As a Casting Director, Alexa Fogel has the kind of resume that makes your eyes widen and your jaw go slack. Over a career spanning more than three decades, Vogel has been instrumental in the casting of remarkable projects like Oz, The Wire, Generation Kill, Treme, True Detective One, Banshee, The Deuce, The Plot Against America, Judas and the Black Messiah, Ozark, We Own This City, Black Bird, Atlanta, Feud, Creed III, Smoke, and most recently, Black Rabbit. That’s one hell of a list. We didn’t get to every title, but we did cover alot of ground around her work and methodology.
The Contending: “Casting is Everything” is a phrase I’ve heard many times before, often spoken by directors. Do you concur with that?
Alexa Fogel: I think it’s critical, and I think that it’s a very important part of storytelling. We’re brought on even before accounting. We are the first. That’s why we never get paid in the beginning. (Laughs). And we are also the first collaborator, the first time the writers hear the words, the first time it’s all coming together. So it is a very intimate part of the whole thing coming together, part of the process. I think it’s all important. But I try not to think about it like that. I just try to paint my part of the canvas.
The Contending: I was interviewing a music supervisor once, and I asked her, What is it that we don’t know that’s really difficult about your job? Her answer was so specific, she said getting releases for hip-hop songs, which I thought was really interesting. What might we on the outside be missing about the challenges in the casting process?
Alexa Fogel: I can only speak subjectively. I love what I do, so none of this is a complaint, but the business has gotten more difficult in a lot of ways. We work incredibly hard. We have to simultaneously keep our brains clear for the creative part of what we do, which is critical, and we have to do a lot of administrative work. We have to do deals; we have to understand the production down to a T. No mistakes ever. It’s our cocktail party when it comes to dealing with all of the personalities of writer, director, production, and I’m also protecting space for actors. I don’t think it’s “what’s the hard part,” I think it’s that nobody knows anything about casting, to be honest. I studied to be a theater director. I had no idea what casting was; nobody did in the eighties, and my whole career has been an accident, a happy accident. But the skillset that I studied for is the one that I use: understanding material, dramaturgy, working with actors, and really building that from the page up. I think that’s something that people don’t understand. Countless times, I’ve had people say to me How do you pick. We don’t pick. The easiest way that I can explain it in lay terms is that my real boss is the page. I think I’ve been lucky enough that the book has been full of a lot of really good pages. That’s what I’m really serving, and I think that is the thing that people really don’t understand. So my real job is to create this world, or to people the world, and to help create this tapestry that starts with what’s on the page.
The Contending: I’m of the opinion that The Wire is the greatest show ever put on television, and you have worked with David Simon numerous times. There are actors on that show who weren’t well known, who are now very well known. There are so many parts in The Wire of merit and distinction. What was it like to cast that versus a production that is more star-driven?
Alexa Fogel: The thing about The Wire and Oz, both distinct and both written by tremendously good writers who have slightly different styles and approaches, is that when you’re doing any kind of job where there are so many characters, you’re trying to distinguish the characters from each other in the beginning. This is true on a lot of David Simon’s stuff; this was also true of Generation Kill, you have such a big group of people that you’re really playing around with it. A lot of those actors read for multiple roles, and that’s part of how you’re finding out what distinguishes the characters from each other as you start to feel which actors fit best into it, and that’s in some ways before any of my collaborators are seeing anybody. There’s never been a David Simon show, until we got much later on, maybe when we were doing Show Me a Hero, where we started to put anybody in one of the shows that was better known. Oscar Isaac was the first time. We just never did that. Much of the stuff that I’ve cast, including Oz, which was my first thing on my own, you’re just trying to serve the piece. The other thing about The Wire is that we thought we were going to get canceled every year. (Laughs).
The Contending: Michael K. Williams. What was it like seeing him? I’ve walked through my life and seen a lot of material, and I’ve just never seen that before, what he did.
Alexa Fogel: I say this a lot. Michael had auditioned for Oz. And I remembered the scar. We keep notes, we keep these binders. Now they’re digital, but we write physical notes, and now they get put into the computer. But at the time, you had all of these binders. I went through all of my Oz notes until I found his name to make sure that I brought him in. You use your notes from previous projects when you’re making lists of who you want to bring in, in addition to the submissions from agents. And I knew that he would be right for something. But I will say this, lightning doesn’t strike. Casting is a process for me. I have had a couple of occasions where I have felt saved, meaning that I have seen so many people and it’s not working, or I am down to the wire and we’re going to start shooting soon and I know I haven’t found it, and it’s not always elite. Sometimes it’s not. Julianna Margulies in Philly Heat (an unaired ABC miniseries), which is a project I did with Tom Fontana, and we couldn’t find it. She then went on to do ER. Dominic West really went down to The Wire. And Alexander Skarsgard in Generation Kill. But again, it’s not lightning. It’s not like Oh my God, it’s a miracle. It’s oh, finally, now we’ve really got something we can work with.
