INT: It’s my turn to come in. I come into a room… Now I'm sure this changes from picture to picture, but, you know, in general, what happens? What's the first thing that's going to happen?
MR: I say, "Ms. Kagan sit yourself down, and before we do the scene, let's talk a little bit about your recent work." I may start off with that. And you'll say, "Well, I did two episodes of--[INT: I was on a WEST WING [THE WEST WING] and I played a kid.]--DAWSON'S CREEK or WEST WING," or whatever, and I'll say, "What did you think was the most challenging thing about that part?" And you'd say, "Well I had to play it under five feet of potato chips." And I’ll say, "Yeah." This is like THE TONIGHT SHOW. You bring in material in the hopes of swinging it around to something you want to talk about. Very important. And I, if I'm not hearing that, I will find a way to swing it around. And so when I say, "Five feet of potato chips?” I said, you know, “How did they solve the sound problem?" And you hadn't expected that question. So you'd say, "Well it's actually very interesting, because, you know, the top layer was all potato chips, but under it all it was all Styrofoam." And I'd say, "You know, I hear that Styrofoam causes a terrible itch, did they let you wear a bathing suit or anything?" And then suddenly you're off on a track and you're being yourself, which is all I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get you to move away from whatever you've rehearsed to being yourself. Being real. And then after about five minutes, if I like you, Ms. Kagan, I'll say, "Okay. Well, let's read the scene." [INT: Now here's an interesting question. Will you use, because you did use sort of the world of acting, performing, what I did last, to get me into a dialogue with you.] That's right. [INT: And then you shifted it. Do you use other things, or will you mostly try to stay within that world?] Well, I could say, for example, but they're expecting the following question: have you ever been in a pageant? Now that was a goldmine question, because you got a lot of good stuff out of that, and I did ask it a lot. Everybody was prepared for that question. [INT: But if we're shifting to, let's say doing THE SCOUT or doing INNOCENT BLOOD, it's going to be a different set of questions, or THE GOLDEN CHILD.] Well, INNOCENT BLOOD is in my credentials, my resume--[INT: Oh, I'm sorry.]--but only as an Actor for John Landis--[INT: That's right, I forgot that.]--and I'm sure you have one of those too. [INT: Well, that's right. Actually, Elaine [Elaine Kagan] was in that too, that's embarrassing.] Ask your question again. [INT: Using, for example, something else like casting for COOL RUNNINGS or casting for THE GOLDEN CHILD or--] COOL RUNNINGS I wrote, but didn't direct, but continue. [INT: Why am I doing this? Why do I--] Because you've got a resume off the internet. [INT: No. But I thought you actually directed that too.] No, I actually developed it and was going to produce it, but it was too much like THE BAD NEWS BEARS; I couldn't do it again. [INT: Got it.]

MR: Let's start off with THE GOLDEN CHILD. And the great-untold secret until I lifted the veil on TNT not so long ago is that THE GOLDEN CHILD is actually a girl. [INT: Wow.] Yeah, we cast a girl named Jam--I had seen a lot of boys and felt that they didn't have the delicate quality that we needed for this spiritual leader of a million people. [INT: Now you have two things happening here, not only are you dealing with, as you just said, someone from a culture that may be different from yours, but you're also casting a child. And that is a whole other experience, from my experience, different in process than for example casting an adult who I will ask to read. I find when I ask children to read it always backfires.] Oh you can't get children to read. But, you know, I don't put that much stock in the reading either. I put a lot in the personality interview. The bath and potato chips is my ultimate measure, and then I'll hear the reading. And if the reading didn't go very well, I'll usually give them another break, if they were great with the bathtub and potato chips.

INT: Before we go to THE CHILD [THE GOLDEN CHILD], because I want to do this, but will you also do, ‘cause there are two elements here. There's the element obviously of the interpersonal exchange that you've got with them, seeing who they are. There is the element of seeing if they have the chops just to do something, which was the read. Will you do something after that? Let's say you like their personality, and this is before making a call back, like, there's something in their personality that interests you. And I might ask what even that is and, in fact, I should. Is there a generality that comes out of that? [MR: Boy, I don't think you can generalize. I mean I can talk about any of these specifics here.] Got it, okay. Okay. I didn’t think-- All right. But then will you ask them to do, for example, a different version of the read? Will you direct them in the reading? Will you do improvisational work ever?
MR: Yes. And frequently I will do improvisational work; it just depends. If I have a strong instinct, that this person is going to be right for the role, I won't give up. I'm tenacious. Because usually there's somebody else that I have to convince, a Casting Director, a Writer, somebody's in the room besides myself. And I don't want to have when the Actor leaves no possible chance of call back. So I will do something to make that person interesting to the other person that's in the room. [INT: Now would this be an instinctual reaction that I can say, I know I've got something but I'm looking over here and I can see my casting director, she's not very comfortable or…] Yeah. I mean you judge whether somebody's bombing in the room or not. [INT: Got it.] You know, this is a tough room and so we're going to give this guy another lifesaver.

