Fred Roos and Martina Gedeck - Actors don't have many choices - they have to work!

updated: November 16, 2009

“Talentspotting" – Fred Roos and Martina Gedeck, interviewed by Sandy Lieberson. Berlinale Talent Campus, February 15, 2006.

Sandy Lieberson: I would like to welcome Fred Roos on to the stage. I would also like to welcome a special guest who has agreed to come and sit with us and chat about her

work, Martina Gedeck. Martina is one of Germany’s most gifted actresses. I discovered her myself, looking through a bunch of videos, and I picked out MOSTLY MARTHA (BELLA MARTHA,

Sandra Nettelbeck, 2001) about 18 months ago, and you came out of that movie so fresh, so unexpected, and now I realise you have done eighty television

shows, films, you are a very experienced actress.

So it is a real pleasure and honour to have you here with us. I would like to talk a little bit about Fred’s work as a casting director, but I would also like to talk about what it is like for actors and actresses to go

through the process. It is interesting because Fred and I had similar backgrounds. We both worked at agencies representing actors, and for me, it meant that I always, for the

rest of my life, I always identified with actors and creative talent in terms of always thinking of representing them in some way. Whether it was as a studio

executive or as a producer. I never picked up a script without casting it in terms of my clients as an actor. I don’t know whether you have a similar

experience, but you somehow or other were able to identify through this process with acting. How did that come about? Do you think being an agent,

representing them had anything to do with it?

Fred Roos: That was such a brief period of my life, the agency thing, it was just 18 months, it was not a thing I was setting out to do, it was just my foot in the door

in the business, but certainly started working closely with actors during that period. But even in college and film school, on the little films we made, I

would enjoy the finding the right actor for the part. And I felt even then that I was good at it.

CASTING IN AMERICAN TELEVISION

Sandy Lieberson: How did you get started in television, because that was where you really started as a casting director?

Fred Roos: No, I didn’t start in television. That was a later period. After the brief agency period I kind of agented myself a job with a production company that was

making a lot of low-budget movies. So, I cast about forty low-budget movies. The production company was run by a fellow named Robert Lippert. So in this

period I got to know almost every actor in town, and every agent. Then I made my first two films as a producer. Both starring Jack Nicholson. Then after that

I needed a job, because I was always trying to get new films off the ground but in the meantime I had to work, and I was hired to cast some American

television series, ANDY GRIFFITH, BAD GIRL, I-SPY and so forth.

Sandy Lieberson: So these weren’t just television series, these were some of the most popular television shows on at that time. The main leads were already cast, Andy

Griffiths, and people like that. So what was the process like? Could you make a distinction between casting for television, casting for movies?

Fred Roos: Well, there was a new script every week and a new set of casting problems, so it went very fast. And even the directors were always changing, so you never

really got into a close relationship with a director because they were always new. I never think about that period too much except I met a lot of actors in

that period.

Sandy Lieberson: Martina, you were in a television series for quite a while weren’t you?

Martina Gedeck: Right. At the time when I started doing films there were actually no movies in Germany, so when you want to be in a film you had to be on TV. There were

low-budget movies but they were produced like television movies. It was in the late 80ies.

THE CASTING PROCESS IN GERMANY

Sandy Lieberson: What is the casting process like in Germany? Are there casting directors here that you would normally work with? How are television and films cast here in

Germany?

Martina Gedeck: I think it is pretty much the same as in the States. It is difficult in the beginning. It is always difficult in the beginning. You have to go to castings. I

was lucky enough because I went to a very great acting school. We would do monologues and we would put them on video and then they would show the videos to

the television stations. That is how I got my first part. Then I did a film in a kind of Campus type of situation with a film school, and a now very famous

German director, Dominik Graf. He was in the Max Ophüls Festival Jury and he saw me in this film so I was lucky enough not to have to do too many castings in

the beginning. But normally you go to readings or castings. Except that the technique is different. We don’t have this reading kind of thing. We try to make

the situation. So we put a bench and the couch and the real room, and we try to act. Which is stupid because it is a phoney and artificial atmosphere. So I

think it is better to cope with the artificiality of it.

THE CASTING PROCESS IN AMERICA

Fred Roos: Maybe I should tell the group here what the typical casting process is in America. A casting director, whether it is a television series or a movie, will come up with a list of the people he thinks are right for the part, and sometimes a

director will ask for certain people, and there will be an audition. Audition sessions go on for days or weeks, sometimes months, and you can go all over the

country looking for people, but usually there is the first interview session where you just meet a lot of people and you don’t do any readings. You and your

director are just meeting people like every ten or fifteen minutes having a chat.

