learned my multiplication tables in the 60s. I went to the comedy store and improv every single night for weeks. I'd park up above the comedy store. I never went to the main room because those were the acts that everybody knew, Robin Williams. But I would go to the back room and sit there from like eight o'clock to two in the morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I would see always like a 19-year-old, 20-year-old Jim Carrey. It was the same lineup half the time I went there. It was like Jim Carrey, and then it was Jeff Altman, Damon Wayans, who was very young at the time, as I recall. I just sat in the back. I had to have a two-drink minimum, no comps back then, and I was just a casting assistant. So I would sit there, and I would sit until the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And usually, I think it was Sunday night. I forget when Sam Kinison would come on at two in the morning and be screaming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then I would... leave and go home and do it the next night. I just made a point to do it solid for like two or three weeks so I could learn comics. You had to do the legwork then. And I have very fond memories of that kind of stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, they're hard. It's more rough. And that was the days preceding you, maybe not, where the goal of a comic was to get a deal at a network. Right. First of all, to get a spot on Johnny Carson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And to get called to sit on the couch. Second of all, I remember we would also go back and sort of go to the ladies' room, and then the comics were always out back in the hallway smoking and talking about their sets. And God bless the comics, but they're insecure. And these are now the biggest comics in the world. They're pretty mean, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The Marc Maron and the biggest stand-ups in the world were all back there at the age of 21. Yes. Yeah, gossipy and mean.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Very few females. They even had just a female knight. That was all you had for the female comics. I think it was the belly room. I remember when Whoopi Goldberg first came, it was like, oh my God. I remember Donald Deline telling me, there is this comic, this female who is unbelievable. You should go see her. Her name is Whoopi Goldberg. And I was like, okay, Whoopi, Whoopi.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
For me, the bar was how funny they were. And, for example, I did not know how good Jim Carrey would be as an actor, but I brought him in. I did not know how good Dennis Leary would be as an actor. There's an actor who needs a better career.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He's got a good one, but deserves a better because he's an unbelievably good actor. As most many comics are good dramatically. What is more terrifying and difficult than stand-up comedy? Nothing. Nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, I would not. And I'm working with him now. Are you? First time I met him. For Bad Monkey? No, for New Steve Carell Show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, wow. I have always admired stand-up. Also because their hearts are on their sleeves, no matter how tough their act is or how tough and edgy their jokes are. Every new line, they're scared about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Mm-hmm. I admire them greatly. I also sort of relate to their insecurity and all that kind of stuff. Most people who gravitate to Hollywood, I think, have a lot of insecurity. Yes, totally. Yeah, looking for a lot of approval. Because the one thing I find about Hollywood and kind of Los Angeles in general is it's very accepting of all the freaks, and I like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Who knew this one was... I did not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Completely not the way it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, completely the opposite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, it started with Will Smith and the late, great Quincy Jones. I mean, the highlight of my career was getting to meet Quincy Jones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He was the producer and the creator. I think he grabbed Will and said, what can we do? And my partner in crime, we cast the show together, Sally Steiner. We drove up to Quincy Jones' house. I think it was Mulholland, but we were so starstruck. Oh, absolutely. I was always starstruck, and I still am starstruck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But I've only met you once on an audition years ago, and you don't remember, I'm sure. But you came in. I want to hear. Pitched from Endeavor as the guy from Punk'd. Sure. And those are the days where it was like, you sort of didn't do that if you were a sidekick on Punk'd. Now everybody and their brother from a TikTok video wants to be seen. Yes. You had much longer hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And it was probably about 2003, because I remember I just finished the pilot of The Office, and Mitch Hurwitz had asked me to do the pilot of Arrested Development, and I couldn't do two pilots at once. It was too torture, so I couldn't do the pilot. Deb Borilski did the pilot. Many podcasts name me as the person who did the pilot of Arrested. I just did the seasons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
