The Casting of ‘Monsters,’ with Tiffany Little Canfield and Josh Einsohn

Whenever you see a show or a movie that is cast by someone working at The Telsey Office, you immediately place the bar high.

All the casting directors who work with Bernie Telsey possess a certain level of excellence. It leads to loads of Artios and Emmy nominations, and, one would think, soon Oscar nods as well, now that there’s going to be a Casting category starting in 2026.

Two stalwarts of this group are Tiffany Little Canfield and Josh Einsohn, who each earned an Emmy nod this year for their work on the Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. It is Canfield’s eighth nomination (she is also recognized this year for Only Murders in the Building) and Einsohn’s first.

The show stars Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as José and Kitty Menendez, and newcomers Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, respectively. Bardem, Sevigny and Koch also earned Emmy nods for their work. Canfield and Einsohn chatted with us from Los Angeles about their experiences casting Monsters, which Telsey also worked on.

Insights From Tiffany Little Canfield and Josh Einsohn

Develop versatility to play complex characters that can be both sympathetic and monstrous. This range is crucial for layered storytelling.

Focus on building chemistry with scene partners during auditions. Strong ensemble dynamics can significantly impact casting decisions.

Choose roles that offer nuanced perspectives to explore different facets of a character and showcase their depth.

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How did you connect with Ryan Murphy in the first place?

Tiffany Little Canfield: The old-fashioned way. Our wonderful studio exec, Stephanie Levinson at 20th Century Fox, asked us if we wanted to meet.

Josh Einsohn: Matchmaking. (Laughs)

He is a very prolific guy, which must be nice when you connect with a producer like that, knowing that there’s going to be a constant flow of work.

TLC: We felt so lucky, especially this last year, when so many of our peers are in a very different boat. We have been grateful.

JE: The shows that he produces are fun, we like working on them and people want to come and be in them. We are in an incredibly lucky place right now. We’re constantly grateful for what we get to work on and who we get to work with.

Speaking of who you get to work with, this is the first time Javier Bardem is doing TV, and while he’s not the actual star of the show, he’s the star of the show. How did you land him?

TLC: We did start with a list, and we knew that our two Menendez brothers would be unknowns. We wanted to discover those roles.

Ryan was very intentional about wanting the cast to be balanced. When you look at the role of José Menendez, Javier is beyond perfect in every single direction. I had the opportunity to work with him in The Little Mermaid, and he was so fantastic, so special. This could have just been a paycheck, but he brought his artistry to it.

I think we’re in a similar position here, where he’s the right artist, because José Menendez is a really difficult role in the sense of, “Is he a monster?” We’ll never fully know what happened, but I think you need to have an artist who can look past the surface, to see beneath, to understand the real relationships and the real power dynamic of what was going on. Luckily, Ryan has a relationship with him, so they were able to have a phone conversation about it.

JE: Because Ryan had a history with Javier, there was a trust there. I know that while Javier was exploring joining us for the role, as part of his process, he and Ryan spoke about the character and the way that Ryan was going to tell the story this season from a bunch of different angles, and not knowing whose perspective you’re always getting.

I think that was part of the appeal to Javier. Maybe [José] is a monster, maybe he’s not. Maybe there are other monsters. I think that was why he was so intrigued by the process. You can see it clearly in the ways that he explores José throughout the season, which vary from episode to episode.

It must have been fascinating putting together a cast where you’re not sure who the monsters are.

JE: We had to have actors who would be able to play both monster and sympathetic, depending on where you are in the story. If you don’t have them being able to do what we’re talking about, and being both sympathetic and monsters, it falls apart.

I want to talk about Chloë, but I think you’ve given me the perfect entree to talk about Cooper and Nicholas. I’m curious about the process of identifying them and matching them to the roles.

TLC: We knew it was a search. You start out reaching out to the colleges, checking in with the theater scene, who’s coming out of it, who’s been doing well in auditions.

You can’t just go off someone’s résumé. There are so many aspects to it, and when you’re searching, you’re open. You’ve got one of the three things we’re looking for. Let’s see what you’ve got.

That process was a lot of auditions, but Cooper and Nicholas stood out right from the beginning. Not just because of the physical resemblance, although that’s certainly part of it. They felt right for it upon first impression, and then their work popped out.

When you find unknowns like this, it’s such a great match. Do you celebrate? Give each other a high-five? A pat on the back? Or just move on to the next thing?

JE: Not so much a high-five. It’s such a collaborative process, especially with Ryan, that it’s not like the two of us sitting in a room [where we] solved the problem and that was it. I think being in the room for Nicholas and Cooper’s chemistry read with Ryan [was the win].

