Casting Director Renee Godbout on Working with an Oscar-Winning Director

Since the Oscars just happened, I thought this would be a good time to share my experience of working with Jonathan Demme. For those not familiar with Demme, he won an Oscar for directing Silence of the Lambs and has also directed Philadelphia and a remake of The Manchurian Candidate. I know him from the low budget film Dancing with Shiva, out later this year, starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger. Hathaway plays a recovering addict who comes home from rehab in time for her sister's wedding. Winger plays her mother.It would probably best be described as a dramedy - a drama with a few comedic undertones.

So when I was first told I was going to be working on the film with Jonathan Demme, I was a little nervous. I had already been told he was a little quirky but I didn't know quite what to expect. I figured he might be very opinionated and want things to be done a certain way. What I discovered during our first meeting is he is someone that listens to other people. We were sitting down at a table going through photos for certain featured extras that were needed and every time I commented on a certain actor, his ears automatically perked up. He'd ask, "What did you say? You like this person? Let's put him aside." I figured out quickly that suggesting certain people for each role was really the best way to get Jonathan to make a decision. He trusted the people around him to know what they are doing and that made me very happy.

The second time we met up was at a group interview session. There is one scene in the film that Jonathan was really going to focus on and wanted to hand pick everyone in the room. It was a Narcotics Anonymous meeting that required a wide variety of "real" people. So we had all of the actors sit in a circle and one by one Jonathan called them up to meet him. He spent maybe 30 seconds with them and that was it. From those 30 seconds, he picked a number of actors for a few different scenes. It was incredible to watch him work, often on instinct. After meeting one actor, he even came up with a little scene where a valet sneaks into the wedding and dances with the other guests. Getting actors to go to the interview had to be one of the easiest tasks I have ever had. It went kinda like "Are you available for an interview with Jonathan Demme on Tuesday?" and the response was "Jonathan Demme? Yeah, of course. I'll change my whole schedule." Once we started shooting, the days went by quickly and always wrapped at a decent hour. It really was nice to see that excellence and egotism don't always go hand and hand. Actors told me afterwards how incredible it was to work with a director like Jonathan Demme. He's so creative and gives even the extras some motivation to work with. They really learned a lot from him and so did I. No wonder he got the Oscar!

Renee Godbout - Freelance Casting Director. Renee Godbout recently worked on the first season of The CW's popular teen show Gossip Girl at Grant Wilfey Casting. Some past projects include 2 seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the pilot for Dirty Sexy Money, and the upcoming Jonathan Demme-directed Dancing with Shiva.