After season one, she did the pilot, and a beautiful job she did. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I was doing a pilot. John Landgraf was the producer. It was FX, the early days of those places, like FX. And it was called Dix, D-I-C-K-S. And I just remember thinking Dax, D-A-X. That's a lot. But you came in and you were very good. And I remember thinking, oh, wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. But you first worked for Kristen. I did. Or did Dex find you for that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Of course, I remember specifically the agent pitching you when it was Endeavor. Greg Siegel it would have been. Yes, he would have said the guy from Punk, which of course I didn't know what it was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But I had known Ashton Kutcher because there's all these stories that you could connect everybody to everything when you start out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I had met him on a wonderful pilot called Advances in Chemistry that the very brilliant Richie Rosenstock did again ahead of its time. But he came in to audition for The Handsome Kid. And he didn't get it because God bless him at the time, not an actor. He was only 20 or 19. And then Meg Lieberman brought him in for that 70s show. And the rest is history. Within like two days.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, you are? That's so cool. Oh, yeah. How do I not know that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Maybe I did know that a while ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Ashton had done that. No, he hadn't done that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's in everybody's head about everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So did you have a chip on your shoulder, would you say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, right, right, right. I've got to go past these people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I started in season three. Jeff Garland is a good and wonderful friend. He brought me on in season three. And then I was on for many, many seasons, except for a couple of seasons where I wasn't available. But were you there when Monica got to do Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Now you're too famous. You can't not play yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes, but I did a lot of my self-education then too because I tried to know every improv person in the universe because I was lucky enough to be doing The Office, Curb, and Arrested Development starting with season two. If you go back and watch then, you'll see the same season. Everybody does Curb. Everybody has all the same people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That was when, from my own history in comedy, nobody got improv actors. Nobody brought them into the fore until it was like Judd Apatow and Paul Feig. For me, it was all casting sitcom pilots, and it was always tough. Tough to find anybody funny. Tough to find anybody who can pull off the sitcom. And in those days, tough to find anybody great-looking enough for a network to approve them. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You had to have a lot of things. Yeah, you did have to have a lot of things. So that was when Judd and Adam McKay and Paul Feig, they started appreciating the fact that most improv actors or comedians who then got into improv was not in the four of comedy either. When I started again, it was all stand up comics.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Improv was still Second City and it was Groundlings, which were sort of character oriented.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No one until sort of Second City started to move. I was trying to pluck people out of Second City in the early 90s. I remember going there to see Second City the first time when we were looking for Carlton on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And they said, can we just go to Chicago and look for some of these kids? Because I don't know. And so I went to Second City for the first time and that's when I met Jeff Garland. But on main stage at that time, was Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello and Jeff Garland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Anyway, that history of comedy. But when I started to do a lot of comedy shows and bringing a lot of the improv comedy was when the state had started and when Kids in the Hall had started.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That stuff all came through basically what was then called the Comedy Channel, I think. It was Comedy Central, but at the time it was called something else. The Comedy Network.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He started it all as well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I mean, Ben Stiller, very important in comedy. And I think they owe the biggest debt to Mr. Show. Yeah. To Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Yes. which would air at midnight on HBO.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I passed him today on the street.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He's hard to miss. I had cast him in a couple of day player roles when he was first starting out and he was very singular, Jack Black, and he could deliver one line and you'd remember it. Yes. And he was with the Gage Group very early on in his career.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
In every casting office, you have people that you remember and keep bringing in and bringing in until they get the part that really propels them into a long career.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The music connection is interesting, though. I do love certain soundtracks, starting with Alfred Hitchcock movies, and they are what connect your fandom, I think, a lot of the time. That's a great point. In features, casting directors always get credited, it seems, the card right after the music, the music editor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But to be like an on-mic person, an on-camera person, I asked him if the audio could be broken today, but the fact that you film this is scary. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I bore people with all the stories I'm boring you with now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He's a hunter. And he's funny. Pickup truck. He needs to show his funny side again. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I've been thinking that a lot lately. And Jack Black needs to show his dramatic side. We have all these thoughts casting people. We talk about this all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She's doing pretty good. No, keep on keeping on, but she would be great in a down and dirty drama.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Wouldn't she want to? Yeah, of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She should do a real movie, an indie movie or something. Queen Pins was great for her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, Kirby's the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Kirby, we've hired forever. The richest talent pool is comedy. Yeah. Frankly. My argument, and you would, I think, agree because you've directed now, is so many drama actors, some of them are brilliant at comedy. Going the other way, comedy to drama is much more frequent and much more a surprise. Yes. Sasha Baron Cohen is very good in Disclaimer. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I mean, and a lot of experience and a lot of beating yourself up and a lot of stuff to draw from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Beyond straight up harder than drama.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You should have a group casting director thing because people would be shocked at how many people slunked first and then got the big, it's tenacity, tenacity, tenacity. It used to be in pilot season, the people who didn't get the roles, the next season would get the roles. And the next season, the people who didn't even get as far as the network would get the roles. That's good to know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's a cycle though. It is tenacity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, yeah. Battled for Elizabeth Banks to get many things. It was mostly like women whose studios didn't think were pretty enough. Like Elizabeth Banks. We finally got her in. Yeah, she's hot as hell. Yeah, I know. Or Amy Adams.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Or Funny Enough. Both, by the way, wickedly funny. Elizabeth does a lot of comedies, but Amy needs to get back to some good comedy because she's wickedly funny. She needs to just have some fun, maybe. Yeah. For a few months. I'm sure she would like to. Comedy is a little bit in a coma now these days. It's not a great time. So not many opportunities. Brie Larson is who I was going to mention. Oh!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Was never, I mean, this is a gorgeous, talented girl. And she was never good enough for a studio to approve her. They just didn't think she was the leading lady. And then, boom, an Academy Award later and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, that I do love.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Wait a minute, you're approving Seth Rogen and you're passing on these people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I try never to go there because once I said you're wrong to somebody and I got screamed at. Don't you tell me I am wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Don't you ever say I'm wrong and I'm not wrong. I've never been wrong. And by the way, he was dead wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And that actor became a huge star. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Casting directors fight, fight, fight so much for actors. I brought this up recently. I wish actors could appreciate how much we do fight for them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You can tell when certain people are annoying in the room when they're auditioning that they're maybe a little rough on the director. Directors can tell that too. Somebody will read and ask questions or ask the wrong questions. The way you can read people in general, even though somebody who waits on you at McDonald's is like that little prick. I bet she's a great mom. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The way you can read people, it's just a people reading thing. And yes, I do believe I have instincts for that. Though in terms of behavior in the past, I don't ever repeat it unless I've seen it or it's been on a movie that I've worked on. Like somebody will say, don't ever hire that actor. They're difficult. Yeah. I want to make sure it's accurate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So many actors get a bad rap because they didn't get on with the director or a producer and it's actually the director who is the problem. Yeah. It happens so much to women. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
This woman is difficult and come on, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then you hear the director's name. It's like, come on. Right. Women still do not have a leg up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'll never work again. All the casting executives, the levels of people that we have to go through. Right. And the levels of people that we have to CC and update.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm talking about in a studio or film television. There's so many levels and it really throws me off my game. And this has been for decades, frankly. In casting, you need, like what we're doing now, we're tracing people back for 30 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We need to do that in our brains. And if you're constantly concerned, as I am, about, oh my God, I forgot to put a name on a list. Oh my God, this person thought of this person. Oh my God, this person's cousin wants to be seen. Oh my God, this person's manager asked me to see this person. You have absolutely the shortest synapses you could possibly have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You lose that long-term thinking of, who is this person I loved in that show? show and I can't remember who it was. That's what I want to spend my brain power on. And we are exhausted by the end of the day. And that is the only time we have to do it. It's so much more difficult now to actually be creative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Only if you know it's okay. Do a little bit of research. People see me and they think I can improvise, but I will say, okay, this one... You know, because some actors will do it. All these beautiful comics, most of the time they come up with funnier stuff than is on the page. People like Jed Apatow and Paul Feig and Mitch Hurwitz and Adam McKay, they appreciate that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They want that. Larry David wants that. But I will warn them before coming in or tell their agent, and I pray to God the agent tells the manager who tells the assistant who tells the assistant who tells the assistant to the actor to the actor. Ha, ha, ha. Don't improv.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. There is a line between comedy people who want to hear every line they write and comedy people who don't care. And they say, you can't make a wrong step. Just do whatever you want. So you should ask. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay. Otherwise, they'll think you can't do the thing. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I do, depending. If you're in there for Judd or somebody, you should absolutely do that because I find myself, I'll publicly apologize to Beck Bennett now because once he came in for a pilot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and after the audition, I said, wait, Mike, can he do it again? Because he can be better. It just came out of my mouth. Bring it way down, something like that. And then he was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He had chosen to make the character big and I love Beck Bennett. Yes. Get the guy a major movie and a major show. If I'm allowed to say that. And when you say Mike, you're talking about Shur? Mike Shur, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's why his shows are spectacular. Plug for the new Ted Danson show, which is spectacular. You guys are going to love it. Kristen just did a little thing on that, I think. I know. I didn't get to go to that, but I know she did a little bit. But yeah, Mike Shur is a director who's a dream because he wants to see who you are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And he doesn't care about the words. He does ultimately, but he doesn't because you find stuff there that you would bring to it or that Beck Bennett would bring to it that is not on the page and you do need to show them who you are. And you've got to be able to do the thing. I totally get it. You have to be able to do the thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
One less year than that. Wasn't Family Ties 82? But I came in season two.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or else they will say, I've had major comedy people go, he changed my line. Yeah. And I'll always be defensive of the actor. Always. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't like it when they make fun of an actor. I just, I'm always defensive of the actor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
What are actors like? Because I always try to make an actor feel at home when they come in. But I realize I should ask the actor, do you just want to come in and do it and then talk?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I mean, I've always just being, I think, empathetic to actors when they come in because no matter who it's in there, it's a dead room. And coming in to audition for comedy is ridiculous. You're in a vacuum and you're trying to be funny. And they've seen it 45 times. Exactly. And it's a ridiculous task. So that's why I also think self-taping is beneficial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That was one of my questions. That's changed. But you come in and then I should ask actors, can I say something and make a joke? I always try to just make some sort of joke or mention I just saw them in something. But I do have a feel for if they kind of just want to start.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because what I am cut off from is I appreciate it, but how much preparation you folks have done and how you've talked yourself out of it and how you beat yourself up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And you see the same people. Can I tell a small anecdote?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Donald Line's movie, he did a movie of Yogi Bear, which was lovely. People should discover that for their kids or put it on Netflix. And I was bringing in the greatest comedy people ever. Dan Aykroyd was willing to come in and read for Yogi Bear. He was perfect. But of course, the studio thinks they have to hear him do it, which is ridiculous. That's the other thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I'm like, just hire this person, but that never works. He came in and then Rob Corddry came in and he said, I have to follow Dan Aykroyd. Yeah. And I instantly was like, God, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because my generation, I was starstruck to even meet Dan Aykroyd. Yes, of course. But you see who's coming in. You came in before you. Oh, it's so rough. It's the worst. It's such a mind fuck. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The higher up the food chain you go in terms of auditioning, I get as nervous as the actor does. And when it's like a final audition, you'll hear my voice quiver like you hear it quivering now. Oh, really? Oh, gosh. Just because you care? Obviously. Probably. And I want to get the job done, too. And I want them to do a good job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I have to cut myself off from her or else I'll just be too much jelly of sympathy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's how much preparation. And when they leave, it always just blows me away. Somebody who gives an incredible audition and who you can tell worked on it so hard. That is impressive. That is how you audition. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
From A to Z. That's very gracious of you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, some of them come in not prepared at all. Right. And then you're like, just leave. You're a jackass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I would say, not with me, but when you're in with a big director, a big producer, doing it and saying, I didn't like that. Can I do it again?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
People can do it, but sometimes... You better be fucking great that next adjustment you gave yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I think sometimes you sort of want to wait for the director to do that. Get a feel for the room. Be prepared and don't come in. And I know you can be nervous and I will try to help. Is that the camera?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I would say just sort of read the room sometimes and don't come in and say, I just got the sides last night, so I'm not prepared. That's an old trick some actors have done for decades. Right. I will already know which actor is going to come in and go, oh, I just got the sides last night. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. These are great tips. And don't chew gum in an audition unless it calls for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
