Filmmaker Noah Baumbach on the Casting of ‘White Noise’
When filmmaker Noah Baumbach was ready to cast his film White Noise, he turned to his longtime casting director Douglas Aibel. The latter, whose casting credits also include television’s Succession and the films The French Dispatch and Manchester By the Sea, was tapped to fill out the vast and often quirky characters who populate the story based on Don DeLillo’s classic 1985 novel.
White Noise, also adapted for the screen by Baumbach, is about a family—headed by actors Adam Driver and Gerta Gerwig—in a suburban college town who find themselves amid a toxic event stemming from a train accident. Don Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, and André 3000 also star.
The Netflix film, which already premiered at the Venice and New York film festivals, will get a select theatrical release on November 25 and a streaming release on December 30.
Baumbach spoke to Casting Networks after the film’s New York premiere about his relationship with Aibel, casting from audition tapes, and why he chooses to work with specific actors multiple times over.
How long have you worked with Doug?
I’ve worked with him since The Squid and the Whale, so we have a long relationship. As I do with many collaborators I work with repeatedly, I bring him in quite early to get him thinking. I’ll check in with him throughout the year and say, who are you liking? He runs the Vineyard Theater downtown [Manhattan], so he’ll introduce me to actors I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
There are certain established actors you have collaborated with numerous times, including Adam Driver and your real-life partner Greta Gerwig. You don’t need Greg to cast them. Where does his work become invaluable to you?
In this case, it becomes very important with the kids. I’ve had movies such as The Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story where casting the child was a key part. You’re essentially casting leads with unknowns. There’s always a kind of balance with children. You want them to know the lines, but at the same time, you want people who can be kids. Greg is just fantastic at finding a lot of these people. On this one, it was no different really than the others. We cast a wide net.
Tell me about that process.
I saw lots and lots of kids. Sam and May Nivola, who are [real-life] brother and sister, and Raffey Cassidy—they auditioned many, many times. They were incredible. I could rely on them as much as I could rely on Greta, Don, and Adam. I said [to the kids before we started shooting]: “You’re like a radio that was turned on at the beginning of the movie, and then it’s on for the whole movie, whether we hear you or not. When we check in, you guys are still talking and having the same conversation.”
And is that what happened with them?
It was. We’d call “cut.” They would be saying their lines as their characters and then start talking to each other (as themselves). It would be almost the same conversation but equally absurd. Particularly in the car scene. We would say cut, and Adam and Greta would stop. Then you’d hear the kids still going. Then we’d start the scene again, they would go into the scripted dialogue, and it would feel like the same conversation. It was amazing. So yeah, Doug is great. He’s somebody I go to pretty much immediately when I’m starting to think about what [project] I’m doing next.
There is a very peculiar— yet pivotal—character played by German actor Lars Eidinger. How did he make his way into this very American-set story? Was that Doug’s doing?
That was a very difficult part to cast, as you could imagine. Doug suggested him, and also my sister-in-law, Annie Baker, who is a playwright and director. And Greta knew of him.
He was asked to send in an audition tape. How was it when you watched it?
Lars is remarkable. His tape—I mean, sometimes you’re seeing remarkable actors who just aren’t a right fit for a part. You end up watching all these different tapes and you start to doubt the scene [you wrote]. Then when someone clicks, you’re like, “Oh, that’s what I thought I wrote.” That is the magic of casting. In most cases, it is not about how good anybody is. It is about finding that fit.
There are actors whom you work with repeatedly, including Adam Driver and your real-life partner Greta Gerwig. Is there a creative reason behind that?
Adam, Greta, and now Don (Cheadle) are these actors who you work with once and you know there’s more to explore, and there’s more to do. Adam is not the exact age of this character, but that was compelling to me because there is this aspect of the book and the movie that exists in this sort of elevated reality….There is a kind of performative aspect so I thought it would be really interesting to see the actors play away from themselves. Usually in my movies, I’m trying to move the actors to play closer to themselves. Of course, they’re using aspects of themselves, but since there is a kind of performance [to it], using things like makeup and wigs and prosthetics—things that I would normally not want to bother with in a movie—I thought, on this one, let’s do that. Let’s bring all that in. Adam gained weight and created this kind of physicality. So with Greta and Adam, it was exciting to explore this territory with them because I’ve worked with them a lot.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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