#42 - Juliet Taylor: Legendary Casting Director on Taxi Driver & The Exorcist, Discovering Meryl Streep, Spielberg's Pot Smoking 80s Crew, Career Luck, Woody Allen, & Collaborating With A Holocaust Survivor on Schindler’s List

Today’s guest is one of the most notable casting directors in the history of movie making.

Beginning her career under the tutelage of legendary casting director Marion Doughtery, our guest then transitioned to making a name for herself and by god did she.

Now retired, during her epic career she was responsible for the casting of films including but not limited to, DEEP BREATH NOW - Taxi Driver, Schindler’s List, The Exorcist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Network, Terms of Endearment, Big, The Killing Fields, Dangerous Liaisons, The Mission and Sleepless in Seattle. Not to mention her longstanding collaboration of over 40 movies with Woody Allen including Annie Hall and Manhattan AND finally she was also the woman to cast Meryl Street in her first motion picture.

My guest is Juliet Taylor.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mike: Today's guest is one of the most notable casting directors in the history of movie making.

Beginning her career under the tutelage of legendary casting director Marion Dhati. Our guest then transitioned to making a name for herself, and by God did she now retired. During her epic career, she was responsible for the casting of films, including, but not limited to deep breath. Now, Taxi Driver, Schindler's List, the Exorcist Close encounters of the third Kind network, terms of Endearment big, the killing fields, dangerous liaisons, the mission and sleepless in Seattle.

Not to mention her longstanding collaboration of over 40 movies with Woody Allen, including Annie Hall and Manhattan. And finally, she was also the woman to cast Meryl Streep in her first motion picture. My guest is Juliette Taylor. How are you doing today?

[00:01:17] Juliet: Very well, thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[00:01:20] Mike: Thank you very much for being here. It is quite the honor. Now, Juliet, I ask all of my guests the same first question, and that is, what did your parents do and did it affect your career choices moving forward?

[00:01:32] Juliet: my father was a lawyer and my mother was a. I guess you'd say what they used to call back in the day, a homemaker, but an incredibly, active person who today probably would've been professional.

[00:01:45] Mike: Amazing. And so they didn't have necessarily, A background in Hollywood, was any of that sort of thing, where did that first come to

you? 

[00:01:53] Juliet: No, I, I grew up in a town where there was really nobody who was theatrical at all. And, um, my mother always wanted me to have a career cuz she wished she had, so there was a little bit, you know, of incentive there. My father, Had enjoyed amateur theater when he was at college, and they appreciated the theater and loved the opera, loved the theater.

Took us to a lot of theater growing up. But certainly if my brothers had decided to go into the theater, they would've been appalled. The fact that I did scared them a little, but it was, you know, I was a girl. So they thought, well, it's a fun job.

[00:02:28] Mike: Absolutely. So I guess that maybe was where you began thinking you might want to be an actor, but then when you got to college you realized maybe that wasn't the case. Is that correct?

[00:02:38] Juliet: That's correct. I mean, I, I think that's how a lot of people start out because certainly, back when I was in school, you really thought, well, you can be an actor or maybe a director, and then you sort of knew maybe what a scenic designer was or a costume designer was. But if you didn't have any of those talents, And you really didn't know what to do.

and you thought, well, maybe I should do something else. But the college I went to Smith College, which is a women's college. And And they had a wonderful theater department in that, which was part of the curriculum. It was not and that's why I picked it. And in addition to being, uh, having a really good theater department, they also had a board of counselors of professional women.

And that board included women who were stage managers in the theater publicists, and there was a casting director When she spoke, I thought, wow, that sort of puts together all the things I like, I love performance, and, it just sounded so interesting to me. so I sort of filed that in the back of my brain, but in the meanwhile, through another person on that board, I got my first job working in the theatrical producer's office, and that was kind of my first job

as a,

receptionist.

Of course, you know,

[00:03:47] Mike: Yes, of course. Gotta start down now, of course. when you had that kind of realization that maybe being an actress, being an actor wasn't for you, was that a difficult reality to accept given that it'd kind of been your dream, I guess at that point? It's one of those careers that it is a dream, isn't it?

