The Mail Cart: Monday, August 17th

You definitely don’t want to forget that the final round of Emmy voting starts TODAY!! (and don’t forget to flag this for your boss, this is the last time Hacks will be on the ballot ☹️)

AvA LIVE Lineup Booked In Partnership With:

This week on AvA LIVE

Charlotte Owens: Editor-in-Chief @ Bustle
Ari Shaffir: Stand-Up Comedian
Cole Walliser: Director, Host & Creator behind the Glambot
JT Barnett: Creator and Founder @ Core

(and maybe a surprise guest)

Subscribe Here (I’ll be eternally grateful)

⭐ Disney used D23 this weekend to unload a massive slate of what’s next across film, TV and the parks

There were 25+ updates, including new looks at Avengers and Star Wars, a handful of originals, major sequels and new park announcements. Disney is still betting heavily on franchises people already know, the ~flywheel~ continues to get stronger: movies, shows, parks, and characters all feeding the same ecosystem. One hit can now become a sequel, a ride, a cruise attraction, prob a microdrama and definitely a $48 popcorn bucket before you leave the theater.

⭐ Alex Cooper left her longtime agency UTA and is in serious talks to sign at CAA shortly after a funding round from ex-WME Chairman Patrick Whitesell.

This follows the news of Nikki Glaser leaving UTA for WME and CAA continuing to strengthen their creators division with a flurry of recent hires (Brent Weinstein from UTA & Kendall Ostrow who was the Head of Top Creators & Public Figures @ YouTube).

⭐ The Recording Academy is already considering tweaks to its brand-new Asian Pop category after BTS reportedly chose not to submit because of how the category was structured.

⭐ Columbia Records now has 3 of the 4 longest-running No. 1 songs in Billboard Hot 100 history.

Mariah Carey’s immortal All I Want for Christmas Is You leads at 22 weeks, followed by Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road at 19 and new entrant Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas at 17. Pretty absurd batting average for one label.

⭐ Liverpool Football Club sold a 30% stake in their team for $1.65 billion to a group of investors that includes Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos.

⭐ ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ is now one of only 8 films to ever hit $2 billion at the box office, making it the 2nd fastest movie ever to do so. The fight with ‘Avengers: Endgame’ continues…

⭐ ByteDance struck a deal with the Motion Picture Association to strengthen copyright and likeness protections across Seedance, Seedream, TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina after months of talks.

⭐️ PGA is launching “PGA Tour Alter Ego,” a new comedy series produced with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. The show launches Tuesday on PGA Tour and Omaha digital channels.

Our new job board features 240+ early career roles in Entertainment, including:

💼 Partnerships - YouTube - Apply Here

💼 Events - Paramount - Apply Here

💼 Marketing - Netflix - Apply Here

💼 Communications - The-Team - Apply Here

💼 Celebrity Hip Hop Artist - Assistant - Apply Here

💼 Partnerships (Fandango/Rotten Tomatoes) - Versant - Apply Here

💼 Growth Manager - WWE - Apply Here

💼 Sales - Lionsgate - Apply Here

💼 Junior Manager (The Wall Group) - WME - Apply Here

💼 Product Manager - Genius - Apply Here

💼 PR Assistant - NBCUniversal - Apply Here

🎒 Content Creator Intern - AEG - Apply Here

🎒 Graphic Design Intern - The-Team - Apply Here

Today we sit down with David Rubin and Matt Lander, casting directors behind All Her Fault.

Our conversation is below.

AvA: This show was adapted from Andrea Mara's novel and just took over. As casting directors, what do you think it was about this ensemble that made the show connect with such a massive audience?

David & Matt: While Sarah Snook is terrific at the center of the show playing a mother stripped of control, the supporting ensemble was so wonderfully written by Megan Gallagher to showcase both complex family dynamics and a social ecosystem that audience members could easily relate and connect to. Assembling a diverse and talented cast of actors who were fully believable in those roles was ultimately an essential part of the audience's engagement.

AvA: You've called the casting room a laboratory. What does a great casting session actually look like from the inside that no one outside that room sees?  