You huddle up after that with your director and you decide which of those people you want to have back to read, the so-called call-backs, and you prepare

sides. Sides are audition scenes, usually two to three pages, and the actors are given that with same days in advance. They don’t have to do it cold,

although I have seen it done cold and I have actually put actors through it cold sometimes. Then, the ones that you call back come in and read. Sometimes the

actor will have learned it and doesn’t have to have the paper in his hand. But it is not prejudiced for myself or the director if the actor has to read it,

because he is acting it but using the paper in his hand.

From that you make your choice or you have even more call backs from the final two. Or you decide to go to video tape or film and test the best ones. I have

been through every variation of this process. When Francis and I wanted to change this process, and I don’t think any actors like that, or going through

that, but that is the way it is done. One time on some movie, I forget which movie we were doing, Francis said: “Let’s change that way of doing it. Let’s

give a party and invite all the actors that we are thinking about. And we will just work the room, little by little, over the course of the party, and chat

with everybody instead of the actors waiting outside our office. It will be a party.” So we put on a wonderful party at somebody’s house and invited all of

these actors. And it was so unnatural. It was not a natural party. Because they were all watching us as they were having their drinks and chatting, thinking,

is he going to work his way round to us, is he going to miss me, shall I work my way towards him? It was very funny.

THE CASTING OF “ELEMENTARY PARTICLES”

Sandy Lieberson: I can imagine what is was like. What about you, Martina, what is the process for you of having to audition? Are actors ever past the point where they have

got to audition for a director or a producer?

Fred Roos: I am sure you don’t have to audition?

Martina Gedeck: That is true. But what can happen, and what just happened about one year ago is that there is a director who is not really convinced. And he asks if he may

try some little things. Like for instance when they call you and they say: “We want to try out some things with the make-up and hair and costume.” So you

say: “Of course, it is important, it is interesting.” And then one day later you get scenes that you have to prepare. It is funny because that happened with

the film you just saw in Berlinale Competition, ELEMENTARY PARTICLES (ELEMENTARTEILCHEN, Oskar Roehler, 2005).

I was cast about a year before the shoot, and then about three months before the shoot I got this kind of thing. And I got very mad and upset because I

thought the director does not believe in me, and he must have seen something that shook his confidence. And then I found out that he had seen another film

where I look totally different, and I acted another part, and he said: “This I don’t want.” And the producer was not able to convince him that this was just

the part, and part of the job that you act and are different. And then I talked to the producer, and he said: “Martina, please go to the casting.

It is a casting situation, but it doesn’t matter, I want you to do it.” And then I thought, what the hell, it is ok. Because I am going to learn the part,

which I did, and I enjoyed working on the scenes, and I said to myself, it is fun, and I can learn something from it. And I can learn something from the

situation, having a director who at the beginning wanted me and now he doesn’t want me anymore, so he won’t want me, so I can do what I want. Which I did.

Fred Roos: It freed you up.

Martina Gedeck: Right, absolutely. He wanted another girl, which I knew already, you know, we find these things out. So I said, ok, he is going to take the other one, so I

don’t care. So it was very easy and it was fun. And then, even if he would have said, “no, I don’t want you”, I felt free. Because as an actor you tend to

think you can play anything, which is actually true. I still think that. But sometimes the director or the producer sees somebody else in the part and that

is something that has nothing to do with you or your personality.

BLOND NOT DARK, TALL NOT SHORT

Fred Roos: Of course it doesn’t have anything to do with you, but so many actors think it does have to do with me. It is a typical actor thing to think it is about me.

Sometimes you just want blond and not dark, it is as simple as that. You want tall not short.

Martina Gedeck: Which is kind of offending. This is something I get really mad about actually because I always think I can dye my hair. I think it has something to do with

the inner nature, the inner being of the actor.

Fred Roos: I have seen situations where the director and I have from the very beginning of first talking about the script and the kind of actors and the kind of quality

of the actor that should play a part, and we have a clear idea of the type. And have an actor come in and just turn us around and doing a whole other way of

thinking, of viewing the character. So, you have to leave yourself open director and a good person advising them. To let those accidents happen, where the

actor will show you something that you hadn’t even seen.

SPOTTING JACK NICHOLSON

Sandy Lieberson: In just two incidents out of many, Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson, and your belief in them as actors. What did you see in those two guys?

Fred Roos: Jack Nicholson I met socially before I ever cast him in anything. He was part of a circle of young people in the business that I was part of. So, we were at

different people’s houses. It was the 60ies, the period of the new wave of French films. We would go to see the newest Godard film, the newest Antonioni. We

were kind of in a pack, a group. So Jack was just a friend. But I saw him take over any room that he would walk into. That was a period of the “pretty boy”

actors who were getting the parts, and Jack did not fit that at all. So it took him many years. He was always getting work but he didn’t break through to be

a star until quite a bit later. He was just a fascinating personality.