A lot of people are insecure and they'll eat food or chew gum in an audition. Eat food? All the time. Bring a big sandwich. What do you think about coming in in character? Yeah. I can see freaking people out or I can see it really working. And you mean coming in in character, being the character, not dressed like a policeman or something. Well, that's two questions, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, self-tapes, I think it's fine to look like the person. Because studio executives who approve these parts, you're in a cop uniform, they're going to think, oh, he can be a cop. Yeah, it does a lot of the work. God bless them, but most of them think surface things. Yeah, they're juggling different things. Yes, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then you do have a group of executives who are unbelievably tuned into the creative part of it, but many are not. But I would say come in in character with comedy. I think it's okay. I wouldn't say you have to. But for example, J.B. Smoove came in to audition for Curb as the character he had made up. And he came in, Larry, Larry David. He came in instantly. Larry was on the floor. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He hit the part immediately, basically. Yeah. So you got to be pretty confident when you do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, exactly. Frequently also, when the scene is done, you get a feel for the person. Yes. The way in Borat, Ken Davichian, who played his assistant in Borat in the first Borat movie, came in with Sasha did not know, but with a very authentic Eastern European accent. And then after he was done, after he got the part, we told him he was American.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So that was smart. And Sasha was blown away because we LAG'd him. I mean, we... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Everybody knows what McLevin is. Yes. Oh. I would say it was the toughest role ever to cast. No kidding. Because it took months and months. Pre-internet, I think we did some sort of a MySpace thing. That was the first big internet thing, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yes. And it turned up nobody. Those are days you still put up flyers in high schools and things like that. Wow. And I knew I wasn't turning up a good geek. You know, I know I can recognize a good geek. And Judd was like, no, no, no, no, no. Michael Cera first came in for McLevin. And then it was apparent he was perfect. That was right after he finished Arrested Development.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So he wasn't a star yet. We still had to read Every Kid in Town to play Seth and Evan. Judd first. only wanted kids who were actually 18 or 19. So at the time, Jonah was a little bit too old. We wanted him to do the table read and no, Judd wanted kids younger. I sort of ignored kids who were older than 19 or 20. And then it did dawn on Judd, wait a minute, Jonah looks like a baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Of course he can do this. And then Michael Cera came back and read as Seth. And of course, wait a minute. Or Evan. Or Evan. But McLovin, I wanted to find the Most amazing nerd ever, Greg Mottola did too. And I knew I wasn't turning anybody up. Casting people know when they're not delivering and you had to keep looking. And so we put up flyers in high schools and I still have a copy of my flyer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was Attention Nerdy High School Boys. Call this number or fax. Picture to picture to this number. The little head shot of Christopher Mintz-Place came through a bad fax. His forehead was stretched out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
We had sent, and my associate at the time, Delia Frankel, had looked up improv classes in high schools. So we had sent them around to high schools and they were calling us. And I think the way he got was one of his friend's mothers said, there's a flyer for a nerdy high school kid, Christopher. I think you should submit it. So he came in. Judd saw it instantly. Other people did not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I did, Judd did. The reason I thought he was funny is because part of the scene was he had to name his character McLoving. He said McLoving instead of McLovin. Crack me up just the way he said it. Those are the little things you recognize in comedy. And he was just like Coke bottle glasses kind of a kid. The same way that Martin Starr was.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's a good question. I would say that we always want to do a good job, but also I really want the people I'm bringing in to do a good job and that we pick the right person. Yes. My biggest fear is we don't pick the right person. That's a common casting director fear was that they're going to pick the boner in the group or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He read for all three male roles in Freaks and Geeks, all the geek roles. And he was just like, bingo, he's one of them. And knew what he was doing. He came in and he was like, wow, look at the way this kid looks and he can act. Right. Same with Tim Simons when he came in for Veep. Thank you for that compliment, by the way. Veep and Parks and Recs knocked me out, those casts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I'm not saying it to pat myself on the back. They're unreal. It's all an act of faith, all of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He was at some point. I think he was. I don't know specifically. But not for V. Not for V. The way I found Tim, and it's a great sort of casting story. I should get into the Phyllis story, too. Am I taking you over too much time?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
