We had our third casting session for the three male leads this past Tuesday. It was probably the best thus far, or at least that is what I am told. I can't say for certain because it was my first. It was quite the learning experience for a number of reasons.
Auditions are short. Ten minutes, maybe. Each actor has two relatively short scenes to read. Most times they'll do each one twice. Once cold, with their own personal interpretation, and once with The Director's notes. Sometimes they'll only do them once, either because they nailed it or they missed the mark enough to make a second shot not worth the time or effort. I was surprised at the number of guys who read both scenes twice, but that might explain why this was the best day thus far.
Timing and Tone Are Everything. Intellectually, I already knew this was true with all forms of performance art, but it is especially true with comedy. Not just how the words are written and constructed either, but how they are delivered. And more importantly, that the deliverer has a sense of timing and tone, as well. You put C+ actors with an A+ script and you end up with a B- movie. You put A+ actors with a C+ script and you end up with B+ movie. I came to understand all this at a core, visceral level after watching a handful of actors try to pull off the three male leads and then comparing the ones who had "IT" with the ones who didn't. With the actors in the A range, the good stuff exploded off the page. With the actors in the C range, even the best stuff didn't pop.
You never know how funny something is until you hear it performed. Tucker and I labored over this script for the better part of two years. We agonized over specific lines, specific words, arrangement. We went through draft after draft fine-tuning until we were comfortable "locking" the script. And still, The Director and the other producers assured us that we could not be 100% certain that any single line or exchange would be funny until we got into a room with actors and heard them spit back our lines at us. Goddamn if they didn't have that one pegged. It's probably been the most enlightening aspect of the creative process thus far.
The words on the page are not the same as the words coming out of the actors' mouths. Oddly, it hasn't been an issue of our lines not being funny. It's been whether the dialogue is too much of a mouthful, or the scene is too congested. You can tell if that's the case the first time you see it performed. A line won't snap off the way it should because there is an extra word or line. A scene won't crescendo the way we want because its progression is clogged by an extra joke or a redundant, irrelevant exchange. It's crazy how apparent it is. It's so obvious, we're meeting with The Director tomorrow to go back through the entire script and strip that shit out. Who knows if we'll get them all, but I guess that's part of what casting is for.
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