And then you were opposite those girls at college and you thought, oh, maybe this isn't quite for me. Was it hard to let that go and think, oh, I'm gonna move

into something else and have to watch it? 

[00:04:11] Juliet: Well, in my case, it wasn't, I have friends who were casting directors for whom it was a harder, harder transition for me. It wasn't because I literally was too frightened to audition once I got to college. I never auditioned. I was too frightened to audition, and so I obviously didn't have the personality for it.

When you're in high school or in school, they just tell you what part you're gonna play. I was fine with that.

[00:04:36] Mike: And the job that you mentioned when you started as a receptionist, was that with David Merrick in New York? 

[00:04:41] Juliet: Correct? Yes.

[00:04:42] Mike: How did you come into

that world? 

[00:04:44] Juliet: well, that was a pretty great place 

to start. Well, another person on this board who was fairly new graduate, had the job. for three or four years. And she was moving up in the office and she said, well, you may be too inexperienced cuz you've never had a job before, but let me see.

And so I came in and they wanted me to take a typing test. And even though, you know, all girls were told they had to type before they went into the work world. Back in my day. And, um, even though I was terrible typist, I think that definitely was me not wanting to be a secretary, that I just blocked it.

they still gave me the job and, it was fantastic. It was great. I mean, we were on the seventh floor of the St. James Theater building and he had seven shows running on Broadway. Hello Dolly downstairs, and then seven shows across. You know, all the west forties. So it was pretty thrilling

[00:05:36] Mike: Did you have much time around him? Did you learn anything from David that you remember? 

[00:05:40] Juliet: but it was a small office

and, um, he, he wasn't that approachable. He 

was very, nice to me. I'm not sure that niceness is an adjective that people use about him that often, but he was kind to me. But I think it was because I was.

So I would say that I learned more in that particular job by observing, and I think maybe, but from the people a little closer to me in age. in terms of what I should do next. When I got offered the job, after six months, I was offered this job to be Artie's secretary, and, I was reluctant to go, cause I thought leaving a job after six months didn't sound very responsible.

And, all of my friends at the Merrick office, more or left my age group, a little bit older, said, you know, should go when you can go into a particular profession. Take that avenue. Don't give that up. there's no place to go here really.

[00:06:33] Mike: and this became a big turning point for you, obviously 

getting to know Marion. Could you talk about when you moved into that 

role and. I guess you became her protege in 

many ways.

[00:06:44] Juliet: Yes. I mean, I, that was a very tiny office. She had just opened it. You know, the filmmaking in New York had fallen off for many years because it was just too expensive to make a movie in New York. The unions were very, sort of prohibitively expensive, and when we got a new mayor, John Lindsay, he really wanted to bring movies back to New York.

So suddenly he negotiated contracts with the unions that made it, kind of friendly to make movies in New York again. And Marian being the. Kind of go-to person already was flooded with offers, so that's why she started sit down office. I was the sort of secretary receptionist and then she had an associate and that was it.

But that associate moved to California after about six months. And so there I was, and Marian just started giving me more and more and more to do. And she had a very kind of, she was just incredibly reinforcing and, encouraging to do things. Like, for instance, when The Exorcist came along, which wasn't that many years, I hadn't been there all that many years, you know, I think I'd been there for maybe two years.

she did not. Have a good relationship the director. She had worked with him before in another movie, and they had not really gotten along, and this is a little bit maybe telling tales out of school. I, I always thought maybe he did this in a way to kind of tease her a little bit, but.

Calling her and saying, I hear you have a really good assistant associate at, could she do this movie for me? And she said, great. Go do it. And likewise, she was offered when hair. Moved from the public theater onto Broadway, the musical hair. they approached Marion. She had no interest in doing it.

And I said, oh, please give it to me as I just, my dream to cast hair on in any form, but on Broadway I'd love to do it. And she gave me that. I mean, that was pretty great cuz I wasn't that experienced and it meant also I was taken off to other projects and couldn't help her.

[00:08:38] Mike: You built that trust? 