It was the tail end of the pandemic and it was the first time that we’d been in a room with Ryan physically. Knowing we had it was an amazing feeling. Knowing how good it was going to be, seeing the two of them together, and how quickly they worked well together. They had just met, and what they did in the room was phenomenal.

TLC: I wouldn’t say we pat ourselves on the back. I feel like what we do is get excited for what’s next for them.

With such young actors, you’re weighing all these different elements of the role, and that chemistry read was special. It almost felt, dare I say, dangerous, because the stakes are so high.

The writing is so fun in this show, the layers of horror and humor and the stakes, and the boys showed up with that. They jumped right in, and they trusted each other, even though it got a little physical. I think we broke a chair. We were very scared of breaking a desk. (Laughs)

Conversely, this felt like a very Chlöe Sevigny type of role.

TLC: You mean, she’s perfect for it? I agree. (Laughs)

If we’re looking at the actresses who have played this type of thing before and who have made it something of a specialty, Chloë is very high on the list of people that come to mind for somebody who can walk into a role like this and nail it.

TLC: I think we agree on that. We work on a big list, and you just look at it, and it’s clear who it is. Ultimately, we know very little about little Kitty.

There’s more information about José out there, whereas Kitty, I think, has enough mystery that you need someone who naturally has mystery and charisma [to help] you understand, how do they fit into the world of Beverly Hills? Chloë always has a mystery. Chloë is always idiosyncratic, and it was beautiful and chic.

JE: It was fun to see her do the suburban mom thing, though, which is not something I felt like we had seen Chloë do before. In some ways, it was very much like she stepped right into a lane that she’s familiar with.

In other ways, the episodes where you saw her more as just the sweet suburban mom who was stuck at home and having quiet little damage, I thought that was a very different color than what we usually see from her.

It was nice, too, that she was recognized for it, because I felt like in the lead up to the Emmy nominations, there wasn’t a lot of conversation about her, which was sad for me, because she was so brilliant. To see that people recognize just how good she was in a role that, yes, of course, she can step into and just be amazing, was gratifying.

A show like this only works if you surround the main cast with a really strong supporting cast. There’s Ari Graynor, Dallas Roberts, Jeff Perry, Leslie Grossman and Enrique Murciano, to name a few. Nathan Lane shows up briefly. This is a murderers’ row of skilled character actors.

TLC: We were in an unusual situation for the process on this one, because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which came right in the middle of our process. We had identified Javier, Chloë, Cooper and Nathan, but then had to pause on the offers because of the strikes.

I believe Ari came in to read the day before the strikes and everything had to stop, so we never even got to talk to Ryan about her. What we tried to do for ourselves was just take those strike months and percolate on who we imagined, so that we could hit the ground running. As soon as we were allowed to do anything, we had a really strong point of view.

JE: We had a lot of time sitting around to think about who we wanted. And … I want to be careful how I phrase this. Coming back after the strikes, everybody was available, because we were one of the very few projects going.

It was easy to assemble this incredible ensemble for so many reasons. Again, starting with Ryan Murphy’s reputation. The writing was fantastic. Everybody knew the subject matter of the season, and that was exciting to want to be a part of.

People were available and wanted to come and play in the world, too, so it wasn’t even like we were having to work around too many schedules at that point, either, which is often an obstacle to people who want to come and play and can’t because they’re stuck on another show.

Josh, this is your first Emmy nomination. What’s the reaction when you see that you’ve been recognized for your work?

JE: I wasn’t even looking. I got a text from [Telsey Office colleague] Destiny Lilly that said, “Can’t wait to see you at the Emmys!” That’s how I found out.

I have a toddler, and I was trying to get her ready to go to day care. I couldn’t even process it in that moment. I very much wanted to be “Emmy-Nominated Casting Director Josh Einsohn.” I know it was a selfish thing and a prideful thing, but I very, very much wanted that.

Once I got her to day care and was able to come back and sit down, it hit me that I had crossed that line, and how excited I was, and then to see the rest of the nominees and to be working with Tiffany and our team and the show and the actors, it was a really sweet, beautiful moment.

Whereas Tiffany, it’s your eighth nod. Is it old hat for you now?

TLC: (Laughs) No, because each show is different. Anytime you get recognized, even if it’s a show that has been nominated many times in multiple seasons, like Only Murders in the Building, I’m still thinking about our guest cast from the season. The process to work there, and the directors we worked with, and the writers, and everyone.

This feels so specific to Monsters, which was such a special project for us, and so crazy with the strikes and everything, and also getting to discover the leads. That’s not always the case when you’re working on a show and feel like maybe you changed someone’s life by getting them on a show that you know people are going to watch. It never gets old hat. It’s always fun.