Sandy Lieberson: It was as much his personal persona that you saw as a friend and not necessarily only his acting.

Fred Roos: Your eyes would go to him when he would enter a room, and he was a chatty guy, and funny and charming and irreverent, and I felt that that quality could

transfer to the screen.

HARRISON FORD, ONE OF THE LAST ACTORS IN THE STUDIO SYSTEM

Sandy Lieberson: And Harrison Ford has got a completely different kind of personality. What was it about him?

Fred Roos: Well, Harrison was one of the last actors in the studio system. He was under contract to Columbia Pictures but wasn’t getting anywhere. They weren’t giving

him many parts. The man in the talent department at Columbia who knew me very well and knew the kind of actor that I liked said: “Columbia is going to drop

this guy and I think he is your kind of guy, I would like you to meet him.” So, he sent him over to me. It was supposed to be a fifteen minute “meet and

greet”, as we call it, but he came in very hostile, because he didn’t know who I was and I was, I guess, just another suit to him. And he had a lot of anger

about the business, and studios and the people that run them. So, he lumped me with that at the beginning.

I saw that right away but I wasn’t going to take it sitting down. So I just extended the conversation. I can remember that so clearly. And I ended up talking

for about an hour with him till finally he got warmed up and telling me about his life. Then we just became friends. He had two young children and he was

struggling. He was doing carpentry work to pay the bills, and I became like a family friend. I tried on several films to get him onto the film, and my

director didn’t go for it, until finally, the first time was with George Lucas on AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973).

TO TALK TO ACTORS IN DEPTH

Sandy Lieberson: It is interesting because this instinct that you have got, in terms of being able to spot talent, it doesn’t necessarily come from an audition, it can come

from an hour’s chat with an actor. You instinctively feel something coming off them?

Fred Roos: Well, that is what I do. I talk to actors in depth. I put more stock in that than in the reading.

Sandy Lieberson: How would you do it with Martina?

Fred Roos: We did it the other night!

Martina Gedeck: We already did it! We talked. And he got me telling him everything. It is true.

Sandy Lieberson: So, you have a way with connecting with people, Fred?

Martina Gedeck: He has the way of asking the right questions at the right moment.

Fred Roos: I try to get them doing the talking, not me. I truly love actors.

Sandy Lieberson: You think they feel that coming off you?

Fred Roos: I hope so. But I have heard stories from actors that I scare them. I understand that, but that is in a way a technique too. If there is dead air, they have

to fill the dead air with talking to me.

A FAMILY OF ACTORS

Sandy Lieberson: I was reading a quote from a young actress that you cast in a film, Scarlett Johansson, and she says: “I think Woody Allen’s primary talent as a director is

in his casting.” That for me, when I saw that, was a really interesting quote.

Fred Roos: Directors should cast whoever they want, but you don’t see Woody discovering too many people do you? He only casts kind of stars, even in smaller parts. I

always like to put new people in films and see them blossom. I told you earlier about the normal process of how it happens in America, but if you work

consistently with one director, like I have with Francis, and a few other directors, you have over the years a kind of family of actors that you like to work

with. And with each new process you go over in your head who in your family of actors can we give parts to in this film. So, you will see in some of our

films the same actors appearing in many films. It is like a reunion to all get together again on a film, or sometimes off on a location, so it is a family

thing.

Sandy Lieberson: Do you have something similar to that in Germany?

Martina Gedeck: I think not enough. There is still too much isolation. There is the tendency to say we have to discover somebody new. I don’t want to work with him again

because I just worked with him, I want to be the one who discovered somebody new. So there is not enough of this kind of family thing.

Fred Roos: Aren’t there some directors you have worked with several times?

Martina Gedeck: Right. That is true. I was lucky, but they are rare. Maybe there were two or three of them and there was a continuation in the work. Which is very important,

also for your acting it is good too, to work with the same director.

Sandy Lieberson: So, for MOSTLY MARTHA, you were an experienced actress, you had done quite a bit of work in television and films. Why was it that Sandra said: “I want to

cast you”?

Martina Gedeck: There was a film she saw at a festival. I was playing a lead part in a film by Dominik Graf, who discovered me. The first film I did was with him and then

ten years later, or five years, I don’t remember exactly, I did my second film with him (DEINE BESTEN JAHRE, 1999). And this was the film that Sandra saw.

There she saw this woman on the screen and then she said, this is the woman I am looking for.

If you want to survive as an actress in Germany for more than three or four years you have to really be careful that you don’t repeat yourself and that you

do different things. That is something I had to do because once you are liked in the business here it doesn’t mean that you will stay there, or you will be

part of the family. It is not like that. People tend to forget, and they are very eager here in Germany to discover new talents.

