John Levey was born in New York City to a scientist (one of the first women to receive a Ph.D. in the hard sciences from Columbia) and a New York Times columnist (a tradition his brother carries on today with a column in the Washington Post— providing Levey with what he jokingly calls, “a suspicious relationship with the press”). He started going to the theatre at a fairly young age, when his mother forced him to stop playing basketball and sent him to shows instead. It wasn’t long before theatre was the preferred pastime. He began his career as a director, first as a directing fellow at the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, where he assisted the late, great director José Quintero. While there, he helped produce the Taper Literary Cafe at the Itchey Foote Restaurant and directed the Taper Too productions of Estonia You Fall and Cakewalk. His other directorial work includes, Shades at South Coast Rep. and The Dining Room at the Coronet Theatre. His most notable television casting work includes: Shameless, Southland, China Beach, Head of the Class, Growing Pains, the MOWs Promises to Keep, Babe Ruth, and the critically acclaimed ER, for which both he and Barbara Miller (senior vice president of casting at Warner Bros.), have won two Emmys and four Artios Awards. Levey was recently named vice president of talent and casting at Warner Bros.
No, I didn’t want to act. I like attention but I don’t crave it. I have ambition but it’s not at the center of my life. I like to participate rather than be at the center. Casting is being part of the storytelling which I love. That whole aspect of communication is enormously fascinating to me and now, unlike the storytelling of previous generations, you don’t have to be the storyteller to participate.
In television, casting is the rehearsal process, casting is the tone meeting, casting is where the director, writer and producer come together about what the quality of the scene ought to be. You can see and really like five different actors for a role and each is going to bring something different. So you ask yourself, “What’s at the center of the scene? What qualities do you need to tell the story?”
And you must keep in mind that that story is almost always about the series regular. The guest is there to feed the story about the star. Even if you’ve got bravura, virtuoso kind of a part, the scene is really about the regular because that’s whose life we’re tracking. That little part of you that’s the actor, not the character, has to think about shining a light on the star. In a comedy, you may have your own jokes but you’re probably there to set up the jokes for the star. The stories we’re telling on ER are the stories of the nine series regulars.
When I was at the Taper, I had the opportunity to work with Steven Berkoff, Jose Quintero, John Madden, Gordon Davidson and a lot of talented and wonderful, charismatic people. It crystallized my feeling that the key to great storytelling is what you can freely, deeply, authentically bring of yourself to the work—your own charismatic nature, the things that are your strengths and your power base. If you can bring that into your task—and probably this is true in the selling of aluminum siding or any other job but certainly in the telling of human stories—then you have something. If you can’t bring your own powerful self into the work, then you’re probably not going to be a great artist.
I grew up surrounded by talent. Later, I had to learn the rules, regulations and procedures. But being around talent was never intimidating to me. I understand the writer, I understand the director, I understand the actor. I understand their processes and their needs. I can foster communication between these groups that don’t often understand each other, even though they’re so intrinsically tied. Directors are so visual and actors are so instinctively emotional and writers are so cerebral. When they combine in a beautiful, functional way, you’ve got the whole deal. The best part of the work that I do on ER isn’t the result (although I’m very proud of the result), it’s the environment the actors get to audition in. An actor just sent me a thank you note saying that I made it easy for him and allowed him the opportunity to stop thinking about being in a room auditioning and to commit to the work. If I do anything that I’m really proud of, it’s that I create an environment for actors to do their best.
The solution to everything is do your work. If you’re looking in the hallway and thinking, “She’s prettier than I am,” or, “It calls for a bald guy and I have more hair,” your goose is cooked. Come in and play the scene. Do what you intend. Make a choice, execute your choice and go on with the rest of your day. If you end up punching the steering wheel saying, “Why did I do that?” or, “Why didn’t I do that?” then you’re watching yourself in the audition. Just come in and take a big swing at the ball. It lands where it lands, and go on with your day. How do you cope with your insecurity about a pimple that they may or may not notice? Just do the work. You can’t control the other stuff but you can control the work.