INT: Now, do you like--this is another question. If you had your preference, would you cast only with you and the casting person in the room? Or do you actually like sometimes to have others there?
MR: Initially I like to have just me and the Casting Director. Then at the next stage through, I like to have one other person, maybe the Writer, maybe the Producer. It depends. It depends on the relationships involved. But certainly before everything's etched in stone and the deal is made, I want to have my viewpoint verified by at least one other person. [INT: Got it. Okay. Now, when we were in the position where you want to convince them and you can feel they're not going over, what other thing might you do? ‘Cause we’ve talked to them--] Oh, I'll keep looking for another anecdote. I'll say, "That's an interesting shirt you're wearing, J. Peterman, isn't it?" And they'll say, "I think so." And I'll say, "Why do you think he went out of business?" And we could get off into a long business discussion about J. Peterman. If this person was interested in the fact of why J. Peterman went out of business. "Gee, he had all that publicity on SEINFELD.” “Yeah, I saw it. It was a pretty funny character." And suddenly this person opens up. Your job is to make, is to give… It's just like a talk show host; you want to give that person his best foot in the door. We're there, and it's the hardest thing to convince Actors, that we're there to try to help them. We're there to not create a problem; this is why the school of Directors like Woody Allen, that just sits there and says, "Read the scene for me," while they turn their back to the Actor and stare at the 8 x 10 glossy. I don't get that. I mean I think that our role is to try and give each candidate a reasonable shot, because they wouldn't be there if the Casting Director didn't think that they were [unintelligible]. [INT: Now there are some Actors who in fact freeze in that dialogue process and really just want to read.] I try to break down that freeze. That's again, all these anecdotes that I give, the J. Peterman one is now a second one, and I just seized two out of the air. And to make it interesting, you change throughout the day. It's like a talk show show, host, as I said, and you keep changing the ground rules. [INT: Now will you do an improvisation work with an Actor at all?] Maybe. But that usually will come the next stage around. I'm really not--that's when you finally get down to convincing somebody else. If this person is interesting in the dialogue, in the potato chip/Peterman dialogue, and they're right for the role, then I'm already a champion, but we may have five people that are interesting. And then we have to bring them all back and at that point, I'll have to divide between the five champions, and see which one is really the most interesting. [INT: And that, you may use other techniques? In other words I'm saying that--] Well, I mean the best technique is the talk show host. [INT: Got it.] And I keep coming back to it. [INT: I'm glad.] Make them at ease, get them talking about something that isn't the part. Find out who they are in a relaxed conversational sense, because they're going to have to bring; I don't care whether you're a movie star or an unknown you bring a lot of your own personality to a film role. The camera doesn't lie; it sees Jeremy Kagan. It sees Michael Ritchie. We can't hide who we are. We can pretend to be Medieval torturers, but finally we are who we are and it's Jeremy Kagan as a Medieval torturer, and you have to decide how interesting is that aspect of Jeremy Kagan's personality as Medieval torturer, to this character? [INT: Fair enough.]

INT: Now let’s look at--we were looking at THE GOLDEN CHILD and casting children, because here's an issue, it’s an issue. What do you do with the kids?
MR: Oh, we’re looking at GOLDEN CHILD. Well, of course, with GOLDEN CHILD and here's another picture here, we have Eddie Murphy here, looking at the golden child in that pod that the child was transported in. You have a situation where the kid is largely reactive, and you can say, “Well, it's just one expression,” I mean we're talking about the James Franciscus school of acting, but I don't think so. I think that in film there's a great deal of acting that has to occur on a very subliminal level. So, it was up to us to create an environment in which this girl, Jasmine [Jasmine Reate] was her name, can be believed as THE GOLDEN CHILD. I'm looking to see if there's a few more pictures. Here, there’s some very funny ones here. [Ritchie thumbs through scrapbook.] I mean, again, excuse me I'm getting distracted. [INT: That's all right.] But here we are. This is the same movie that has this in it, you see. [INT: She was actually quite wonderful.] Right. Charlotte Lewis who was half Asian and half Welsh, and solving the problem of who played the lead, was obviously helped by having a very glamorous model who had a career. And I thought had a career that was going to take off in some--[INT: Had she acted before?] She had acted in the terrible Polanski [Roman Polanski] pirate film [PIRATES]. Whatever that was called, I guess it was called PIRATES, with Walter Matthau. And Charlotte Lewis had a small part in that. And oh my god, I have to keep stopping at the pictures of me. [INT: I'm glad. What grabbed you?] Well, it's me. [INT: Let's see you.] This is me, you know, somewhere in the midst of the storms of it all, you see my beard has started to go grey, but it's still the wild man of my driver's license. [INT: Great.] So Charlotte Lewis was a question of going all over the world. We ended up in London and we finally cast someone who looked as if she had promise, certainly had the glamour and was at least half Asian, which passed that, you know, tough hurdle that we had to beat. Harder was casting the devil, Sardo Numspa. And there we have Charles Dance, you see, he was quite wonderful as Sardo Numspa with Eddie Murphy. [INT: And why was it tough casting?] He was tough casting because the idea of his being English, and being unknown, was a tough one for Paramount [Paramount Pictures] and Eddie Murphy. I mean, from a comedy point of view it seemed sensible, that we would get somebody off SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE or whatever that would do a hell of a devil. No names, thank god, ever came up, because I was constantly saying, "What can we do to convince people that it's real? What can we do to convince people that this world...” And I've got a great shot at the door here somewhere. Here we go. That this world that begins with this snowstorm assault on the temple with the monkey man and all these strange attack figures in these great costumes by Wayne Finkelman. [INT: Great sequence, by the way.] Yeah. Well, I said, "You know, this has got to be real." We're not doing a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE take off of ninja pictures. So again, we're putting Eddie Murphy, the most unreal possible character for this world, into the world and making him believe it. And again, whose the focus character? Eddie Murphy. And we have to see it through his eyes, but he believes it! He believes that he's dealing with the enchanted sword and all the rest, and because he believes it, we believe it. If he didn't believe it, then we could have a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE character playing the devil, and not worry about any incongruities and just go for some laughs. I gather that the Adam Sandler movie that's out now is about a relative of the devil; he's the devil's son, apparently in it [LITTLE NICKY]. And there is somebody playing the devil and that's fine, we aren't asked to take Adam Sandler seriously, it's all a spoof. But here, we're asked first and foremost, and keep in mind that Eddie Murphy did this movie, because he wanted to break free from the sketch comedy movies, he wanted to do a Harrison Ford movie, he wanted to be the finder of lost children in THE GOLDEN CHILD. [INT: Let's go back. Two casting issues: casting the Englishman, I understand why an unknown--] Why English? Just the classiness, that the devil would be somebody with a classy English accent. And Charles Dance had really impressed me in JEWEL OF THE CROWN [THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN].