THE ACTORS’ CHOICES

Sandy Lieberson: Looking back at AMERICAN GRAFFITI and THE OUTSIDERS (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983), those are two extraordinary ensemble movies, with every role cast to

perfection, but quite amazing to see how many of those actors went on to have really outstanding careers. What about the ones that didn’t?

Fred Roos: Some of them went on to have brilliant careers too, for example Val Kilmer and so on.

Sandy Lieberson: What about the choices that actors make?

Fred Roos: Actors don’t have too many choices. They have to work. And if a thing is offered it is very hard to turn down work. So it is not like an actor can just say,

I want to work with that great director or that great director, it is not that easy. There is a lot of luck to an acting career in connecting with the right

role, the right director. Sometimes you see an actor in some movie and you think, why did they do that? Well, because an actor has to work, he has to keep at

it. They are not in control totally, a few are, but mostly they are not.

WHY ROBERT DE NIRO HAS NO PART IN “THE GODFATHER”

Fred Roos: Martina and I were comparing notes the other night about Robert de Niro, I call him Bobby, who I clearly remember the very first time I met him at a casting

session which was for THE GODFATHER (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). Which he didn’t do, and there is a reason why, we gave him a small part but… Before the

movie started shooting he got offered a bigger part in another movie, a movie that you have probably never heard of, so he didn’t do the small part for us,

which is lucky because if he had he wouldn’t have been able to play the young Don in THE GODFATHER 2 (1974).

I can see him there in my mind, not saying a word, it was like pulling teeth to get him to say anything in a conversation, other than like one-word answers.

Friendly, not with any hostility, but he just is not a chatty kind of a guy. But I was fascinated by him, and my gut told me that he was an extraordinary

personality or actor. Now, Martina just did a movie in the States that Bobby de Niro directed (THE GOOD SHEPHERD, 2006) and she had to go through a casting

meeting with Bobby to get the part. Well, I will let her tell it, but it is kind of the same experience.

BEING CASTED BY ROBERT DE NIRO

Martina Gedeck: It was very funny because I went into this room where I expected a big room with about twenty people, and it was a very small room and there was only Robert

de Niro and Leonardo de Caprio, who I was supposed to read with. So, when the casting lady led me into the room and she was kind of anxious, and she was

trying to get me into a conversation with Robert de Niro. She said: “So, this is Martina, she just arrived from Berlin, and you know, she came all the way

from Berlin.” And those two guys, in their t-shirts, just looked at me and said: “Aha.” And de Niro asked me: “How are you?” And I said, “fine, it is great

to be here, and it is just like in MARY POPPINS”, I said, referring to London, because I have never been to London. He said: “What do you mean?”… Well,

actually he didn’t say that, he would never say that, he just said “oh”.

And there was a long pause, and then he said: “You’ve never been to London?” And I said: “No.” And he was kind of surprised because for him London is like

around the corner, and he couldn’t imagine it. And that was the end of the conversation, and it was kind of difficult, because I thought, did I say something

wrong. So I got confused, de Caprio was smiling, and we didn’t know what to say. The casting woman left, and then I felt stupid because I thought why would I

want to say anything anyway, it is not useful to say anything. You kind of get into this cul-de-sac, you get lost. And then we started working and it was

very easy, and very funny. It was so warm and so close and so intense and so focussed. Everything made sense and I felt this was another dimension where I

was in and this is where we can move. It is like when you are in another element. And there it was very smooth and it works. And I felt very at ease. And

this is what you probably referred to, right?

Fred Roos: Well, twenty-five years later and he hasn’t changed, but the work is wonderful and maybe it was the MARY POPPINS thing that got you the part.

Martina Gedeck: I remember there was this one scene where de Caprio didn’t say anything, he was just sitting there, and I had difficulties reading because I learnt the

lines. So he told me: “If you want you can stand up and play the part.” So I stood up and I said: “Sorry Mr bla-bla, do you need me for anything else?” I was

the secretary, and he made a gesture. Then I said: “Do you ever eat ,Mr Karlson?” Still he said nothing. And I said: “I like to cook. Would you like a

home-cooked meal?” And then he would nod and that was the scene. When I looked at Mr De Niro after the scene he was just laughing. And I said: “Are you

laughing at me?” He said: “No, sorry, but I had to laugh.” I didn’t find it funny but it was in a way. I think that got me the part. So you never know what

gets you the part actually.

Sandy Lieberson: What about working in the States? Did you do the film?

Martina Gedeck: Yes, I did it.

Sandy Lieberson: Was it your first English-language?

Martina Gedeck: No, I did an English-language television film before, but this was my first American movie.