[00:08:40] Juliet: Yeah. She was great. It was generous too.

It was trust and generosity. She wasn't trying to just keep me in my job, if you know what I mean.

[00:08:48] Mike: Absolutely. Yes, she was. She was pulling you through the ranks. And speaking of that, after working with Marion, you went out alone, of course. And your first credit 

is a movie. I would love to ask about, of course, the Exorcist you mentioned there. How did you first come onto the project, and could you talk about your experience casting Linda Blair as well? 

[00:09:05] Juliet: well, I got, as I said, Billy Friedkin had asked Marion 

if I could do it, and, and how he knew this, I don't know. But at any rate, he did hire, I'd never been to California before, by the way, being a New Yorker. My parents were sort of more Eurocentric that if we went anywhere, we went to Europe, but I'd never been to California and he flew me out for lunch.

It was, you know, kind of crazy. But anyway, so anyway, I started doing the movie I and, I think there were, as I recall, you know, I think that, there were certain top decisions that I wasn't really involved in. Like Ellen Burstin. I think that was already done. but certainly Linda Blair, that was one thing I think New Yorkers were really very creative at, is that we did these big searches for kids.

And back then, you know, people weren't as worried about safety. And the schools were really great. The schools let you come in. And sit in the classrooms and say, oh, that kid looks great. Or sit in the lunchroom or the drama teacher would bring you in and show you classes. And, so we had access and I saw a lot of kids who were.

I would say the majority of the kids who were candidates were not professionals. They were school kids who just loved acting at school and seemed right. Linda Blair, on the other hand, was a professional child. she had done, Goulds Mustard commercial or something. She had done a couple of commercials and she lived in Connecticut.

and she just, uh, you know, she stood out pretty quickly and remarkably, 

[00:10:30] Mike: When you are casting a child for 

such a frightening role, do you have to have discussions with Linda and her family about the content of the movie? Did the school board know that the Exorcist was what you were 

sitting in the school for?

[00:10:41] Juliet: you know, that's a good question. I don't know if they ever knew, but yes, I do believe that. I don't really recall it, the conversations we had with the parents, but of course she had an agent and she was professional and I, but I'm sure there were warnings. I have more memories of doing that. On Taxi Driver.

that, was because Jodi Foster was a Californian and they had very strict child labor laws because of everything that had gone on earlier, the, you know, the overwork of children and so forth that I remember there were more social workers involved in that. I don't remember too much of that.

And the Exorcist, although I'm sure everything had to be told, you know,

[00:11:17] Mike: Absolutely. What was um, William Frieden's process like? Cause obviously as yourself you have to be a bit of a shapeshifter with your directors. Each one, I'm sure is a very 

different process.

[00:11:27] Juliet: Well, that is so true. I mean, that's an important part of casting, which is that every director has a different sensibility and every project does, so you have to be able to sort of, Fulfill the vision of the director and also hope that you can bring something to it. You know, casting's the first thing that's done in the process.

And, directors sometimes never heard the words read before, and they can change their mind as they hear people read it. It can. Take on a slightly, eat a little to the left, a little to the right kind of thing. And um, so as a casting director, you try to bring that into it. not to sort of always you try, you know, don't wanna do what they always used to call, sort of hitting it on the head.

Right. You know, casting it to type, kind of, So he was very receptive to that because, it was an interesting time casting in New York because we did a lot of, there were a lot of street movies being made, you know, it was the area Arab shaft and across a hundred 10th street and stuff.

one of the first things that Marianne ever gave me to work on, she, she was on it too, but I really finished it was the panic and needle park and. We took people from the streets we took people who done, or actors who had done very little, who just fit the quality.

So Billy was very open to that. Like, for instance, Jason Miller, that championship season was a very successful play on Broadway and there was a lot of publicity about him and he was so great looking. He was this kind of very brooding, romantic. dark kind of quality to him. And when I read his, biography in the playbill, it said that not only was he a writer, but he had studied acting at university.

