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Casting Directors , The Daily Roundup , The Industry

How Casting Theater Broke Bernard Telsey into TV and Film


January 9, 2025

There are casting legends, and then there is Bernie Telsey. A first-ballot Hall of Famer if there ever was one, Telsey is one of the most successful and prolific casting directors who ever lived, while also being one of New York’s more revered theatre producers.

While plenty of people surpass his more than 150 film and TV credits, they don’t usually cast theater, where Telsey and his team still do a large portion of their work. Since he exploded onto the Broadway scene with the original production of Rent in 1996, he has been one of the hub’s go-to casting directors. Telsey has also earned eight Emmy award nominations for shows like The Big C, This Is Us, and, most recently, Only Murders in the Building.

The respect he commands from his peers is obvious in the 55 Artios nominations he has earned in his career — yes, 55 — including six this year, for Only Murders, The Idea of You, The Gilded Age and Wicked, as well as two for stage shows, all while continuing to be co-artistic director of the MCC Theater. He spoke to us from his New York office.

Insights: Lessons from Bernard Telsey

  • Develop abilities for both theater and screen acting to broaden your casting potential.
  • Research and understand your audition material well to make a strong impression.
  • Build and maintain industry relationships; they can lead to diverse acting opportunities.

How did you get into casting?

I went to NYU for their theater management program. The short version, upon graduating, I didn’t want [to work] a full-time job for a producer because I was going to start my own theater company, which now, 40 years later, I still have. She introduced me to two casting directors who were looking for somebody part-time, Meg Simon and Fran Kumin. At the time, they did all the August Wilson and Neil Simon plays on Broadway. I started working for them part-time doing their bookkeeping and stayed for almost seven years.

Over time, I just fell in love with casting. From doing their books to then being a casting assistant to going to auditions, to organizing auditions, to learning my own taste, to going to the theater with them every night, it just became something that I enjoyed, and thought, “I can go down this track while also starting the theater company.”

You said you stayed with them for almost seven years. What happened next?

I worked for Billy Hopkins and Risa Bramon Garcia, who had exploded in the film world in New York, so they were looking for more people to work on a freelance basis. I was able to work for them while, again, still starting this theater, and learned a little bit more about movies. I left them and opened up my shed around 1988, doing commercials to start.

I was hiring all these New York theater actors, which became some sort of new enlightenment for commercials because they weren’t your average commercial television actor. That led to casting a play for Peter Sellers, who I knew from my Meg Simon days, and I just started doing little things like that while doing the commercials.

I feel like we’re building to the big thing that made you a star.

(Laughs) I did this musical for Peter Sellers called I Was Looking at the Ceiling, and Then I Saw the Sky. It was a rock opera, and it never really played in New York, but it was enough that Jim Nicola from the New York Theater Workshop and Michael Greif called and asked if I would work on this off-Broadway musical called Rent.

I’ve definitely heard of that one.

There you go. Hardest thing ever, and yet it was the biggest payoff ever, creatively and everything. Unbelievable. And it was a show that nobody wanted to be part of.

It was a time when the Off-Broadway musicals weren’t like now. Everyone does an Off-Broadway musical now because it’s a real showcase, but then, there had been a real lull. Pop-rock musicals like they are now are a dime a dozen, so it was really hard to find the kind of voices that Jonathan Larson wanted. And, of course, I didn’t know what I was doing.

It was like just being a detective. It was like, “okay, we’ll keep trying, we’ll keep trying, we’ll keep trying, we’ll keep trying,” and luckily, we got there.

Did your life change immediately?

When it was moving to Broadway, yeah. Like any actor, you have other Broadway producers call because now you know how to do Broadway. That was the turning point, that this became a profession that I’m going to pursue, with staff and real estate and the whole works. I just embraced it and loved it.

In the years you’ve been doing this, you’ve had a front-row seat to how casting has been perceived, and I’m curious if you’ve noticed a change.

Finally, yes. I mean, it still took way too long, but I’d rather think positively and think about the future.

I put a lot of energy and time with a handful of other people into trying to move the profession forward so we’re recognized, whether it be awards, financial union, you know, any of the various things. It’s four years now of a BAFTA, we’re about to get an Oscar, and 18 years of a union for film and TV, things that the generations before me never had.

It’s a real profession that people want to go into and make a living. People now come out of school and want to go into casting, as opposed to falling into casting. I’m very positive about all the things that we have gained, as far as recognition. Now we need the theater world to step up like the Emmys and the Oscars and have a Tony category, things like that.

I’ve talked to plenty of people who started in theater and then moved into movies and TV. Not a lot continue to do both like you do. I’m curious about that decision to keep your feet in both fields, on the theater, and the screen.

I feel very lucky. Let’s start there because actors want that all the time, right? I wouldn’t want one without the other.

It took a long time for me to break into television because I was the musical theater guy. I remember going to those interviews and not getting those jobs, but I worked hard to try to expand and work in different mediums. I think it ultimately was helped by my having done theater for so long because one of those theater people crossed over.

My first television show was The Big C, and that was [star] Laura Linney and [executive producer] Michael Engler, who I knew from doing theater, they asked me to come over and work on the show. Or Peter Hedges asking me to cast a movie, or Michael Patrick King. It was those people who I knew from doing multiple theater projects giving me a shot in the other medium, and then whether those pieces were successful, to help someone new.

You work with a lot of other casting directors, sharing credits and working in the same office. How did that come about?

I’ve built this office to include an amazing amount of talented other casting directors. By no means am I doing this by myself. I made the choice early on to say, “how could we make it so that there’s more work for more casting directors?” Which not only gives other people an opportunity but allows us to do more than one project at a time.

There are like, 15 senior people here who all have their projects, whether they’re with me or not, their relationships. And yes, it might have started because they worked for me — that’s how we got it — but now they are running with it and have those relationships. That’s what also makes the job so fun, because we all huddle together, and we’re all stealing ideas from each other, and sharing ideas from each other and saving ideas for each other. I love this whole collaboration idea, and that’s how I think it’s that’s mostly why we’ve been able to have our hand in so many things, because of the talent of the people working here.

Do you find that being a producer helps you as a casting director and vice versa?

I think that’s been an unconscious gift, because the things that you have to do at MCC as a producer, I understand the things that producers go through. If I’m casting for an Off-Broadway producer or Broadway producer, or even film, I get the stuff that they’re talking about. I’m able to see it from their eyes.

You have been nominated for a ridiculous amount of Artios Awards. Do you get just as excited as you did the first time?

Oh my God, yes. Just as excited for the project, for the people who worked on it with me, and just as nervous about not wanting to go up on stage and accept it, or wanting to go on stage and accept it. None of it feels repetitive.

Working on so many things at once, you must see a ton of actors in auditions. Do you find that there are common mistakes they make?

I don’t know if I call them “mistakes,” but they’re things that just get in the way of them being able to be present in the room and have an exchange of words with whoever might be on the other side. A lot of it is preparation. A lot of it is knowing what they’re you know, what they’re expected to do in this audition and what the expectations are.

With that in mind, what advice or wisdom would you give to an actor coming in to audition for you?

Understand what’s expected, do what’s expected and be prepared.

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