Sandy Lieberson: What was De Niro like as a director?

Martina Gedeck: What I liked so much was that it is not about not talking, it is about concentration. You have to put emphasis on one thing, so you cannot concentrate on all

the other things. So in order to get close to one thing you have to get distant to the other things. That is why he was very close to the actors. It was with

Matt Damon, not de Caprio. He cleared the set so it was just the actors and him. We would rehearse for as long as we wished and it was very focussed and

concentrated. In the good work it is important that you clear everything. That you say, now it is time to talk about what the set looks like, and now it is

time to talk about the acting, and now it is time to rehearse, and now it is time to do the lighting. And this is great.

A NEW EXPERIENCE

Fred Roos: This whole experience, the audition part, and the actual doing of it, did it have a big difference from your German experience, your German films?

Martina Gedeck: The audition, yes. And also the way he directed is different. The whole procedure, no. What I find different is that the actor, or the talent as they say, is

the most important of the whole thing. In Germany sometimes the technical parts become more important. Here, in the experience I had, he was very much with

the actor. If we would do a scene together and you were Matt Damon for instance, he would never talk to me in front of you. He could come very close to me

and talk softly to me so that nobody else would hear it. It was very creative and very inspiring.

I never knew what Matt would do and he would never know what I would do because we couldn’t hear what he would say. So, the whole process of acting became

larger, more important, there was more room for it, which means he would leave us going on. I mean, I would do the scene and he would say: “Go again, go

again”, and the camera would keep rolling. There was no cut, he would not say: “Ok, thank you, cut”, where all the people, for example the hairdressers etc

would say this and that. No, it would not be interrupted, I could do the scene with Matt maybe ten times. Like for ten minutes you could just act and it was

like making music. That for me was a new experience. All of a sudden you would not think about what you do anymore, you would just do it, and you would just

react to the other person and to the energy in the room, which is also de Niro’s energy of course, and what he wants to see, because you feel him.

PRODUCERS AND THE CASTING

Sandy Lieberson: We have a mixed audience out there, including many directors and producers. What about the relationship that the producer has in the casting process? How do

you work in that way?

Fred Roos: It depends on where you come from. Some producers are very much business men and are not experienced or comfortable in the casting process, there is no one

thing. A producer can be, if he has that relationship with the director he is working with and that director wants him to be there and part of it, that is

great. Sometimes the director doesn’t want that person around. I couldn’t work with a director who didn’t want me around.

Sandy Lieberson: What about the pressure? Because actors starting out are continually faced with this, “we need a bigger name”, “we need a star to get this movie made” and

yet so many of the films that you have been involved with, you took people who were fresh, and who didn’t have that kind of cache yet. What is the pressure

in terms of working internationally, working in Hollywood etc to cast continually with big names?

Fred Roos: To get a project off the ground you have to have, what we call in Hollywood, attachments. It is another name for actor. To just walk into a studio with your

project as a producer with just your script and maybe your director, it is pretty hard these days to get financing. In former times if the studio, or the financing source, liked your project you could work together on finding the right actors, but they want it all laid out

on a platter now, so you have to do all this work of getting actors attached.

Sandy Lieberson: So, what about on a film like THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (Sofia Coppola, 1999), because that didn’t have stars in it, and that again was a really fresh cast?

Fred Roos: Yes, but it was also just four million dollars budget.

Sandy Lieberson: But even getting four million dollars in Hollywood is not easy.

Fred Roos: Even the money for that didn’t come together quickly, it was many months of trying different approaches with the money sources and finally it gelled.

Sandy Lieberson: Does the financial pressure, the business side of the business, put pressure on you as a producer to cast in order to satisfy a studio or a distributor?

Fred Roos: Well, as I said, you have to get stars. I mean there are stars and there are stars and there are stars. If your budget is very low you are not expected to

deliver Harrison Ford. But I personally would never, even if the money came, attach an actor if I didn’t think the actor was terrific and right for the part,

just because it would give me a greenlight. But it happens, you see movies coming out all the time that seem miscast.

THE GUT INSTICT

Sandy Lieberson: More and more in a way. Let’s have a few questions from the audience.

Question: My name is Larissa, I am a producer from Toronto with a background as a casting director and on the agenting side, and I am really interested in your

thoughts on instinct. I feel that often when an actor walks into the room you know immediately that is the person that is right for the part. How do you

translate those gut instincts into working as a producer?

Fred Roos: Well, I totally believe in gut instinct, and hopefully you have a good one. I get those feelings about an actor very early sometimes. But I don’t stop the

process. I want to test my gut instinct over a period of weeks seeing many other actors and seeing if the first gut instinct sticks or if I move off of it to

somebody else.