One of my associates at the time, Peter Kousakis, who's now a great manager at Mosaic, he said, would you meet my friend Tim Simons? He said, did you see that Abraham Lincoln commercial when she says, does this make my butt look big? And I said, oh yeah, that tall guy. He's cool. Of course I would see him. I love to see new people, of course, as all casting people do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And I met him, I think we just brought him in to read for something and it was like, oh, he's really good. We put that in our head bank and I brought him in. shortly thereafter, I think, for one thing that he didn't get. And then I brought him in for the Veep pilot, which was written as like a short, stocky chain smoker. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Any good casting director, you don't really read the writer's description because you need to just bring in good people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So he came in and he was killer funny. We read great people for the Veep pilot because that writing is Armando Iannucci. And Julia came in for the sessions and read with people. So that was very enjoyable. But Tim came in and killed it. But his competition was stiff. And when we got to the network at HBO, he was great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And after talking, I was able to hear how they came to the conclusion that Tim Simons was the way to go. And again, against some very big comedy people. And Julia would talk about it and how she wanted to act with these people. Julia was a large part of picking that cast. She said about Tony Hale versus the competition for Tony Hale, I would not be embarrassed to ask Tony Hale to get me a Tampax.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Right. And that's how he decided he would be the perfect bag man. She said, Tony would not embarrass me. The other person might embarrass me. And it turns out that we ended up using all the runner-ups in recurring roles on Veep. What a freaking cast. Wait, do you want to tell Phyllis? Oh, Phyllis. I don't know if this is generally known.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I think it is that Phyllis was my associate for seven or eight years. And we were casting the pilot of The Office. With Ken Kwapis, we were in the room reading. We had two days of final testing for all the different combinations we could use for the office. I was reading and Phyllis was filming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And Ken Kwapis just sort of tiptoed over to me and said, let Phyllis read with the actors because I think she might be good in the background. It was like, of course she would. Look at the people in the British office in the background. They're real looking people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And so, yes, we let Phyllis read and she went in to read with the test between like Krasinski and Jenna and a lot of other people. I had previously been reading with Steve and a few other people. And she was great. We were so excited. And then Greg, when he faxed over the pilot and there was one line for Phyllis, we went. How exciting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Because at that time, Phyllis was going to make like $630 for the day. And that was exciting, SAG scale.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, in 2003, right about the time I met Dax Shepard. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Mom was a housewife, which is what women were wont to do back then. And my father was an insurance executive. Very nice childhood. Kind of predictable. A Norman Rockwell painting? Not that. Not quite. We won't go that far.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Okay, good. I wouldn't have a clue. And if somebody says to me, oh, they have so many followers or they're this on Tic Tac, it's not a negative for me, but it means, well, they're not a trained actor. Maybe they're funny. I'll look at a clip and it's like that person's not going to be able to act. And I've been wrong many times. But usually it's a version of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Almost 100%. Movies have to have a star attached to get it made. To get any financing, you probably need two or three, no matter how low the budget. Even maybe the lower the budget, you need the financiers to say, we got Kristen Bell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And TV frequently now for the streamers, they probably have a project attached to like I'm currently doing Bill Lawrence's show with Steve Carell, but we're casting everybody around him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's so much more rewarding to give someone a break. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't know about that. I couldn't speak for other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You might be more of an expert in that than I, but I know that... We all have our favorites based on how we perceive the talent and how they can deliver and how they haven't been given a shot to do it yet. I'll read something and think, oh, this is perfect for Monica Padman or this is perfect for Rory Scovel or something. And they haven't been given that huge shot yet. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, that would have been a few of the neighboring towns like Wellesley. But a lovely town, and my best friends are still my high school friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's heartbreaking because my job then is to talk the director into it and to show them stuff or another audition where they've done it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn't. People will listen to you and then people won't listen to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He would probably be the worst auditioner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They don't have any of the environment. They don't have the other actors. There's the reverse. There are people who are great auditioners who then on the set, you don't get anything more from them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, you get the line reading from the audition. However, a kid who was great from the time he was 12, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I have five siblings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