And, I thought, well, gee, I'm gonna, I'll give it a trial, see if he'd be willing to come in and read. And he did, and he got the part, the woman who plays a very visual but. Non-speaking. You may have read this before, cause I've told this before at sort, but a non-speaking role of his mother, was a lady I found by going to a Greek restaurant in the Hell's Kitchen area and asking them if they knew of any older ladies who.

were of Greek descent, who lived in, who were like their mothers or their aunts who actually could act or couldn't act, but were brave enough to give it a whirl. And it was the, it was the relative of one of these, these Greek restaurant owners. So we could go to the streets and find interesting things.

so we did, there was a lot of that going on, which made it kind of fun. he was very open to it.

[00:13:55] Mike: that's really cool. And I'd also love to know, something I think people find interesting is obviously you have to deal with different parties, the studio and this and that. And I 

understand that maybe they were pushing for some. Big names, you know, Brando, 

Audrey Hepburn and things like that.

How do you navigate that as a casting director and with the director?

[00:14:12] Juliet: in this particular case, I imagine that I wasn't involved. I mean, I was, you 

know, I was. I think I, I do remember, I think being involved in the Max FTO decision, but, I think that any arguments they had with the studio, I was probably, not a part of. But as time went on and I, I became, you know, more of staple in certain directors lives, like, like say Mike Nichols and Woody, you know, they tended to leave.

You know, New York and California were very separate places at that time, and they tended to just say, oh, well, we'll let Mike do that, or We'll let would he do that. And there were certain companies like United Artists and Orion who really set up with the idea of giving directors their saying. However, that having been said, I did face that, on certain movies and I remember, On Working Girl was one of the first times I remember it with Mike.

Because at first Mike thought, you know, Alec Baldwin was new and he came in and he read and he was so great and Mike thought maybe he'd use him as the lead, you know? And that was, he came in to read the lead and then the studio went, oh no, I don't think so. Not the lead in a movie. We need somebody more famous.

So, and then Mike was of course very happy to have Harrison Ford. I mean, he was very happy to have Harrison Ford and Alec got the smaller role. 

[00:15:30] Mike: Speaking of leads there, one of the things that you said before is about how actors, they just kind of have it, they have it or they don't and they walk in and you have that kind of gut feeling. It's an intuitive process. how does that work for people? You know, actors out there might listen to this show.

Is there anything they can cultivate when they're coming into casting that might help them in the process, the ways that they act in auditions their headshots, or is it literally 

just gonna be, you've got it. You haven't?

[00:15:54] Juliet: Well, it could be just not necessarily got it in a kind of universal way, but you're right for it or you're not, you know, and I, I think it's important to just come in and be yourself and try to inhabit the part as best you can not try to adapt yourself unless you're given a tip from the director or the casting director.

I mean, that was one thing I'm, I bet you, I'm sure probably Ellen told you this too, that, Marion was very good at give the actor as much information as you're allowed to, that will help the actor, and there's only so much you're allowed to tell them. And by the way, many of the directors are not local.

And they need the similar kind of help. Give them as much information about the person they're gonna see. You know, let them know that this actor is fantastic and this is what they've done, but they're not great at auditioning. Or let them know that this actor is actually kind of great at auditioning, but this is what you're gonna get.

there's not gonna be a lot of departure from that, or a lot of different colors or, you know, try to inform everybody as best you can, really. So, yeah, I mean, I, I think that it's really important for actors to know that if they don't get something, it's not because they're not good. it's very possible that they're not just the director's idea of what the part should be.

Whatever they bring to it, 

[00:17:12] Mike: Speaking of people that kind of have it, I've said to you before we came on live that you are very modest generally, and I try not to be very on the nose of my questions, Juliet, but there's normally one thing I have to ask, which is very specific podcast guest and your one, I'm sure you've told many times before, but as someone who did obviously have it, please could you tell the story, our listeners, of the first time you saw 

Meryl Streep and how you came to put her in her first movie?

[00:17:36] Juliet: Well see It's funny cause it, it isn't. So it was my good fortune to put Meryl Streep in her first movie. And I'm not saying that because I'm modest. It's because Meryl Streep graduated from me drama school. She came to New York. She did Ani of the wells at Lincoln Center.