WHOSE IDEA IS IT?

Question: If you do feel very strongly about an actor and there is dissent from your director, how do you approach that situation?

Fred Roos: If you think you are right, you try to bring your director around, but ultimately it is the director’s decision.

Sandy Lieberson: No secrets?

Fred Roos: Well, my secret is to make the director think it is his idea.

Sandy Lieberson: This is a very important point for a producer because quite often what you have to do is submerge your instinct to say: “That is my idea”, “I think this is

great.” And what Fred said, about getting not just the director, but the financier and the distributor to think it is their idea, is an absolutely critical

technique to getting films made, and to getting them made well. If nothing else comes out of this session, this bit of advice is a gem.

TYPE CASTING IN THE STATES

Question: My name is Marie, I am a half English, half Spanish actress, here with Berlinale Talent Campus. Many European casting directors tend to typecast a lot. I

would like to know, in terms of casting in the US, and you personally as a casting director, how do you think about typecasting. It came up in a conversation

as well when Martina was talking about dying her hair, if it was needed for a part. I would like to know your personal opinion.

Fred Roos: Well, I can’t ever say typecasting is a great thing. I always love to take an actor that has played a certain type of role often, and if I know that actor

and know them socially and through a lot of conversation and I get a gut feeling that they have this other side, this funny side, or this warm, fuzzy

sympathetic side, as opposed to always playing heavies. I love to cast them in a way, where they can show this other side. That is one of the fun things

about casting.

Question: Some casting directors in Europe do tend to typecast. If they see an actor that has a certain kind of image, ie a femme fatale, or down to earth kind of

characters. Sometimes as soon as you come in through that door, depending on the previous work you have done, and the photograph, they just tend to stick to

that. And I wanted to know if in the States this is how it works as well, or if casting directors would be a bit more open to see the actors in a different

light. Because, as you said, actors can be very versatile. So, in the States in general, do all the casting directors think like you, do they approach actors

in that light?

Question: I have also a very similar question to that. I come from Brazil and I look Japanese and I work in Germany. In Brazil I would play normal people, I don’t have

to tell a story about whether I am Japanese or Chinese, or Thai. But here in Germany I always only get roles that I am from an Asian market. I wanted to ask

if in America you don’t have to have in the script that this person is Asian, and you have the freedom to tell your director, let us put an Asian girl there,

or a Spanish girl.

Fred Roos: Well, you can certainly do that within limits, if your story has to do with the ethnicicity or where this person came from. In America we have this wide

range of racial types. You go into any office in America you see every kind of Hispanics, Asians working. And it is just normal, the way I think about it, to

cast that way, and to not even give it a second thought. Represent what the real face of that country is.

Sandy Lieberson: I think every actor comes up against that, the stereotype. But it is also up to the actor to challenge that stereotype in the best possible way that you can.

Not to threaten the director, but maybe there is a way to challenge them by actually discussing this and showing the potential perhaps.

Fred Roos: There are dozens and dozens of casting people. I cannot make a blanket statement about them. I know that anybody who works for me, I am very demanding, and

would only hire a casting director that had an open mind about these things.

CASTING BILL MURRAY AND SCARLETT JOHANSSON

Question: I have another question for Fred. Maybe it is a little bit off the topic because I am not an actor. You cast LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003). What is the story

behind this? It is actually quite funny because I read an article today, that Sophia had to call Bill Murray a couple of months before… I am curious to know

how did you find Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray?

Fred Roos: I didn’t. Sophia had Scarlett already. She had met Scarlett in New York and said: “You have got the part.” So it was a done deal. And she wrote the script

with Bill Murray in mind. And if she didn’t get him, it is very difficult to get him, even his agents cannot get him on the phone. She tried and tried to get

a meeting with him, and finally using some intermediary friends, he agreed to meet her for coffee. This was after weeks and weeks of trying, even though she

had written the part for him, and probably wouldn’t have made the movie without him. And also he doesn’t actually sign a contract, or say definitively I am

doing it, he just leaves it loose. She didn’t really know she had him until he got off the plane in Tokyo. Because he doesn’t even want the company to make

his plane arrangements, he makes his own. So when he got off the plane, only then did she know that she had Bill Murray.

Question: I have two questions about your specific process. During auditions, how do you for instance give adjustments, or do you use improvisation, and if you do, how

do you do that? And the second question is about judging performance. Do you look at the screen or do you look at the person, and what are the advantages and

disadvantages of both?

