Spending five decades in any profession is a heck of an accomplishment. Even more so when you’re talking about the entertainment industry. Toronto-based Marsha Chesley is approaching the 50-year mark in her field, making her one of the grande dames of casting directors, Canadian or otherwise.
After starting her career at the Canadian Broadcasting Company, she went off on her own more than 30 years ago and, in that time, has cast dozens of Canadian movies and TV shows. In 2004, she also wrote the book, You Got the Part! A Casting Director Guides Actors to Successful Auditions for Film and Television, which is a perennial bestseller north of the border. Her most recent film, Darkest Miriam, premiered earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival. She spoke with us from her home office.
Insights: Get to know Marsha Chesley
- Marsha Chesley’s journey began with a passion for theater, which led her from acting to casting.
- Chesley got her break into casting through persistence and networking. Actors should continually work on networking and persevering through rejections or non-responses.
- After decades of experience, Chesley wrote You Got the Part! to guide actors in auditions. Actors with unique insights or experiences can consider sharing their knowledge through writing or other mediums, which can also boost their profile and credibility in the industry.
- Chesley emphasizes that actors must do more than memorize lines—they should understand the character, the scene’s purpose, and the story’s context. Actors should approach every audition with the same level of preparation as a major role.
- Actors must adapt to new methods, such as self-taping, and remain flexible to industry changes while maintaining the core principle of preparation and performance.
How did you get into casting?
It was a circuitous route. I was a semi-professional child actor. A lot of radio stuff and that kind of thing. I became a high school teacher, but I saw everything there was to see in Toronto in those days, which wasn’t much. I’m talking the early 70s at this point, but I went to everything that I could go to and at some point thought, “well, maybe I’ll try some community theater.”
I had a light bulb moment when I got one of those calls from a producer who said, “would you like to come and audition for a play that’s going to go on in a small town in Northern Ontario in the middle of winter?” I said, “no, thank you, I don’t want to go to Northern Ontario in the middle of winter.” I hung up the phone and I went in the next day and I handed in my resignation. I’d been teaching high school for four years. I liked it, but I thought, I don’t want to be an actor, but I want something more.
And casting was that something more?
I heard that the CBC, our national broadcaster, was opening a casting office. I started trying to get to the woman who was the head of that department, but I just couldn’t seem to get through to her. In the meantime, I was offered a full-time teaching job, right before the Christmas holidays, on a Monday. The principal said he needed to know so he could have someone in place for after the break, and I said, “I’ll let you know Friday.”
Something was holding me back. As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang in my hand. It was that woman I’d been trying to reach. She did everything in her power to try and dissuade me, but I insisted and she gave me an interview for Friday morning. She hired me on the spot.
It’s amazing how life works sometimes.
Later, I asked her, “Why did you hire me?” She said, because it was brand new, “I was just looking for people that I thought were smart and team players and could do it.” I started at the bottom and was with that casting department almost till its end, about 16 years. By that time, I was still doing casting, but I had become an associate producer.
What was it about casting that had you so fixated that you decided that this was the avenue you needed to pursue?
I never thought of that before. I have to think that, as I told you, at that time, I saw every single play that it was possible to see here in Toronto. I think that must have been the impetus, that I thought I could have found somebody better for a part.
What led to you writing the book?
I got interviewed by a woman who wanted to write a book about casting. I didn’t think she was a particularly good interviewer, and when the book came out, it wasn’t about casting, it was a series of interviews with casting directors.
I do not have the great Canadian novel in me, but I always could write. I had started taking a writing course and worked with this teacher for several years, and it was fabulous. She was so good and knew how to give you criticism so that at the end you thought, “wow, that thing I wrote was so good.” I just started writing personal stories, and it got to the point that she said to me, “Marsha, it’s been a year. You’ve got to send it out.”
To publishers?
I hadn’t told a soul about it, and when she said that, she scared the shit out of me. She said send it out to people that you admire and respect and get opinions. So that’s what I did. I just sort of cataloged all the comments and incorporated the ones I thought were valuable. Then she said, “now you’ve got to send it out.”
I hired a copy editor, and then, there’s a very famous bookstore in Toronto called TheatereBooks and I knew the two guys who ran it, and thought, “I’m going to ask their advice.” I made two coil-bound copies at Kinko’s and made an appointment with one of the guys, went to the store at the appointed time, but he forgot about our appointment. So I left it there for him, and he called me a couple of days later apologizing, and said he read the manuscript and he knew a publisher in Winnipeg, and with my permission, he’d send it. He couriered it to him on a Monday. On that Wednesday, the publisher called me, and he said, “I’m publishing your book.”
That’s amazing. That doesn’t happen.
It does not happen. And TheatereBooks championed it. Now, it’s in all of the libraries of the universities and colleges that have theater programs or film programs.
Do you have actors coming to you and talking to you about how that book has helped them?
I still, if I go to a theater or something, and there’s an actor that has read it, they’ll come up to me and say, “it changed my life.” It was the most fun and satisfying thing I’ve done outside of my work in my whole life.
I think that most casting directors leave an impact on actors because of interpersonal interaction, whereas you seem to have the opportunity here with this book to do that without ever necessarily meeting a lot of the actors you’re helping.
I think probably one of the most valuable things is the myths. Actors will say all the time, “oh, She hates me. She brings me in all the time and I never get the part.” If I hated you, I wouldn’t bring you in. When you try and point that out to them, they’re so shocked.
Throughout your five-decade career, how has casting changed?
As my career winds down, I realized the last few projects that it’s all done online. The best part of my job, being in the room, is gone.
Are there particular mistakes that actors make in auditions?
I don’t know about mistakes, but when I’m teaching actors in film schools or wherever, if I’m asked to come in and just talk, I always start with one thing, and it’s a shock to them.
I say, “you’ve worked with all the best teachers and you’ve worked hard and you’re terrific and you’re going to graduate in two months and then you’re going to say, ‘okay, now I’m an actor.'” I’m the person here to tell you, “no, what you are is an auditioner.”
For that reason, you have to have … respect is maybe too strong a word, but you have to take this one-line part no one has thought about, and you have to figure out why the writer put it in there. When was the last time you went to Starbucks? You stand and wait in line and it gets to be your turn, the person says something. We have to cast that person. Did anybody think about what kind of person? No. So you have to figure it out.
What piece of advice or wisdom would you give to an actor coming into audition for you?
Prepare. That’s the number one. Prepare in all the ways possible. Not just memorizing, that’s not enough. It is doing everything that you would do for a scene study class in school. Why is the scene in here? What happens in this scene? What happened before the scene? What happens after the scene? What do you think of the people? For all the questions you would ask in scene study, be prepared.
Looking for more industry knowledge? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Audition Advice from Casting Directors!
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