She said she did. Now I've forgotten what the number is. 27 bag and loads of cotton, whatever the plate is. and she was a immediately startling, just immediately. And everybody went nuts over her. And I know that I brought her in for. A million parts before Julia, and I was just lucky that I was able to cast her in her first movie because I'm sure other people were trying too.

It wasn't like she was a secret. She was not a secret.

I feel more like on that movie and I'm think probably have told this story before too, I think more on that movie was that. The effort that I went to on the behalf of Vanessa Redgrave. because she was very political then, and so was Jane Fonda. And Fred Zimmerman was already afraid of working with Jane Fonda.

People were calling her Hanoi Jane at the time. And Vanessa Redgrave was also a real fire brand and talking about running for Parliament. They were both very to the left and he, I mean, I don't know what his politics were, but he was a rather sedate gen, you know, and he just thought she was gonna be trouble.

And I said, look, she's in New York. She's doing Lady From the Sea in New York. She could come in and meet you, and he just wouldn't. And I went to the producer and I said, I just think this is such a mistake. Fred Syndrome got so mad at me that I did that. But he did meet her and she's apparently, I don't really know her at all except brief little bit, you know, hardly at all.

But But I hear this from everyone who knows her, just has such a big heart and is so lovely, and she just totally snowed him. Totally. And And he loved her. And so I felt like that was a really, um, cuz I do remember him calling me at home and getting so mad at me that I did that.

[00:19:41] Mike: So there's an element as a casting director then of not just looking at actors 

and imagining them in fictional parts, but you are also having to sort of judge them as people as well, and fit them 

into your piece of a movie, aren't you?

[00:19:53] Juliet: That's correct. So, And, and you know, I, I think that there are a lot of directors who, don't wanna work with actors who are gonna be difficult. And he was at a point in his life that he really didn't need that or want that.

[00:20:05] Mike: no, I can see that. Definitely. To take a little bit of a side shift, one of the processes I'd love to hear about that you've worked with as well over your incredible career is of course the time that you work with 

Steven Spielberg on Shin's List. I would love to hear how you came onto that and meet Steven for beginning, and I've 

got a few questions for you on that one.

Certainly.

[00:20:23] Juliet: Well, I knew him because I had worked on close encounters, he had this movie, it was gonna be done in New York. So he thought of me and, um, I started working on it. it seems like it was almost a year in advance because I think ideally he would've, and I would've liked to have cast it with actors from the countries they were.

From representing. and so we did a big search for about a year and it was very, very difficult to find great actors who spoke good English, good enough English, and people weren't as fluent back then. I mean, not that that was that long ago, but now Everybody can speak American English, they can speak British English, you know, they're very fluid that way.

but anyway, it doesn't really matter. I'm not sure that even today it would be that easy to find somebody who could really carry a movie in a language other than their own from some of the countries we were looking. And so we spent a long time doing that, and then we kind of decided to go for what they call the sort of more mid-Atlantic, you know, Brits are always good at that, right?

I mean, there's grapevines, you know, But it was a really, really interesting process. And, it was a very collaborative process. He he had an amazing, production manager who's no longer alive, who was a Holocaust survivor and who kind of coordinated. All of us with, because I think that my recollection is, even though I did spend time with Steven, of course, I think that at the beginning of it, he was shooting another movie, I'm pretty sure beginning of our process.

And so this guy who was just wonderful at kind of, um, bringing together with the casting directors in Europe and so forth and so on. But, It was a really, really interesting, process and, I think that's another thing that comes into certain films. There are films where you really have to do research, lot of research, and I like that.

Is it like you really are immersing yourself in a world? It's like you're really starting to understand another. culture and you learn things historically that you didn't know before. I, I find that very exciting,

[00:22:20] Mike: Well, if you're building the world as the casting director, obviously it makes sense that you understand the rules of that world.

[00:22:26] Juliet: and each movie takes you to a different place. I mean, it seems, you know, to me, I mean like when I 

worked on the front for Martin Rit and everybody involved in the making of the movie had been blacklisted. Well, I knew about blacklisting, but I didn't know it from the heart. The way they knew it from the heart and hearing them talk about it, I felt like I was transported in history.