The Contending: On The Wire, with Clarke Peters, Dominic, Idris—not American actors. I also think back to Banshee with Antony Starr, and even recently with Black Rabbit and Jude. Is there something extra to consider when casting foreigners to play Americans?
Alexa Fogel: Not for me. It goes back to Oz with Eamonn Walker and Adewale (Akinnuoye-Agbaje). That was the first for me, and then later Dom on The Wire. I didn’t cast Jude in Black Rabbit, but I did cast Sope Dirisu and Amaka Okafor. Sope, I’ve known for a long time. Amaka, who plays the chef, I didn’t know. She’s playing American in this, and Sope’s playing British. But I’m incredibly proud of that because they’re both actors whom I love. I think that for me, there are different reasons for it. Sometimes you’re just looking everywhere. With Oz, there was a pretty broad canvas we were working with, due to the prison. With The Wire, I finally opened up the character of McNulty to a few actors that I knew in Ireland and England because I couldn’t find it. And that was it. Idris was living in New York, and he had lost a role in a film that I was casting during 9/11, and I was really angry about it. I thought he was special, and he had a good American accent. Their circumstances are very specific, too. Actors are actors; they act. With Antony, yeah, I was looking everywhere for Banshee.
The Contending: Speaking of Ozark makes me think of Jason Bateman, of course, who you also worked with on Black Rabbit. If my understanding is correct, Jason came with both of those projects. When you have that person already in place, you have to build around them I assume, because you’re also thinking about their mannerisms, their style of acting, or just their characters.
Alexa Fogel: Jason and Jude came with Black Rabbit, but in terms of Ozark, Jason was the only person. And you do, but I think it’s instinctual. It’s really the piece, and that was going to be a little bit of a different thing for Jason. I have faith also in the writing. The great thing about Ozark was that Chris, Jason, and I cast that original group of actors together. It was just the three of us, and we have a great creative rapport. When it came to casting Laura, there wasn’t a lot on the page yet, but you’re correct. I did think that I needed someone who was at Jason’s level. I knew that Chris would be able to write for somebody even if it wasn’t there yet. Because I know her well, and at that point had come to know Jason well, I knew that they would have an amazing rapport. I knew that she knew Jason, but not well. And it’s impossible not to love and respect Laura. She’s so professional. She’s so good at what she does, and her style is very different from Jason’s. But it doesn’t really matter. So I just asked her if she would meet Chris, and I knew that the rest of it would fall into place.
The Contending: Years ago, I spoke to Julia Garner, I think it was after the second season. I had seen her on The Americans, so I knew the accent she uses on Ozark isn’t her own. When I first heard her normal speaking voice, I almost couldn’t believe it was the same person. She talked to me about how she developed that accent before she came into the audition space, and that at first, people were like What is she doing? What were your thoughts on her casting?
Alexa Fogel: What I do remember is that I met Julia when she was in high school. She went to LaGuardia. She went to the Performing Arts High School. She grew up in New York. She had auditioned for me, when she was a teenager, for a movie I did called The Sitter. At the time that I was casting Ozark, she was in callbacks for The Deuce. So she was auditioning for a very different role at the same time, and she was very close to getting that. When she was getting Ozark, I had to take her out of the running for The Deuce. I don’t normally do that. The actor has to take themselves out of the running. I’m not going to play God. Unless I think it’s a terrible choice, I’m not going to tell an actor not to do something. She’s a wonderful actress. It’s interesting too, and this came up a lot on Black Rabbit, because Jason instinctually wants people to do their natural accents. When we were doing Black Rabbit, we were talking a lot about whether the Brits should be British or American. In his head, he thinks that it’s a burden for someone to do a different accent, and I would say no, no, actors love this. It might be a burden for you, but it’s not for them. I think she perfected it, and she felt comfortable with it, so I think everybody else did, too.
The Contending: Speaking of worrying about shows being canceled, I was a big fan of Lights Out when it was on the air. I’ve actually gotten to know Holt a little bit since I interviewed him. The joke he made with me is “the problem I’ve always had is I’ve got a face that looks like it’s got five murder convictions.” (Laughs). Lights Out was a real opportunity for him, and it was well done and it deserved better, but “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” I talked to him about being a late bloomer in regard to finding his place in Hollywood to get regular roles. Now he’s at a place, a little bit later in his career, where he’s getting great opportunities. He is working all the time. You see somebody like Holt, and you know this is a big opportunity for them, and then the project doesn’t work out. I imagine you carry some of that pain, too, when a show gets canceled.
Alexa Fogel: Yeah, sure. But I don’t think about it much. I come from a long line of women who move forward: my grandmother, my mother, you just do. His mother was Julie Wilson, the most glamorous cabaret singer of all time. He grew up partly in Paris. Yet he’s a total contradiction. When we were doing Lights Out, he actually invited all of us to a fight in New Jersey, a whole bunch of us, and paid for everything. It was the most fun evening. He’s just the greatest.