Fred Roos: These days you usually videotape your audition sessions, your casting sessions. The first time you let the actor go by his instincts. He has had the sides or

the script and you let the actor give his own interpretation of it. Some directors love that because I have seen them use a certain kind of reading or style

that they saw the actor do in an audition, because it opens their mind to another way of going. When I work, we tend to let the actor do it as many times as

he wants to. If he says, can I try it again in another way, then I say of course, go ahead. If an actor is way off track, then you give them a hint. And you

say, this character is more this way, and maybe you want to give it a go more that way. We try to make the actor feel that he has every shot in the world to

try it and not just one chance. Then you look at the tapes later, to see if your gut instinct when they were there changes from what you see on the screen.

THE POINT OF GIVING UP ACTING

Question: Hello. My name is Klaus, I am an actor from Berlin. I would like to ask if you, Martina, and Fred, could maybe give some advice. Because you talked about

Harrison Ford, who obviously is a gifted actor but who maybe was on the point of giving up when he came to you. Obviously there are many gifted people who

are not being discovered. What kind of advice would you give to an actor who has not been able to get into the business for many years? How can he keep on

working, how can he keep on being motivated?

Fred Roos: In the States, in New York and LA particularly, there are all sorts of acting teachers and acting workshops. And actors tend to get involved in that. Because

actors have to act. You cannot just wait months and months until you get a part. So, they can go to their class two or three days a week and work and have

good critiques from their acting coaches and fellow students.

And that is not just beginners, these are working actors who do this. So it is like an athlete, you have got to keep sharp, and keep in shape. If you are not

getting roles, you have to take command as best you can. Get into a circle of people making short films, digital films. In Los Angeles there are about three

or four universities that have film schools, and actors often post their details on a board in the film school. These are working actors but they are willing

to act in the student films because it might be a better piece of film for them than they have ever had. I don’t know if that happens here in Berlin. Or get

a group of friends and get a camera and make something.

Martina Gedeck: I would like to add something. I think it is important to not underestimate the small things that you get, and you work as if it is the one big thing that

you always desired. I remember when I started, I did not want to become a film actress, I wanted to be in theatre. But then I had some offers in television,

and it were stupid parts with stupid sentences, with maybe only one day of shooting and maybe with only three sentences. I hated it actually and I felt so

humiliated because I felt I deserved much more.

So I stopped it because then I said, this is a very big gift I have, these three sentences, this is going to be one minute on screen and this will be seen by

maybe two to three million, maybe six million people, and it is only one minute. So let me see, let’s do the job, how can I make this interesting, how can I

do it in the way that I find interesting, that I am not bored by what I do, so that others may not be bored by what I do? So maybe there will be a person who

appears for only one sentence but this is true and this is a real person. My crisis as an actress, my not being wanted, was my chance to start to become an

actress because I had to really think about what I like about it. So I started to perform and to use my own actor fantasy, and I started to build these

little jewels. I wanted to be bright and shiny and beautiful. And I tell you, people see this.

There was somebody who saw it and he said: “I saw you in this very stupid little thing, and it was only one minute, but that is why I cast you now, for this

project with two more sentences.” But that is how I got into it. Because then another person saw me, again with a small part but a little bigger, and then

someone else sees you and says, now I am going to give you a ten-days shoot, and you get your first big role. So don’t ever say: “Why do I have to do this

shit?” Everything is very important and you can build your skills and there is nothing not important about this.

DON’T JUST DO WHAT THE AGENT SAY

Question: Hello. I am Julia and I am an actress from Italy. I would like to know, if you are not at the beginning of the work, this is the trouble that we have in

Italy, because your agent starts to tell you, now that you have done some good work, we have to do the right steps, we have to chose the right characters,

the right movies. So it is maybe better to have fewer auditions than to have the wrong ones. And you trust your agent, but you can spend a year waiting for

this right audition. The agents in Italy tell us that especially at the castings, if they saw you in some works, and they start to see you in smaller roles,

they may still call you but only for that kind of work.

Fred Roos: I have heard that advice given. I don’t really believe in that. I think if you are lucky enough to have gotten started and you even have an agent, because

you are already ahead of the game, there are a lot of actors who have a hard time getting an agent, you should go to the audition and meet the director and

give it your best shot, but if your gut tells you that, I don’t want to work with this person, or this is not the kind of people I want to be around, then

even if they offer it to you, you can pass. But you should go and meet them and go to the audition, because that director who might be directing that

television show, might be the next great director. And this is just a path on his way. And you might make a connection with that director, or he sees

something in you. That is my advice. And be in control yourself, not just do what the agent says.

ACTING SCHOOLS IN THE STATES

Question: Hello, my name is Lucia, I go to a private acting school here in Berlin. My question is about what do you think about non-educated actors going to the USA to

do a Lee Strasberg course. Do they have a chance to survive there? And to Martina, what do you think about actors who are going to the US and coming back and

not being educated in Germany?

