JANE JENKINS...LOS ANGELES CASTING DIRECTOR.

Jane Jenkins has been a Los Angeles casting director for over twenty years. With partner Janet Hirshenson she has cast such films as 'Harry Potter', 'A Beautiful Mind', 'Mystic Pizza', 'The Princes Bride', 'Godfather Part 111', 'Backdraft', 'Apollo 13',and 'The Perfect Storm'. She has also cast the television series 'The Agency', 'Robbery Homicide Division' and 'Touching Evil'. AUSUS Magazine spoke to Jane about Australian actors, getting the job, and the recent influx of Australians into the U.S.

Q: Why do you think Australian actors have become so successful in the U.S.A?

 It's overwhelming how many Australians have come here recently. I think it's because there's something really similar between the Australian and the American spirit, where there's this rugged pioneering quality to them that's very akin to Americans. Plus, they seem to have an amazing ability to pick up the American accent. Mel Gibson was at the forefront, and I think that his international success encouraged people to cross over the pond. The film business has also become so much more global, whereas previously everyone stayed at home & made films in their own country and every once in a while something like 'Tim' or 'Gallipoli' got out there and got noticed. And then you see Nicole Kidman who did 'Dead Calm', which got her a good deal of attention. Even before she got over here I was in the middle of casting 'Ghost', and had seen 'Dead Calm', and an American guy who was managing Nicole was supposed to bring her over to do a whole campaign. But then she couldn't make it here so she put herself on tape for us. Jerry Zucker looked at it and was interested, but was hesitant to hire her without the opportunity to actually meet her and so she never got cast, though had she been able to come over, her chances of getting cast would have been pretty good. I think that several things then conspired to make this all possible. One is the use of videotape, which became huge for people who live overseas. We could at least have a look and see if we wanted to go further. When Nicole did finally come over, I was casting Wolfgang Petersen's first American film called 'Shattered'. She auditioned and he fell madly in love with her and they ended up doing this big elaborate screen test. We wanted to hire her, but the same weekend she was offered the Tom Cruise movie 'Days of Thunder'. Suddenly there was a bidding war trying to hire this girl and her agent at the time,a well known New York agent by the name of Sam Coen, thought that the Cruise movie would be the more commercial of the two. So she turned us down and went off to do the other film which changed the course of her life.

Q: How did Nicole Kidman have American representation when she was living in Australia?

 I don't know. I suspect that because 'Dead Calm' made an impact, Billy Zane, the American actor in the film may have introduced her to his agent.

 Q: What about other foreign actors with U.S. representation?

 People seem to just get spotted these days. For example with 'Y Tu Mama Tambien', the Mexican film that came out two years ago, both of the boys that were in that film were picked up by American agents faster than a speeding bullet, because it was clear that this film would have a huge international play. Both of the boys spoke fluent English so there was no reason they should stay in Mexico. The world is just a smaller place and you get to see a more international group of actors so you can't limit yourself to just the actors on either coast of America to populate a movie.

Q: How did you find Paul Bettany, the British actor, for 'A Beautiful Mind'?

 He was in a film called 'Gangster No. 1' and also in a film that hadn't come out yet called 'A Knights Tale'. When I was casting for that part I had seen a lot of actors but hadn't found anyone who I felt could match Russell Crowe. I needed someone with a really stinging acerbic wit and an intelligence so that you believed he was at Princeton. I must say that sadly the majority of American actors I was auditioning were falling short in those departments. Originally we wanted an American accent, but then decided that it didn't make a difference if a different accent was used. Anyway, I happened to be telling his agent that I couldn't find anyone for this part, and she said, '... well you really need Paul'. I didn't know who Paul was so I asked if she could send over some tape and she said '...no, I can't...you'll never hire him from this,it's totally wrong, but he's done something that's being edited. Would you go over to Sony to see it on the editing table?' So I went over to Sony and the editor had made a tape of three of his big scenes and from the moment he made his first entrance I knew he was my guy.

 Q: He was naked in that first entrance wasn't he?

Yes. His little naked butt comes into frame and he says, 'Geoffrey Chaucer is the name and writing is the game', and he just had so much charm and was so funny and delightful that in that first sentence I just knew. I left the editing room and I called Ron Howard and said 'I'm fedexing you this tape. You've got to be home tomorrow morning at ten and look at it immediately'. It was just before the Christmas holiday's and at that time everything shuts down so I said '...we've got to hire him now' and he said '...well I can't hire him. I've never met him'. So I said '...okay, we've got to make him an offer and fly him over after the new year', which we did, and then that was that. There was just no American actor I had met who was as right as Paul for that part. A lot of British actors are doing well here now. Mark Addy, Robert Carlisle, Orlando Bloom.

Q: What specifically was missing in the American actors that you saw for Bettany's role in 'A Beautiful Mind'?

 Well we originally wanted Robert Downey Jr. Ron wanted to hire him, but then he had those problems in Palm Springs, and he was not going to be available. He has that acerbic wit, that sharp intelligence. There were a couple of other name actors we considered but they were too well known for this part, too expensive. There's always a budget constraint. I auditioned a zillion young actors in New York but there was just nobody who came in and captured that part. Paul was my hero, he totally saved the day. It's a very indefinable something to describe what you're looking for when you're casting a part that seems to become elusive.

 Q: What is it that you like about the Australian actors?

There seems to be a directness and honesty to their work and I know that a lot of people have been trained at the major acting school there, the National Institute of Dramatic Art. They seem to do their job very well. Australian actors seem to have the flexibility to play the classics and to play the more Americanized, westernized parts. They're also great with accents. These qualities are not as readily found in actors who have trained at the major schools here in the U.S. Last year we did a series based on Helen of Troy, and I found that most American actors that came in weren't able to pull off the classical nature of the piece. It wasn't written in Shakespearian flowery language. It was written in a cross between a classical and contemporary style so we needed actors to come in and have all of that regal bearing, but they just couldn't. We were very open to discovering young new actors. It was upsetting to see the lack of the classical side of the training. A lot of them had the reality level of it, the romantic notions of it all, but didn't have the bearing. The Australian and British actors fared better. They were able to adopt the mid Atlantic accents much more easily than their American counterparts.

 Q: Where do find the Australian actors you audition?

 Almost everybody has found their way over here. There were a bunch of guys that came over right after 'Lord of the Rings' came out. They had made contacts here and had come over to see what they could do. Some of them ended up in 'Black Hawk Down'.

 Q: How do you find the projects you work on? 

 Mostly we get approached. There are a handful of directors that Janet Hirshenson and I have been fortunate enough to work with from the beginning of our, and their, careers. Ron Howard, Rob Reiner...we've done almost all of their films. Wev'e done all of Wolfgang Petersen's films since he first came to America, and most of Chris Columbus' films since 'Adventures in Babysitting'. So we've established relationships with people like that who have gone on to become enormously successful and fortunately they've been very loyal to us. We've just finished the new Nancy Meyer project, 'Something's Gotta Give' with Jack Nicholson, Dianne Keaton, Keanu Reeves and Amanda Peet. Oddly enough, almost every time we've gone out and pursued a project we've hardly ever gotten the job. So fortunately the phone rings and someone checks our availability and we are offered work. Sadly, we couldn't work on the recent 'Troy' film for Peterson because it was all British funding and so they had to hire British casting directors. We just did some work as consultants. We're just starting now on 'Cinderella Man' for Ron Howard. It's set in the depression era and stars Russell Crowe as boxer Jim Braddock and Renee Zellwegger as his wife.

Q: One final question. When an actor comes in to read for you, what do you look for?