The Contending: To bounce back to Black Rabbit, anyone who knew Troy Kotsur from CODA could not be prepared at all for Troy Kotsur in Black Rabbit. I was talking to the primary editor of Black Rabbit. There was always a character there to translate the sign language. I remember at a certain point while watching it, I stopped paying attention to that person, even listening to them, because I could figure out what everything Troy meant from what he was doing, his expressions, and his mannerisms. That’s got to be a unique factor to put into it, to cast a deaf actor to play a role in which they have to be fairly loquacious at times. And then you have people around him. You also need to have characters to translate in the moment from scene to scene.
Alexa Fogel: It was harder casting the people around him, because he’s a known quantity. I think the writers had him in mind. I had worked in the deaf and hard-of-hearing world before when I cast Creed III. So I knew that process. It’s complex because there’s someone who is hearing and signing with whom I can talk, and who is translating for me. And then there’s the actress who’s reading with the deaf or hard-of-hearing. It’s a fantastic, thrilling experience. By the time I met Troy, I had already done that, so he and I had a very easy dialogue. But the actor who played his son, those auditions were pretty detailed, and Forrest (Weber) is an absolute find. It’s a very small group of people when you’re looking for somebody who can do ASL and play that part, which is a tricky part. I thought he was amazing. He had not done very much. He and Chris Coy, whom I’ve cast many times. I think that part really grew Chris’ part as well because everyone loved him so much, and thought they were a great pair.
The Contending: I wanted to circle back to David Simon, who I think has been maybe your most consistent collaborator.
Alexa Fogel: Probably. It’s been at least twenty years. From The Wire through We Own This City.
The Contending: I talked to Jon Bernthal for We Own This City. I imagine he and Holt would get along very well. Other than being brilliant, what is it about working with David that keeps you coming back?
Alexa Fogel: David had his deal at HBO, and he has a team of people, writers, and all department heads that he and Nina Noble—who’s his partner—work with, and I’m one of them. We did those projects very consistently every two years or so. I don’t think it’s about me coming back. They’re singular. They’re David Simon projects. They’re socially relevant. They’re historically interesting and unique. There are thousands of people in them. I really feel the hole in that I’m not doing something with him right now. At the moment, he doesn’t have a home; he doesn’t have that HBO home right now. And it would be great to be doing a show with him right now.
The Contending: I was watching Mr. Scorsese this week. When a person’s reputation has made it to a certain level, and this could be either Scorsese or David Simon, we have this assumption, like What do you mean they had a hard time getting something made? You do this long enough, at least on my side, and I’m sure it comes to you sooner on your side, you start wondering how anything gets made. It really does seem that hard.
Alexa Fogel: He’s got a brilliant thing that I just recently read that hopefully will have a home. It’s epic. Here’s hoping, because I really want to cast it. But those pieces, everything from The Plot Against America to Treme, it’s the kind of stuff I love doing. It’s a vast canvas, and hopefully I’ll get to do more of it.
The Contending: I was talking to the creator of Task (Brad Ingelsby) recently, and we spoke about Tom Pelphrey, of course. I thanked him for bringing Tom back to Pennsylvania because of Banshee. I imagine for you, when you see actors that you gave them that shot at the biggest role they’ve had to date, and then they go on to do other things, there’s a sense of pride and even validation, perhaps.
Alexa Fogel: Oh, yeah. It’s not validation because I have confidence in what I do. But it’s thrilling. Tom and I have talked about this a lot, and we’re close, but one of his very first auditions out of Rutgers was for me, which I didn’t remember until he told me this, for Generation Kill, and he was too young. I apparently called his agent and said he’s too young, but he’s really good. And he went on to do a couple of years on a soap, which was a great training ground for him. After that, I think he’d done some theater, but I cast him in a really different role in Banshee. Sometimes it’s just timing. You get to a point when they’ve grown into the thing that you’re doing. At the time, I was also working with Greg Yaitanes, and we had a lot of mutual trust. So the fact that he hadn’t done anything like that yet didn’t matter, because he could pull it off in the room. And that cast, like The Wire and Oz, is still very close, which is something I’m always really proud of because you don’t think about that when you’re putting a cast together either.
By the time Tom auditioned for Ozark, Chris Mundy had planted the seed in the first season that Laura’s character’s brother was going to surface. There’s a thing where they talk about their son in a way that references her brother, and I knew it was probably coming. David Simon used to do this all the time, where he would plant seeds of things to come, and I just had to be ready for it. The other thing is, I’ve known Laura since she was at Juilliard. We started out together, and so I know her as a person and as an actor really well. His two audition scenes were all I had. So for me to have to figure out how they were going to have the familial bond of a brother and a sister, just from those audition scenes, and for Tom to pull it off, required a lot of trust. And it just worked. I think part of that is his skill and the trust between us, and that he’d already done Banshee, and that we knew each other well. Yes, the roundabout answer to your question is it’s thrilling, and there’s a lot of pride, and you’re just happy for them.
This interview was conducted at the Virginia Film Festival and was facilitated by the festival’s organizers.