David: It starts with what the actor brings into the room, which is a level of confidence that comes from understanding the dynamics of the scene and finding ways of connecting their own unique personalities with the character on the page. And that means not wasting time guessing what the director, producer and casting director are looking for, but deciding for themselves what their version of the role is.  Even if their approach is wildly different from what the filmmakers were expecting, the actor brings a fresh perspective to a scene the people in the room have heard over and over in the casting process, and introduces a different approach that suddenly opens up possibilities for playing that character that hadn’t been anticipated.

An audition like that can stimulate a director or casting director to spend more time with the actor, trying variations on what they’ve delivered. And when an actor who’s made unique choices leaves the room, they've invariably prompted a conversation between the casting director and the other filmmakers about what’s most important in portraying that role and what’s possible when it’s something different than they all expected. In that sense, every actor who brings their own strong perspective to an audition should ideally get a writing credit for what they’ve introduced to the filmmakers as an unexpected possibility for the role. It may not ultimately be the answer, for many reasons that have nothing to do with the audition, but that actor will have contributed something in that “laboratory” that will be memorable to those in the room who’ve witnessed it and will very likely prompt those filmmakers to consider those actors in the future.

AvA: You've both worked on some of the defining book-to-screen adaptations of the last decade. When a character already lives in millions of readers' heads how does that affect the casting?  

David & Matt: In the ideal version of a book-to-screen adaptation, the filmmakers’ perception of each character shouldn’t be constricted by the details of the novel, but rather empower them to find the version of each role that makes the most sense for the story they’re about to tell. Though there’s an inevitable risk of alienating some fanatical readers of the original text, a filmmaker and their casting director who are passionate about what’s at the core of the book’s themes and each character’s contribution to those themes, should ideally follow their own instincts when selecting actors to tell their version of the story.

AvA: This is a thriller where nearly every character has something to hide. How do you cast a show/community where everyone has a secret?

David & Matt: When telling a story about characters who hold secrets that are revealed incrementally throughout the film or the series, it’s important to cast actors who are innately multi-dimensional and have the facility to hide their character’s true feelings and intentions by focusing on whatever specifics are happening in each scene. That way you can lead the audience to embrace the character they’ve initially met and then surprise them when their true nature is revealed.  

AvA: What is the most misunderstood part of the casting process?

David & Matt: Most people presume the casting process is simply finding an individual actor to fill the detailed requirements of each character in a story, but no casting decision is made in isolation.  Individual choices must be made in light of all the other choices made along the way, so that the ensemble ultimately coalesces into a believable whole.  It’s really a fluid and changeable process that requires an openness on the part of a filmmaker and their casting director to be experimental and learn from what each actor brings to their audition that might suggest a fresh and captivating way to portray that particular character and also spin the overall story in unexpected ways. 

AvA: Before earning a casting nomination, you came up through the casting department. What did those early assistant years teach you that shaped how you cast now?

Matt: The majority of what I learned in the early years actually came from working at a high-profile talent agency in LA. I started in the mailroom and progressed to being an assistant to the senior vice president of the company. I say this because when you work within an agency setting, you get a real hands-on education as to how all the facets of the industry come together to make production work, while also beginning to learn who all the big players are around town.

Agents also work hand-in-hand with casting directors to populate their projects, and being able to understand how the other side of the coin works from my current profession is instrumental in how I conduct business. A couple of examples of that would be my approach to and understanding of how agents talk to their clients about auditions, offers, and career moves. I also believe it helps me broker more beneficial deals for my buyers, as I’ve been privy to how agents and managers strategize their approaches to negotiations and the tactics they use to influence the deal-making process.

AvA: If you could sit yourself down at a moment in your career when you felt stuck or unsure, what’s the one piece of advice you’d share? 

David & Matt: The choices you make, or the things that just happen to you along the way, are never indelible or final.  But they are opportunities to learn what’s important or less important in your journey toward a rewarding career.  Some might be inspiring and some will be just plain awful. You can learn both how to behave and how not to behave by observing those around you, and you can always make a shift — either significant or minor — as you come to learn what feels right for you.  But don’t expect that things will necessarily happen on your schedule.  We all need to respond to what happens in our lives in real time and, ideally, continue to be optimistic.

👋 See you back here on Wednesday

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The Mail Cart is written by Warner Bailey and edited by Riley Furey and Dominik Sansevere.

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