JENNIFER VENDITTI
Jennifer Venditti is an award-winning casting director and filmmaker who cast American Honey (2016), Uncut Gems (2019) and Euphoria (2019), among others, and directed acclaimed documentary Billy the Kid (2007). Her new book, Can I Ask You a Question?: The Art and Alchemy of Casting, takes its name from the phrase that Venditti has used thousands of times in approaching people, launching the careers of some of the most celebrated contemporary actors. Published by film studio A24, the book is a behind-the-scenes look at the process and philosophy of casting, and an expression of Venditti’s fascination with individual faces, experiences and histories. She spoke to TANK about the invisible forces that move the work and the stories that don’t make it into the public eye.
Interview by Caroline IssaPortrait by Michele Mansoor
CAROLINE ISSA In the book, I really appreciated how the Polaroids record so many of those faces and characters who the viewer wouldn’t normally see. What were the criteria for selecting those images?
JENNIFER VENDITTI I constantly feel like a detective or anthropologist, always learning about humanity. I take every encounter as sacred. I feel very fortunate that people allow me to come into their worlds and are open to having a conversation with a stranger. When A24 approached me, I had thought of making a film about casting but never a book. For some reason, the book felt more daunting, but my process was similar to what it is with everything, in that there’s a surrender to the magic. When I’m doing castings, it’s like there’s me and then there’s the spirit of the project, and if I can allow my intuition to guide me rather than being overwhelmed, I’ll find a synergy between what I feel and what I’m intuitively drawn to. I started to work with a friend of mine, Brian McCarter, who does True Will astrology, where your chart gives you insights into where you are in your life and what your purpose is at that time. We had long conversations about the themes that were in my chart, and then through those conversations I started remembering stories of casting projects. That’s where all the philosophical pieces came from, about seeing and being seen through the lens of casting, and the art and alchemy of acting. I wanted it to be a book about humanity through the lens of casting that allowed the viewer to have the experience that I have in the world. That’s why the beginning is of all those pictures in close-up, because when I’m walking down the street that’s how I see faces. Throughout the book I try to show what a day is like for me, places and interviews I’ve experienced, and then in between these stories, philosophical musings so the reader can see my frame of mind when I am experiencing people, and how it affects me, too.
CI You never reveal your final casting choices, though you have peppered the book with a few images of some of the ultimate cast members, some of whom have become cultural pop icons in shows like Euphoria. Why did you choose not to reveal the final choices?
JV For me, the art form is my process because it’s experiential. I find that when I’m casting something, I love to see the end result, but it’s not the most important thing to me; I have profound experiences with some of the people who never get cast. I find someone I think is incredible and have an exchange with them that’s meaningful, so even if they never end up in the final project that experience was just as important and inspiring to me.
CI The story of Melissa really shook me. Here’s someone you’ve scouted and cast [for a W Magazine shoot in West Virginia in 1998], who you think you’ve helped make it out of an abusive relationship, but then you tracked her down years later to find out that, tragically, her life has gone in another direction, involving drug addiction. Are you sometimes haunted by the connections you’ve made?
JV I was in the beginning. With Melissa I was like, OK, I’ve got to figure out what my intention is here. Later, I learned boundaries, but in the beginning I would get so connected to who people were and caught up in what could happen, but I realised that’s not my position, to change people’s lives in this profound way. First of all, who am I to say that their lives need changing? I learned very quickly that I’m offering an experience to people, not a ticket that’s going to change their life. It’s a job for which you’ll get money, but it’s not a ticket into this world that will then seamlessly and fully change your life forever. I was always very respectful and very clear about that from the beginning, because the fall is so much greater if you don’t set someone up to be able to receive it in a way that is realistic. My intention now is to share stories, faces and experiences so that we can learn more about what the human experience is like for other people, rather than just the select group deemed beautiful or to be doing something deemed interesting. When I went back to see Melissa, it was because I wanted to make a film about some of the people that I had cast who I’d never forgotten. When I saw her, it was devastating. We cross paths with people in our lives and we all have an effect on each other, but to think that you can be responsible for changing someone’s life can be very dangerous.
