As a teenager, casting director Lisa Beach remembers sitting in a darkened theater watching the 1973 Woody Allen film Sleeper with her mom. When the end credits scrolled up to reveal, “Casting by Lynn Stalmaster,” her mother turned to Beach and said: “Now wouldn’t that be a fun job! Why don’t you write to her?”
“Clearly, my mom didn’t know that Lynn Stalmaster was not a woman, but the fact that she made that statement, and now I’m doing the most fun job in the world, ended up being pretty prophetic!” said Beach.
But the Harvard graduate — who was determined to attend an Ivy League school after watching Ali McGraw fall in love with Ryan O’Neal on the school’s campus in 1970’s Love Story — never thought she’d end up in entertainment.
During the ’80s, Beach was dating a former boarding school classmate. When he got a job working on the set of the Tom Hanks/Rita Wilson film Volunteers in Mexico, she tagged along, eventually getting hired as director Nicholas Meyer’s assistant.
After the film wrapped, she moved to Los Angeles to be Meyer’s personal assistant. When Meyer hired casting director David Rubin (who coincidentally worked at Lynn Stalmaster and Associates at the time) for a project, Beach was introduced to a whole other world. By 1986, she was working as Rubin’s assistant, learning the casting ropes.
“The rest is history,” said Beach, who went on to have a prolific career, eventually forming Beach/Katzman Casting with Sarah Katzman after they met on Wes Craven’s Scream.
Today, with nearly 100 projects under her belt, 10 Casting Society Award nominations, and 3 CSA wins (Election, About Schmidt, Wedding Crashers — the latter two shared with Katzman) — there is probably no movie star Beach has not auditioned on their rise to the top, even a future royal with Meghan Markle, whom she cast as a FedEx girl in Horrible Bosses. (“We’d always call Meghan in; we loved her,” Beach said. “Back then, she was like any actor, looking for their next job.”)
In this two-part exclusive, Beach spoke to Casting Networks about her experience in casting some of the most memorable films in Hollywood, reveals her auditioning pet peeves, and offers advice on how actors can stay busy while quarantined.
PART ONE
What do you consider your first big casting opportunity?
School Ties was my first big job. I’ll never forget that interview because a casting director is much like an actor where they have to “audition” for the job. I went to Paramount to meet with [studio execs] Sherry Lansing and Stanley Jaffe. When I read the script, I could already see the film and the characters in my head. I knew those people. I went to boarding school with those types. I knew exactly how to cast this film.
“During my meeting, they were still looking for boarding schools, and I said, ‘Have you gone to Middlesex yet? Have you seen that campus because it’s the most beautiful one on the planet.’ Stanley said no, he hadn’t. Then he went up there and decided that’s where they’d shoot. That’s when I got the job.
You’ve had a lot of long-standing relationships with filmmakers, including Alexander Payne. You brought Reese Witherspoon to his attention for Election.
When I read that script, I said to myself, it’s Reese Witherspoon. I’d seen her in Man on the Moon and thought she was unbelievable. I knew she’d be perfect. We saw every girl in town for the role. Reese came in for a meeting with Alexander. She had just done Pleasantville. Later, Alexander and I were sitting outside on the steps of my old offices in Santa Monica, and he said, “Do you really think Reese Witherspoon is the answer for this?” I said, “Absolutely, without question. She is Tracy Flick.” And do you know how I knew that? Because I was Tracy Flick. That’s why I loved the script so much. I mean, I didn’t cheat to get into Harvard, but I swear to God, I was that girl. And I knew Reese could be her too.
You’ve cast so many of James Mangold’s films for the past 20 years, including Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, and the Wolverine franchise. There are a lot of Oscar winners in those casts. Can you tell when you’ve got an award-winner in the audition room?
I remember when Angelina Jolie came in to audition for Girl, Interrupted. I was the reader. As soon as she left the room, I turned to Jim and said, “There’s your best supporting Oscar actress win.” And in fact, it was true. She was just mind-blowing.
Flash forward to recent castings. Are there any people you are especially proud to have cast?
Will Poulter as Kenny for We’re the Millers. I remember seeing the (British) movie Son of Rambow, where he played the little boy’s best friend. When he walked into the Millers audition, he opened his mouth and out came a perfect American accent. He literally became Kenny, that dopey kid. If you didn’t know him, you would never guess the kid was British.
And that was it, he got the part after that?
To tell you the truth, Will Poulter was a tough sell because there were a couple of kids with more name value than him. In fact, Will had no name value at the time. But [director] Rawson Thurber loved him, so we had him audition with Jason Sudeikis, and that audition session was fantastic. Then it was more of a kind of debate with the studio, because they wanted a bigger name for that part.
How hard do you have to fight for your first choice actor to be cast?
As the casting director, I can only go up to a certain point. For example, Rawson was fighting that particular fight for Will and obviously prevailed. But for me, in a perfect world, casting would be purely creative and subjective, with everybody agreeing on the same choice. But that doesn’t always happen, and sometimes you have to accept that. You have to know when you’ve pushed it far enough and can’t go any further, so you happily take on the challenge of looking for another type.