Directors Tell the Story

Chapter 3

Casting

Any director will tell you that casting is a huge part of the job. John Frankenheimer, director of The Manchurian Candidate and Birdman of Alcatraz, went so far as to put a number on it. He said, “Casting is 65 percent of directing.”¹ Why would he say that casting is more than half the job? It goes back to what we already talked about in the first two chapters: breaking down the script for story and character. You can’t cast unless you know what you need. Once you do, you need the additional skill of being able to recognize talent and suitability.

If you can do all these things, you will have the right faces on the screen to help you tell the story in the best way possible. To continue our metaphor of the story being the journey ...