He has never given a bad performance. He's always almost better than some of the movies he's in. Killers of the Flower Moon. Any other actor in that part would have been like they were doing a role from a sketch in Hootenanny. You know, it was like, are you kidding me? He was heartbreakingly good in that role. And he was so over the top.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And the version of that in comedy is like Steve Carell as Michael Scott. So over the top, but still unbelievably real and good. You gotta be a genius to pull those off.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She would let us know that. Was it every other one? No, two boys, two girls, me, and then my younger brother. Was it just chaos in a very fun way? You're such an optimist. Yes, it was chaos. Ha, ha, ha. In a fun way, mostly, yes. When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, Boston Mass was filled with huge families, Irish Catholic families, Italian families. Six was very common.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Only because I like it. However, the past 10, 15 years, it's a different business in terms of what we do and in terms of pressure you get from top heavy things. And things have changed completely.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Perfect. It's incredibly different. You go to one of these streamers and we become just data entry people. Everything's put into algorithm. I hate the word algorithm. They've algorithmized creativity and you can't do that. But they have and they've tried in terms of payment and who to cast and what's going to appeal to a certain group of people overseas or here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Netflix is doing that a little too much, I think. Just in my very humble opinion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, you're so kind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
My assistant, Hannah, freaked out when I told her I was doing this. Oh, she did? Yeah. I'm afraid I'm not a podcast person either, and I should be, because I'm a true crime person more than anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I know, but I googled armchair expert and I typed too fast and it said arm hair expert. I'm not kidding. That should be another show we do. Arm hair expert. Arm hair expert. No, I have. I need one. I have RMA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
On a couple of indies I have. You mean financially, by the way. One of them has paid off extremely well. But casting directors, we can't even get paid ads. I mean, we just don't get anything because studios don't care and they don't understand.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
You can on indie movies because they do need you to attach some of their leads, things like that. But no, on television, never. If I had residuals on shows like Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Office, I'd be retired right now and I'd be very happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
But no, we do not. And I wish we did. That's the next step. This year I was able to help negotiate with the AMPTP and the Teamsters. And it was fascinating. And we can only go baby step by baby step. But when we could ever participate, especially in a cast like The Office, which you do do from scratch. Yes. And people do know your value as a casting person. Yes. In a comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Basically, I do know I have value.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Creatively anyway. But thank you for asking that because no, we almost get paid within the same pay range too. I don't get paid much more than anybody else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
That's how they make money, right? The ownership of the show. Anybody who gets to do a pilot, very good. Jim Burroughs is so wealthy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
One of my very early pilots was for a very big then TV producer named James Comack, who did Sanford and Son, and he did all the cool shows. And he had a big home in Beverly Hills that he called Casa Syndication. Oh, my God. Casa Syndication.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, yeah. But that's a lovely question to ask about if we participate, because no, and I wish I did. No, and you should. And I wish I had. It'll never happen. It's kind of bonkers. Not in my lifetime. It's crazy to me. Or stock options. I'll take stock options, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to sit in Netflix. Okay, don't pay me, but give me a mutual fund of Amazon. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah. What about you guys? Can I ask you back?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Put a mutual fund out and pay us that way. Yeah. And then when you get rich, we get rich.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It's dissipated. I was so excited when you emailed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
All right, be well. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They both have only child syndrome. Two would have been controversial where I grew up. It was like, two? What happened? She must have some kind of issue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, of course. All men are virile. Most of my friends from high school came from very large families. And we would have synchronized brothers and sister ages. My younger brother was best friends with my best friend's younger brother. We can still talk about antics and all that kind of stuff back from the
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
what about early days dating older siblings friends was that ever an issue that popped up i would have been terrified okay i can't say i may have wanted to yeah sure the more interesting thing was my two older brothers possibly going after the same
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They were, in fact. And my younger brother and I, very close in age, 13 months. Okay. What's the age gap between the oldest and the youngest? The oldest and the youngest would be about 11 years, I think. My mother had three kids, took a little break, and then another three kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, I applied to a lot of fancy colleges and didn't get in. I wanted to go to school in California because I would watch shows like The Newlywood Game and The Dating Game and Gidget, which was like, oh my God, that girl gets to surf after school. I can't believe it. So in the 60s and 70s, everything was happening in California.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Music, serial killing, free love. Everything was happening in California. So I was like, I got to go. That's where it's at. And also in those days, you didn't do the regimented thing of visiting colleges and spending a fortune on SATs and on applications. I just said, I got to go to California. It's super cool out there. So my parents wouldn't let me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
