Jed Mercurio Quotes

The thing about many celebrities - not all - is that they're fantastic actors. If we've created a really juicy role, it just feels like a fantastic actor should be playing the part. If it's a long enough part, we consider anyone. If it's a single episode, we don't usually let a single actor on. Because that' s just stunting.

I think that casting is probably the most important thing in television production.

When you do casting in Hollywood, it's always the same question: 'Who is available?'

A film is a chain of very difficult decisions, and I think one of them is to choose an accurate cast.

I would like to see more of the making of just regular television shows. Like the casting process. I think it's so fascinating to watch the actors come in and see how they discuss everybody afterwards. It's a crazy world that has no rhyme or reason.

I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.

I think the choice of actors that we have is a little more varied and rich here in New York than in L.A.

I'd read a lot of scripts, and I remember reading 'Orange Is the New Black,' and it was at the head of the pack. I remember thinking, 'Wow, that is really good. I would love to be a part of that.'

If you cast the picture correctly, you have a whole lot of leeway. You can make mistakes in other aspects but pull it off with the right actors.

Normally, you cast a pilot, and you have to make compromises about being political about who you cast.

'Arrested Development' is great; Mitch Hurwitz is great. Plus, it's the one show I've ever had where, on the small parts, he just let me cast people.

Casting is everything. I put a huge amount of work into casting, and consistently across my career, I am most proud of my bold choices I made in casting.

Let's put it this way, when I was casting, I cast Viggo first and then found someone who could play his wife, rather than the other way around. So for me he's still the lead character.

It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.

Whenever I read a script, I start recasting the role that I might play. I'm like, 'God, this should be played by Domhnall Gleeson, not me.'

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

Bill Murray, we've got to get people worthy to be on the screen with him, as opposed to just a bunch of random… with no disrespect… but a bunch of random local actors.

I know that people get cast based on how they look in Hollywood.

Even when they have a star that they're going after, casting directors love, if anything, just the excuse to see people. They like to have a dugout full of actors that they can go to.

I like interesting casting, and casting people who you think might be slightly different in parts.

I imagine when you're making a reality show with a whole crew, it's bound to get complicated.

You have actors you've worked with previously, and you have actors you haven't worked with that you've seen in things where you know they can work in these parts. And then there are actors who blow you away, who surprise you.

Sometimes casting falls in place easily and sometimes it takes a while. Fifty per cent of my job is done when I get the right actors.

I am very filmmaker oriented, as a producer. I think the most important thing is that you have to really choose the players carefully.

If you read a part that you want to play, and you already know you have actors you want to work with but it's not on the page, it's not going to be on the screen. So that is the most difficult thing to do for a producer, is to get a script that attracts this kind of talent.