Fred Roos: There are some very good acting coaches and schools in New York and Los Angeles mostly. It cannot hurt to do that for a year, to get another approach to

acting. Don’t go there expecting to get work, because you don’t have the right visa and all that, but go there for the new perspective on acting technique.

You can explore getting work, but where your work will really probably happen is back in your home base. I was just talking the other night to Moritz

Bleibtreu. He studied in New York at the HB Studios for a year even though he is German. And I have to think it added to his technique and to his skills, and

helped him when he came back to Germany.

Martina Gedeck: I know quite a few actors who went to school in the US and came back and had a good start or got work. I don’t think that there is a prejudice because they

studied in the United States or abroad. Most important is what you bring with you, and they will see who you are and what you bring with you, and if that is

convincing it doesn’t matter where it comes from.

WHAT ARE READINGS?

Question: Hello, my name is Anke and I am a casting director here in Berlin and I have a question for both of you. We talked about the casting process. Here in Germany

we don’t do readings, we do casting scenes. Could you elaborate on what the advantage is of doing a reading as is done in the States?

Fred Roos: What you are doing is kind of a second step that we often do, which is more like a real test, where you have already selected the two or three or four

finalists and you are going to do a real test. You might get some props, a little bit of a set, and a camera. So we do do that. The reading thing is just a

quick way to get through a lot of people. It is not the final thing, but you know, you can read twenty actors in a day.

Martina Gedeck: Of course, since I am already an actress, I actually prefer to act. I have great difficulties just to read something. I never had to do that and I feel more

comfortable acting. But I am also somebody who is not very nervous in these casting situations and who knows the lines very well. In order to really know the

line in a nervous situation like a casting situation you have to really know them very very well. I have to talk them at least two hundred times, which means

you have to have it very early, at least one week before you go there. And then I really work on the lines a lot so that I feel comfortable and I don’t have

to think about the lines when I am in the casting situation.

Because that is the worst, when you are in the casting situation and you have to think about the lines. Then it is better, and maybe it is for people who are

more insecure, or for people who are have not really learnt the lines, then it is better to have the sheets in the hand and to feel more secure. What one can

do, is one can have them act and have the paper in the hand too, in order to feel more secure.

Fred Roos: Maybe I am confusing you a little bit when I say readings. We just call it readings. I would say about 75% of the actors who come to the reading audition

have leaned the lines and don’t need the paper. They can use it if they want, we are not prejudiced against them if they hold the paper, but about 75-80%

have come having learned it.

Martina Gedeck: So it is probably the cold reading that is the difference. When the actor has no chance to really look at it before.

Fred Roos: We hardly ever do the cold reading any more. Back in the television days we did that once in a while. Usually you give the actor every break, or he has the

sides some days before.

ACTING IN A DAILY SOAP

Question: Hello, my name is Anna, and I also go to the private acting school here in Berlin. I wanted to know if it is the wrong decision for an actress who is at the

beginning of her career, if he accepts a role in the daily soap for example, or do you think you have to do whatever you get?

Fred Roos: As I said, actors have to work. You are not in total control. You cannot just turn down everything. If it is something really awful, you probably shouldn’t

go near it. A daily soap, I think that is okay, but not for a long time because I think you get into bad acting habits, a certain kind of style of acting

which is flat. But to do a few segments might be okay but I would not do it for years and years.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACTORS AND CASTING DIRECTORS

Sandy Lieberson: Unfortunately we have to stop here, which is a bit disappointing because I know there is a lot more questions. Is there anything else you wanted to add, any

tips for producers or actors out there?

Fred Roos to Martina Gedeck: I wanted to ask you. When you were starting out, are casting directors kind to actors when they are nobody and coming in? or are they mistreated in some way?

Martina Gedeck: It can happen that the casting directors are in a tension and that makes you kind of insecure when you are a young inexperienced actor, or also when you are

an experienced actor. There is no real attention to the person, that is sometimes what I felt.

Fred Roos: I see it sometimes in the States. No one who works for me can mistreat an actor but I have seen and hear horror stories about actors that are shuffled around

and kind of disrespected.

Sandy Lieberson: I think part of the job of the producer is to protect the actor. The actor is in a way the most vulnerable person involved in the film. They are really

exposing themselves and a lot of care has to be given to that.

Martina Gedeck: They are not only vulnerable but they have to be sensitive, they have to be open, but on the other hand they have to be able to protect themselves. They have

to learn both actually. They have also to learn to cope with people who are not really paying attention to them because that is a reality you get as a human

being also, not only as an actor. You have to find your way to stay sensitive still and that is something you learn along the line.

Sandy Lieberson: I think that is a great place to end. Martina, Fred, thank you very much. It has been a great honour for us to have you here.