CI I enjoyed reading the letter that you got from a man in prison who had come to a casting and at the end of the letter he writes: “P.S. if you want to write me back, please make sure you write my cell-block number.” Did you ever write him back?
JV I didn’t.
CI Well, you weren’t going to become pen pals.
JV Exactly. When you do this job, you realise that it’s not good for the other person either. I always try to help if someone does want to continue acting, and I try to connect them and get them representation or get them support, but it doesn’t always happen. It’s not in everyone’s destiny. The experience might touch you and bring out something in you, like with Hunter [Schafer], who wasn’t looking to be an actor. We got her an acting coach to help support her audition and then she found that there was a truth in it for her, but there’s many other people I’ve gotten opportunities for, and they tried and it just didn’t work out. It’s rare, the person for whom it becomes a career. That happened for us even with models. Fashion today is so interesting because it’s currently championing something I was doing 20 years ago, when no one would bite. We had Paloma [Elsesser] in our files several years ago and she asked us to help her get an agency, and she couldn’t get one! It took 20 years for the industry to catch up with what I was doing 20 years ago. I’m sure there’ll always be something new, but what will continue is expanding how we see each other. When I first started in the fashion industry, it was a one-way conversation, but now it’s a conversation between the public and the magazines.
CI We live in a time where everyone has, essentially, their own reality-TV channel, their own pathway to discovery. Does that make your job easier or harder?
JV It’s different. It seems so antiquated, the idea that I would go to “Coal Country” in West Virginia or to Budapest and I would just wander around, sometimes with an assistant, hoping to find the one I was looking for. Now, even open calls are online. The first open call for Euphoria we were in a church basement in Midtown New York and about 50 people came over. Last season, we did an online open call for Euphoria and got like 5,000 submissions. But there are certain demographics of people that you can’t find online, who may require an event or a place to go and scout, but a lot of that is done through outreach and communities. It’s great in the sense that, as you said, there are more opportunities to find people, but there’s just so much noise. It’s not that it doesn’t still feel magical in the same way, like with Angus [Cloud], where one of my associates randomly turned a corner in New York City and found him. That’s a little bit more exciting than, you know, “I found him on Instagram.”
CI You write that you choreograph a dance between fantasy and reality. I think that’s beautiful in this age, where everything can be manufactured or is so easily attainable.
JV It gives you faith in forces that are greater than us. I remember I was doing a commercial at the beginning of FaceTime, and they wanted us to find real stories of real families or couples who would be FaceTiming; they wanted it to all be real, not actors pretending. We were scouting all over and someone at a Mets game found this guy, this young man with a friend. She was interviewing him and asking what he did for a living, and he said, “Well, actually, I just got diagnosed with cancer.” He said that his mom had just come from Spain to stay with him and to take care of him. Then a person scouting at the farmer’s market in Union Square across town had met this woman, and she said that she had come to New York City to take care of her son who had cancer. What are the chances of that? It gives me goosebumps, saying it. There’re a whole bunch of stories like that. With Angus, my scout Eleonore Hendricks was coming home from an acting class, it was 10pm, her phone was dead, so she couldn’t take a picture of him. He was a little bit sketched out and didn’t know if she was for real. He was with his friend and she told him and the friend to come the next day and he did, and his friend didn’t.
CI The rest is history. I loved a line from Josh Safdie’s essay in your book where he writes that after seeing your film Billy the Kid: “I had never been so inspired by human individualism.” It feels that you’re continuing to connect humans to stories through your own filmmaking and direction. Is that your ultimate form of job satisfaction now?
JV The key, whatever I do, whether it’s casting, writing this book or directing a film, is the human story. I would love to direct more films. I want to do things that ignite people’s hearts and openness to strangers, to understand what this human experience is. How can we be more compassionate with each other and with ourselves in that endeavour? ◉
Pages from Jennifer Venditti, Can I Ask You A Question?, A24, 2022