INT: Talk about the children, casting kids and--because we were talking about THE GOLDEN CHILD as an example of casting kids. How do you go about the process?
MR: Well, I think that with kids it's just a question of making them comfortable. I mean, I've said it before, and at the risk of repeating myself, you've got to get past what they came in to sell. Now, sometimes they're not selling, per se; I mean Tatum O'Neal, when I met her, it was an offer. I mean, you know. We couldn't say, “No.” Only she could say, “No.” Sue Mengers was her Agent. It was tough, and she wanted… First of all I think when they came in they wanted to see if there wasn't some part for her brother Griffin [Griffin O'Neal]. I mean it was all together a Hollywood negotiation, and the answer was "no." And then Sue Mengers wanted to see if there was some, I don't know, rewrite role for her then husband, Jean-Claude [Jean-Claude Tramont], whatever his name was. I mean, everybody had an axe to grind, and it was a typical Hollywood negotiation. And we were so uncertain that it was going to work out with Tatum O'Neal, for two reasons, one of which I'll tell you about. In fact, I'll tell you about both of them. What am I talking about, this is for the archives. The first reason we were uncertain is we weren't sure she had the acting chops. And we knew that Kristy McNichol, who wanted the part desperately, and had not had her big blaze to semi-fame and burnout, wanted to do it. That was reason number one. Reason number two is, there was no way we were going to cast Tatum O'Neal in this part unless we had a big star playing the coach's part, and we had nobody in the coach's part until a week before we shot. Keep in mind it was always green-lit as a kids film. There were never any stars that were seriously considered, with the exception, are you ready for this, Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty. Steve McQueen never read the script, was hanging out with bikers somewhere in the desert and Warren Beatty read it and actually came in and talked to us, as he loves to string on thousands of people, through the centuries it seems, but never had a serious intention of doing it. Actually made an appointment to come and read with Kristy McNichol and even throw a few balls, and she showed up and he didn't. So we weren't going to go with Tatum O'Neal, if she was the only star in it, because it would look like a Tatum O'Neal picture, her first after PAPER MOON. [INT: Right.] And she only had a small part in it. And there was no way you could make her part bigger without making the movie out of joint, it wasn't about her character. Her character's a small role in it. And then along came, thank god, Walter Matthau. And there is a god that rules over all casting that says, “Sooner or later you'll get the right person for the right role.” And that's what happened. And I took Walter Matthau out to lunch, may he rest in peace, a dear friend, to the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, where he said, “I don't want to do this, this is a dirty picture. Doity picture." And I said, “Walter, what are you talking about?” He says, "These kids tawk doity." And I said, “No they don't. They just talk the way kids talk.” And he said, "Well I'm not going to do it," and I said "Listen, supposing we brought you in with some of the kids," because we'd cast the kids already, we were a good to go picture, "and you can read with them and then you tell me it's still a dirty picture." He said, "All right." Well, once you sit down with those kids, how are you going to say no? We had him. We had him where we wanted him. And he said, "Yes," and then it was quickly, but, "Whose going to play the girl?" And we said, "Well, Tatum O'Neal, because you're in it." "You can get Tatum O'Neal?" "Yeah, I think we could." Now, without tipping that we had Walter, at first we tried to go back to Sue Mengers, but she was smarter than her reputation even. And she knew we had Walter and then the price starting escalating and it didn't, the final deal didn't come into place until Stanley Jaffe and I both had to give up some of our net points.