It’s about honesty. That’s what I try to bring to my work and to the environment that I create for actors - and that’s what I expect from actors - that they’re going to bring their authenticity, not falseness of any kind. No acting, please! Being. If I do anything to help actors achieve that, it’s by using my own authenticity. I’m myself, I fool around, I talk about my problems.
I don’t know. I just know when someone hits my receptivity button, they hit. Just yesterday we put out a breakdown. I went through enough pictures to fill six U.S. mailboxes. I found one or two who I will bring in and who may be among the six or seven people I bring to the producers for each role. I’m sure it’s not fair and I’m sure I’m missing out on a lot of great people, particularly young kids who haven’t yet landed.
When I first started working with Barbara Claman many years ago, she said, “I’ve got a working knowledge of 10,000 actors.” I didn’t know how that was possible. And now I know. I’ve been casting for more than a dozen years and I’ve seen a helluva lot of people. I can’t always remember my children’s birthdays but I can remember all those people.
I also do go to the theatre, although more and more I go to see somebody who I already know and like. In so doing I will, of course, see the other people. I went to see an old friend in something and there were other people in it who were wonderful. I brought them in and one ended up on the show. I go to the Taper more often than I go to waiver theatre because I like to be a regular guy and just be entertained. I don’t like it when people know that I’m there. I get a great many invitations and I go when I can. My assistant, Cheryl, is very diligent and goes to a lot of stuff. I also do look at tapes, although I don’t accept unsolicited tapes under any circumstances. I send them back, unwatched.
Do the work. That should be the answer to every question you ask me.
Not all of them are. I think that actors are a singularly lazy group. A lot of them rely on how cute or funny or charming they are. Most of them don’t do their work even if they’re in class. They must learn to bring their authentic selves to their work. Many of the actors I know are strategizing and hiding—relying on tricks they’ve had success with in the past and pretending to be the people they’re supposed to be inhabiting. That’s not doing your work, that’s relying on how great your eyes are, how sharp your smile is, how great you look in fashionable clothes. That’s not the answer. Those are all wonderful attributes but drawing from the well of the truth and exploring how to get more and more of your authentic self into your work, is doing the work. Hiding behind the various successful masks that you’ve used in the past isn’t doing the work, it’s faking people out. Most actors fake people out.
What they really need to do is artistically uncover. Gary Shandling was recently talking about the value of terror and harnessing that terror instead of trying to hide it. Terror can overwhelm your ability, but if you can harness your terror then you have an engine. Find a way to roll with what you actually are, instead of trying to hide it. After all, if an actor doesn’t invest himself, what else does he have? A piano player has eighty-eight keys and each key has its sound and will always have it. As an actor, you are the instrument and the player and you’ve got to find where G is. All you have is your own uniqueness. If you try to homogenize yourself, you’re diluting your uniqueness. If you try to guess what they want and become that, you’re strategizing and you’re not in the moment. All you can do is what you can do. And that’s not a limitation. Your responsibility is to become as interesting a person as you can. If you’re going to tell human stories, be as dimensional a human being as you can. Actors spend far too much time at the gym. While it’s nice to have a good body, actors should be as interested in developing themselves spiritually, emotionally and intellectually as they do physically. They tend to think that grooming, attire and body—the physical self—is the true self. Truth is exploring your own humanity. Most of us spend time with people who are mirror images of ourselves and it can be pretty boring. It doesn’t enhance you as an artist in any way to do that. See if you can spend a third of the time that you are spending in the gym, doing something that you don’t have an inclination for, and see if you can develop an inclination for it.
Don’t be late, don’t be unprepared and don’t blame me if you’re unprepared. People come in and say, “Oh, I just got these sides,” and I’d like to kill them because I made the sides available at least the day before.
I’ll say it again: if you want to do this rather awesome thing - the storytelling of our time and what it is to be a human being - then you have to invest yourself. You have to understand something about the evolution of human nature. Certainly it’s fun to get awards and ride in limousines, but it’s more exhilarating by far, to do your work with all of who you are.
John Levey – SVP. Casting, John Wells Productions
818.954.4080
4000 Warner Blvd. Bldg 1. Burbank, CA 91522