And that couldnt be anything further from the truth, she said.
We couldnt do what we do without actors, Lilly said before tonights awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.
I miss the connection of being in the room with people.
During the pandemic, it wasnt possible for us to do that.
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We watch your tapes, Lilly continued.
The most important thing to know is that actors solve a problem for casting.
We are trying to find people.
We are looking for you.
We are going through the tapes.
We can also ask people who are coming from other parts of the country or the world.
Our goal is to see how we can make this process work for everyone.
Dont worry about production value.
Dont worry if you are holding your baby in your lap or your roommate walks in the background.
Thats not what we are looking for.
We just want to confirm we can hear you and see you.
This is just a step in the process and trying to recreate what we would do in a prescreen.
We just remind actors, this is not meant to be perfect.
We always say perfect is the enemy of the good when it comes to self tapes.
Most casting directors, like OConnor, work from home.
We do want to be back in the room.
I love seeing them in the room.
Im dying to get back in the room as much as they are.
But we have certain constraints on our end.
But he also thinks that beingin the roomdoesnt necessarily mean its always better for an actor.
I think this notion that being in person is an advantage …
I dont think its true.
If the role is yours, the role is yours.
Its going to translate over tape, OConnor said.
Casting Society Board Member Wendy Kurtzman worries that the current controversyover self-tapes is unnecessarily splitting the community into factions.
We are in this together.
You think we are the gatekeepers.
Dont forget, we answer to producer and directors.
We have a chain of command.
The most important thing for me is to calm [the situation], Kurtzman continued.
Actors are frustrated, they want to be seen.
And by the way, we want to see them.
We love being in the room with them.
But dont forget we are in the middle of the seesaw.
Youve got the actors on one end and the producers, networks and studios on the other end.
We are in the middle.
We are trying to shepherd people to get them hired.
We want them, we need them, we love them.
We are all in this together.
I dont know how all of a sudden this became an us against them.
When host Yvette Nicole Brown opened the show, she called everyone in the room heroes.
