Julie Schubert talks Casting Hulu’s ‘Under the Bridge,’ the Importance of Her Work on the Holocaust Documentary ‘Resistance: They Fought Back’

May 28, 2024 | Neil Turitz
Photo Courtesy of Julie Schubert.

Julie Schubert was, by her own admission, not a good actor. She is, however, a very good casting director.

Just take a look at her impressive list of credits and they’ll do the talking for her: the six Netflix Marvel shows, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher, as well as the seminal Mindhunter, House of Cards (for which she won an Emmy in 2013), the two Fifty Shades sequels and Manifest, just to name a select few.

More recently, she consulted on the powerful Holocaust documentary Resistance: They Fought Back, and cast Hulu’s limited series Under the Bridge, starring Riley Keough and Killers of the Flower Moon star and Oscar nominee, Lily Gladstone. She took time out from her very busy schedule to chat with us from her home office in New York.

How did you get into casting?

I mean, it was partly by accident. I went to college at NYU. I thought I wanted to be an actor and realized very quickly that I was absolutely terrible at it. But I really loved working with actors, and my senior year, I got a bunch of internships, one of them happened to be in casting, and I fell in love with it.

You get to work with actors every day. You get to work on really interesting, unique material that changes as the process goes on. And, you never have to be seen, which was one of the biggest challenges for me as an actor.

(Laughs) I also got really lucky with the people I got to work for. Juliet Taylor, Ellen Lewis, Denise Champion, who gave me my very first casting director credit, which was incredibly generous and Laray Mayfield. Creatively fantastic mentors who actually were at a point in their career where they were mentoring.

What was it that made it so magical for you?

It’s the gift of being able to help shape a performance. What I love about actors is that they have a point of view, and that’s so important.

You could give 20 actors the same piece of material, and each one of them will come in with something different, that is uniquely their own. Getting to help shape that in a way, seeing the character be fully realized, and knowing that this could be what ultimately ends up on the screen, that to me is the most exciting part of it.

It continues to fascinate me how often I hear two things when talking to casting directors. One is how many originally wanted to be actors, and the other is how often someone fell into it.

I wanted to be an actor, but then realized that I didn’t want to actually act and this was a great way to work in that world. Casting was not a very high profile position within the film industry growing up, but once that HBO documentary Casting By came out, I think it’s much more relevant and people know it.

People are actually going to college into casting programs that were created specifically to teach the art of casting. I’m finding a lot of the people that I interview are specifically looking for casting positions, and they have been since high school because they know what it is. It’s just a more recognizable profession now.

You recently did something which I think very few casting directors get to do: you cast a documentary.

My grandparents were survivors, so for me, it was a way to connect with a piece of the history that isn’t really talked about.

They don’t talk about resistance fighters. It’s always about the trauma, which is obviously still traumatic, but it’s an important story that I think needs to be told. It’s also really important because, unfortunately, there’s a lot of school kids who don’t believe the Holocaust existed.

One of the things I noticed about your career is that you tend to go back and forth a lot between film and TV. Do you find you prefer one or the other?

It’s funny. I love long-form storytelling. So in that way, I’m grateful that I get to do that in these unique specific series. I don’t tend to do the 22-episode orders. I love a tight eight to 10, or a limited series, like Under the Bridge. I just think that you can have such an impact.

In that sort of filmmaking, there’s a beginning and an end and that is one of the things I love about film casting. You do get to be as specific as you possibly can, knowing that what this piece is, you don’t have anywhere else to go with it.

Sometimes, especially with something ongoing, you’re always thinking, this actor is incredible, this role may not be as meaty as one that I could utilize later on. But you never know what’s going to come down the pike.

It’s always that negotiation of trying to figure out, will I lose this incredibly brilliant actor in a bigger arc later on? You don’t have to do that in a film or a limited series, because you know where it’s going. You know it’s going to end, so you really can get the exact actor you want. That’s what I love about Under the Bridge. I’m super proud of that cast, especially those kids. It’s terrifying to watch them, quite honestly, in the best way possible.

Mentioning the kids in Under the Bridge feels like a good segue to this: What piece of advice or wisdom would you give to someone coming into to audition for you?

Have a point of view. I think so many times, actors get in their way because they’re trying to think of what the creative team wants. If you’re doing that, you’ve already lost the game.

What we’re looking for is someone with a unique point of view that makes sense. Do the research. Read the scripts if they’re available to you. See what the filmmakers have done in the past.

IMDB is very accessible, and it’ll give you a sense of tone, and a sense of trajectory, and you can make choices based on the material that you’re given. So when you go into an audition, you’re coming in with a clear perspective, and that’s what I want.

That’s the beauty of being an actor, you get to create the character you want to create. Then, if it’s off, we can figure out how to maneuver within the work that you’ve already created to make it make sense for what I know the team is looking for. So that would be my best advice.

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