This really fun and interesting.

[00:22:50] Mike: Wow. And I believe the production, the producer you're talking about, was it brand holistic

[00:22:55] Juliet: Yes, it was. Yes. 

[00:22:58] Mike: one of the questions I was going to ask as well was we had a previous podcast guest who was amazing on red carpet rookie's, Bonnie Curtis. She was Steven's, sort of producer and assistant at the time.

Yeah, she's really cool. And I remember her saying that. Shin Liz carried a real personal and 

historical weight for so many people, obviously Steven and Branco. Did that affect yourself on the film and you know, you and Steven in the casting 

room and the process at all?

[00:23:20] Juliet: I don't know how about Steven or the process. I, I feel like, Bronco affected me definitely. I felt like he was so engaged in it. And it wasn't just that he had suffered what he had suffered. It was more his passion for it. And he was great at galvanizing all of us. And you sort of, you know, I think he was a wonderful influence on the movie.

I don't remember talking to Steven about that so much, about Bronco, I mean,

[00:23:45] Mike: On a bit of a lighter note. One of the things I wrote down, something you mentioned a little few minutes back, which I wanted to bring up. I feel like I've mistyped this maybe, but speaking of, Spielberg, I wrote down basically close encounter of the third kind was a crazy movie to cast according to yourself.

Julia, I read there was nobody over the age of 30 in the room except for Steven, who was probably 32. And apart from me and Steven, everyone 

was stoned. Could you talk about that?

[00:24:10] Juliet: I hope Steven doesn't mind. I said that. I think Julia Phillips was there. She was a little older than Steven and me. And then, um, yeah, it was that period of time everybody was, I don't wanna say who.

[00:24:23] Mike: No. No, you don't. No, you don't have to. 

[00:24:25] Juliet: but they were everybody. there was a lot of pot smoking felt, seemed to me, a lot of room service.

They were always rolling in the lunch carts and stuff. but Steven's work ethic, he's a great guy. You know, he just is a great guy and, it was, his work ethic from such a young age was really astounding. You know it with a wonderful light touch. I mean, he wasn't heavy handed, but he just never lost his focus.

His work was at the front of his mind always. And he was always kind and fun and he listened and everything and collaborative and in that room fun, you know? we had a lot of laughs, you know, it was fun. And we it was a really fun movie to work on. I had a great time. but it was, you know, that was the period of time.

It was the seventies.

[00:25:08] Mike: Yeah. And it was just after jaws. So I imagine Steven had a lot of creative control at the time. Did that influence your freedom in casting? You didn't have to fight the studio so 

much. 

[00:25:18] Juliet: I do not remember fighting the 

studios. No, I don't. 

[00:25:21] Mike: When you've got him on side at that point, I'm sure you can 

probably get whoever you want.

[00:25:26] Juliet: But again, I think, my experience in fighting the studios happened. 

Certainly would've happened last with someone like Steven Spielberg and he, being his own producer, could fight his own battles in that regard. I'm sure, you know, I think that my experience in fighting the studios, came more with, oh, oh, golly, I don't even really know.

Except it feels like it happened more, a little bit more. With Mike, with Woody, they just left us alone. his budgets weren't big, so nobody interfered. He had a consciousness of not wanting to let them down, wanting to have at least somebody in the movie that people would come see. but I don't really re I'm certainly with someone like Steven.

I probably wouldn't have known about it.

[00:26:06] Mike: and on, uh, Woody's films, you obviously had such a. Long 

storied history together that you became more than a casting director. You were involved in script and things like that, right.

[00:26:16] Juliet: Well, because we became 

friends and we were, you know, I worked for him for so very long, he was, you know, very inclusive with the people who worked for him. He was very close too often, and he would always send me so, A script in advance to see if I liked it. And then if I did and we talked about it, whatever, then he'd say, well, who do you think could play the part?