So I went to University of New Hampshire for a year and then transferred to Pomona College. Somehow they magically let me go. I think back on it, it could have been it probably fit their budget better to wait a year. And then I could go to California. But I had never been to California at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
The suburbs. I was the early TV generation. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Oh, no, we were plopped in front of the new color TV, we would have called it. Oh, no, we were TV kids. What else are you going to do with six ungrateful children? Yeah, exactly. And no nannies. In those days, nannies, no. Unless you were a Kennedy or something, but no nannies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I just loved it. Movies were not cinema the way it is now either. My parents would bring us to movies. My father brought us to every Peter Sellers movie and Walter Matthau Jack Lemmon movie that came out, to whom I owe my appreciation of that kind of humor. But I don't know. I never broke it down. But I would say yes, definitely, and probably still the reason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And also I love, you know, we would beg to stay up to see Johnny Carson's monologue. We'd be in the monologue and we'd see the monologue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They weren't self-aware of being a comedy geek culture. There probably is now. That sort of didn't exist at all. They just happened to be the pure... unadulterated, brilliant science major, pre-med major, law major geeks who loved Monty Python and who loved Firesign Theater. And it was like, what are they talking about? But those are the first people I met that I was really tuned into that comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
They were beautiful, smart, probably at the time, highly unpopular geeks. Now they've come to the fore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And even then that was like, oh, it was preposterous. But you got to see, you know, Jamie Cromwell laughing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
No, and Anthony Edwards. That was the first turning point of making geeks in the title of anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Didn't really have one. I just liked it. After Pomona, I worked night shift at a newspaper in Glendora for a year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And then I went to UCLA business school, mostly because my father was a businessman. And I thought, I think I can get a good salary after I go to business school. I truly was clueless. In those days, we did not put the pressure on ourselves that these poor kids do now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I don't have a goal now. I mean, I certainly didn't have a goal then.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Well, I have a very good friend named Lydia Woodward from business school. A little core of us were just so not meant to be in the business world. I think we're all there for the same reason, just to get a job. Buy some time and get a job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I was living in California at the time, and I think I only paid $750 a trimester to go to UCLA business school as a resident internist. What a bargain. I got my MBA for two years for like three grand. Wow, that is incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
It was amazing. Anyway, so I get out of business school and a friend of mine, Lydia, was going right into film school at AFI as a producing fellow is what we called it then. I was working in advertising in New York City at the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
My year right after business school, I went to work on Madison Avenue in New York City for an agency called Doyle Dane Bernbach, which was mentioned in Mad Men quite a bit. That's why I love Mad Men so much. I was the tail end of when Mad Men would have ended, or maybe a few years after Mad Men.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
And they had so much makeup and high heels. It was my first time ever spending much time in New York City. I was not cut out for advertising either. But my friend said, Allison, you should come to AFI. It is up your alley. You can get a loan for a low rate. So I did in the producing section. Again, no goals. Just said, no, that'd be fun. I think I'll do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, you're just following the next thing in front of you. And so I went to AFI. Loved it. I've never met people like that before in my life. You're ending up with, oh, that person's uncle is somebody famous. Anyway. In the student films, I enjoyed the casting part of it. And again, the same friend, Lydia, said, I think you can get a job in casting. I was like, no way, that's a real job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
She's a great friend. She's a very successful writer, producer. But yeah, we hit it off because we both flunked one of our tests together and we were singled out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
I just dug it. We were casting a student film. In those days, AFI had sort of a little SAG connection, but not really. We're talking 1982 or 81. You really had to pester people to get anything done in those days. There was no email. As you know, it was just calling people up and getting hung up on that kind of thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
but every time I watched a TV show, like I would see somebody on Marcus Welby MD and then I'd see her in a Spearmint Gum commercial. It was like, oh, she's doing a commercial. How does that work? I didn't know what casting was as a kid, nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, the first big gate that's being cast. You guys appreciate that, but not many other people do. Yeah, right, right. Or even know it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
Yeah, but anyway, I thought the casting process was really cool and creative and required a certain level of dedication.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Allison Jones (Award-Winning Casting Director)
discernment and taste and realizing wow one actor can completely change a student film versus another actor I went to Larry Edmonds or something and got a little catalog of casting directors and producers and I started typing my letters to casting directors and I think I sent out like you had to put a stamp on the envelope Milna and then I think I got two answers