Wait. Please tell me you have not had meetings with unnamed studios where they have discussed the number of Instagram followers of potential stars. Please tell me that’s not real.
Oh my gosh. I mean that happens all the time. It’s a huge part of casting conversations now. “Who is this person? What’s their value?” You know it’s always been like that in this industry. We went from “Oh, what movie has that person been in” and “what was the box office of that movie?” Now it’s, “What’s their kind of digital imprint? How popular are they on YouTube?” That’s been a fact for a long time. People have been casting off the [IMDB] Star Meter for a long time.
Oh. That’s true, yeah.
It’s the criteria for casting has been warped for far too long and I think we’ve seen so many movies with major movie stars bomb that we should learn that it has nothing to do with casting movie stars. Yes. It makes it a more complicated process to market but you just have to be more creative. It forces the movie to be good enough that it sells itself.
And you were incredibly creative in that aspect because for two roles in this film you sent in sort of unconventional directions. The first one is Billie Lourd as Gigi. Now I know she’s done sort of comedy in “Scream Queens” before but I would have thought this role was a stretch and instead she almost steals the film
Well you know for Gigi, I knew I needed someone who was fearless and I wanted her to be this kind of wild animal who was kind of ferocious and unpredictable. I wanted her to have a kind of Courtney Love quality where you didn’t know if she was going to punch you or kiss you and I had this sense that Billie was perfect for the role even though she herself is a very professional and intelligent person and she is nothing like Courtney Love. But I really admired her timing. You know I watched a lot of interviews with her, which I do think is a useful casting tool. You know you get this sense of someone’s essence which I think is an essential part of the casting process. You know you shouldn’t be forcing actors to become the characters on the page. The characters on the page should embrace the unique qualities of an actor so it’s all about finding the most interesting people and then kind of allowing the movie to evolve based on them and what they bring to it. So with Billie, I just wanted her because she just was fascinating and fearless and unique. I hadn’t seen anyone else like her and of course, when she came in to audition, within 60 seconds of her audition beginning, I knew she had the part and I wouldn’t have any trouble convincing anyone of that.
I also wanted to just talk about Noah Galvin as George who is somehow probably my spirit animal. Did I read correctly that he didn’t originally audition for this role?
No. [The character] was a woman. It was actually was a holdover from the previous draft and we were looking for kind of a typical theater duo of like the theater girl and her gay best friend. And I thought maybe we could do one better than that. We can sort of make that a little bit more unique and when I was reading actors for Alan, I read Austin Crute. Actually, [casting director] Alison Jones called me at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning and she was like, “You have to get over here right now. You have to see this kid and I was like Alison, why are you working on the weekend?” She was like, “Oh, I work seven days a week. You have to come over and see him.” So I raced over to her office and sure enough, there was Austin being so fascinating and hilarious and his energy was so infectious and I was like, “Yes. Absolutely. He has the role.” And then I saw Noah’s audition and I was like, “Oh shit. He is brilliant.” We have two people who are perfect for Alan and I was like, “No. It’s now Alan and George. He has become George and it’s about these two kings of the theater department and how they relate to each other and George becomes more the director. Alan more the star.” And that was just more interesting to me and then it made it a little bit less of the token gay friend. I was uncomfortable with that. I thought, “Oh, let’s just make it that they happen to be the two theater kings. I’m sure they’re gay. Who cares? It’s not really the point.” But I was just so lucky to have this embarrassment of riches in the cast. I mean I could go on every single one of, every single member of the ensemble was a revelation to me when I saw their auditions. I was so excited and some of them were very tricky to cast like, for instance, the character of Ryan. You know, I tend to resent when casting breakdowns have physical descriptions. They’ll be like subtly sort of racist often. They’ll say like “bouncy ponytail” or “blonde and blue-eyed” and it’s like, “What the fuck is this?” Of course, casting’s turning out to be so white. So, we took out any sort of physical descriptions and all we said about Ryan was that she was a skateboarder. It’s like she was a girl who lived on her skateboard, friends with everyone, super nice. So, we had all these actresses coming in who were trying really hard, trying their best to kind of find the essence of a skateboarder and like really, really trying to figure out what that meant and it wasn’t working. I wasn’t finding anyone perfect and then I asked Alison if she knew any female skateboarders from her time casting “Mid90s.” She called the kind of the leader of the skate crew that they cast for “Mid90s,” this guy Mikey and he’s like, “There’s this girl Victoria who skates in North Hollywood. Maybe she’ll come in.” So, in comes Victoria [ ] just glorious in her singularity, covered in tattoos, just raw and authentic and lovely and perfect and I was so, so happy and I had Amy, Kaitlyn Dever come in to read with her. She was – wow. It’s amazing working with someone who’s just so instinctual and raw. Victoria had never been near a script. She had never acted before, never been on a movie set. Same with Nico Haraga who plays Tanner. He is also a professional skateboarder from the same crew and he’s just also just so fresh. He’s like our Spicoli [from “Fast Times At Ridgemont High”] but so much more. I love him and Eduardo Franco who plays Theo who’s just such an awesomely unique comedic voice and his career have been slowly building and I feel really lucky that we got him in this movie because he added such vulnerability to Theo like I loved the B plot of him and Ms. Fine. Really makes me happy. I mean, of course, Ms. Fine herself, Jessica Williams.
She’s so great.
She is so great and she is like the ultimate cool woman. If she had been my teacher in high school? Oh my God. I would have been obsessed with her. I would have followed her around everywhere. It was really exciting to build that character with Jessica. She was also super strict and expected a lot from you so all the guys [in class] think they can just charm her and really she loves Molly and Amy because they work the hardest. I mean I could go on. Each one of our cast is so special.
Before they pull you away, one quick last question. What’s the one song you were stunned that you got the rights to?
“Push It.”
Really?
Yeah. Salt-N-Pepa. I was stunned. I mean it’s got to be that or LCD Soundsystem. I wasn’t sure we were going to get that. I mean every single one of them I was amazed. We got Jurassic 5. I’m amazed we got Alanis Morissette. Amazed we got Santigold. Amazed. I mean all of it. I couldn’t believe it but “Push It” was the one I really didn’t know if we were going to get. We’re a little movie, you know?
Definitely.
And licensing is how artists make money now so you never know if you’re going to be able to afford it but we were lucky that these artists wanted to be a part of this movie. They liked the concept and the message and we were lucky that they came on board as kind of partners ’cause they certainly weren’t compensated the way that they all are on bigger movies. But we welcomed them to become our partners in telling the story and Salt-N-Pepa means a lot to me. I mean that’s my adolescence in a nutshell.
“Booksmart” opens nationwide on May 24.