It would, that kind of a process. and there was a little of that with Mike. Not as much Do you like it so much as if I do this, who do you think we could get to play it? But, but that kind of longevity in a relationship makes the job more meaningful in a way. it sort of, it just sort of, you do feel really a part of the team and close.

I mean, and they weren't the only ones. I mean, there were other people I, I felt I had that relationship with, but they were in New York and they were prolific and were constant, funnily enough, you know, there were a lot of. again because of, the fact that LA and New York were, seemed like two very different communities when I started out.

We were closer to London in a way, so I would say my other, you know, closest relationships were English directors.

I don't really know. I mean, I, I mean, I've cast things from there, four directors from here. I don't think it would've been my style back then. I think now it's everything's very similar, and so there's a similar kind of ethos, but back then, There was still a little, although Marmion used to talk about this a bit, I mean, there was still a little bit of a hangover from the, cattle cult era It was Marian. Marian really was sort of, you know, a pioneer in fighting that and being very specific and only bringing in three or four people for each part. All of them quite different. she would always refer to that, that was the way that they did it. You know, in California, and she didn't like it.

she wanted to sort of think it through and sort of bring something in. And I think that contribution was important to her to feel like she was, you know, adding something, to the overall effort rather than just, Being phoning it in kind of, yeah.

I've really always been more of a theater person, and so I don't think I would've liked it still to this day, I'm not, I like movies a lot, but I'm not a film buff.

I see everything in the theater and I came to New York to work in the theater. But casting for movies is more fun than casting for the theater. Well, because you can use somebody who basically is not even an actor really, as, as Mar used to say, everybody's got one story to tell a great face, a real person.

you can do all those things. They don't have to do eight shows a week and have stagecraft. And so it's, it's fun. It's colorful.

[00:28:48] Mike: Speaking of New York, obviously it's been such a big part in your life, and that's where you started that long journey that you began all those years ago. How do you think the young Juliet would look at this career? Now, if I'd have told you back then when you were with Marion and David that you were gonna go onto all of these things, how would you have thought about it, do you think?

[00:29:06] Juliet: You mean What the movie business is like now? 

[00:29:08] Mike: As in what would young, twenties Juliet think? If I'd, back then I'd given you a sheet and I'd said, you are gonna do all of these things and you're 

gonna go through all these movies and it's gonna be this unbelievable career. would you think that that would be, legacy. 

[00:29:22] Juliet: I don't know. I think I didn't think about it that much and I think I, I don't 

mean to be self-effacing, but I think I 

got really lucky, first of all to work for Marian to have Marian move to California to be a producer and basically inherit her clients and to be in New York during such a great time of movie making.

I think those are all really lucky features. I, I don't think. And this is also generational. I don't think I set out to have a big career. I think I wanted to have a meaningful job and I kind of loved this world and I always think fantasized about working in this world. I turned out, I think I was more, of a career person than I thought I was.

But I didn't. I fell into it really. And that is generational a little bit. but I think I was maybe more ambitious than I knew. I don't know, 

[00:30:10] Mike: Well, you find yourself along the way, I guess,

[00:30:12] Juliet: Yep.

Yeah. 

[00:30:13] Mike: and for the people now who are chasing it in a more obvious 21st century type way, what advice would you give to people? perhaps a younger person who's coming in who would be interviewing for a casting assistant type job, that gets them noticed, because I guess it can be difficult when you say, A lot of it can be gut feeling.

It's hard to maybe show that. And is 

there anything, you know, when you interview people, what is it you normally would've 

looked for back in the day?

[00:30:36] Juliet: In looking for an assistant, you mean? you know, to be honest, it. when people came to work for me, that it was back in the day when you had actually had interns, and interns were unpaid. I don't think you can do that anymore, but that's how people started in the arts spec the day, and, so that's a chosen eagerness right there so I think that in the course of number of months you kind of really knew that somebody really had sort of the. Work ethic, the intuition, the drive. And there were a couple people who worked for me who were so great and they were just great. But you know, it's funny, I always thought they might be better on the, at the other side of things.

Like they might be really good agents, you know, that they. that they were really had that kind of ability to be kind of put themselves out there. they would have the same appreciation of an actor, but they liked to go in from another angle. 

[00:31:30] Mike: Thank you very much for that answer. Now we'd like to wrap up on red carpet rookies with my own quick fire questions in the Actor's Studio. Juliet. So they're just little, little small ones. 

think of 

the first thing that comes to your mind. The first one being, what is one of the best pieces of advice you've ever been given?

[00:31:45] Juliet: here's an interesting piece. I wouldn't say it's a piece of advice, 

but it's truism that I've never, forgotten. I remember telling, Having a conversation with a friend who's now an enormously successful person in Hollywood and I was saying, I don't know what it is, but every single movie I work on, I'm a little afraid I'd get butterflies before I go into it.

And he said every single new thing I take on, I feel the same way. And I think it's important not to lose that. that's what keeps us doing good work you never, ever should get too self-satisfied and probably in any field, but certainly not in this field.

I'm not just casting, but I think the entertainment business, you should never think, you know it.

[00:32:29] Mike: number two. Do you have a favorite film or a favorite one at the moment? Cuz it's quite hard to answer sometimes 

[00:32:35] Juliet: Uh, that I've worked on or just in life.

[00:32:37] Mike: in life. 

[00:32:39] Juliet: Well, I think my 

favorite movie in life is the Best Years of Our Lives, William Wilder.

[00:32:43] Mike: Nice. So like Billy 

number three, what always gave you a reason to get out of 

bed for a day of casting? 

[00:32:49] Juliet: I think I just was, did it? I was on automatic.

[00:32:54] Mike: Destiny.

[00:32:55] Juliet: I think I just went to work. Some days I looked forward to, some days I didn't, you know?

[00:33:00] Mike: That's That's fine. I've had some people say pay. Don't worry. 

[00:33:04] Juliet: Oh, you know. No, it's so funny. You know, you'd think this is a kind of a, maybe a privileged girl's attitude, but I did not think about that that much except running my office. I wanted to make sure everybody got paid and I had enough money to pay them, but I did not think about that that much. and.

That's a luxury. not that I, I mean, maybe because again, I've used this word about 12 times in the conversation. there were plenty of people my age who didn't have careers. Most were though, cause it I was sort of a sixties, seventies girl. You know, most people did.

And, much more high powered than mine. But, You could have gone either way. Not much was expected of you really. So I didn't think about it that much. And, uh, I was married to somebody who had, who was doing very well, and I didn't have to, I didn't think about the money so much.

I think I thought more about the endeavor really.

[00:33:50] Mike: Fair enough. Thank you for the honesty. Number four, which job in the industry would you have done, if not for yours? 

[00:33:56] Juliet: I don't really know where there would've been a place for me. 

I think that it probably would've been in the theater business, but I don't know what it would've been, cuz I don't know where I would've exactly fit other than that. Um, I don't know. I can't answer that. 

[00:34:10] Mike: That sounds about right. This one is a hard one. If you had, could have worked with one person, living or dead, who would it have been?

[00:34:16] Juliet: who I did not work with already.

[00:34:18] Mike: Yeah, you have worked with most of them, to be fair, Juliette,

I guess, who would've been like a dream person to cast maybe or something like that? 

[00:34:25] Juliet: Oh no. I was thinking, you know, like, I mean, I would've loved to worked with some, director, say like a William Weiler. I. I would've loved to worked with William Miler. Like, I feel so, I feel so grateful that I got the end of the careers of people say like a Martin rent or that I, worked several times, say, with the Johns Schlesinger or Jack Clayton, or, you know what I mean?

How lucky was that? so yeah, I, I would say that I would've loved to have worked with someone like William Wilder for lots of reasons. I see. He sounded like an amazing man in addition to a rape filmmaker.

[00:34:55] Mike: The final one. 

Normally I would ask if you won an Oscar, who would you thank? But Juliet, could you 

explain why? That's an annoying question to ask a casting director, please.

[00:35:04] Juliet: Why, why isn't my question? Well, because we don't have a, um, cuz we don't have an Oscar.

exactly. well I'm probably really corny because I would probably thank Marian Darty. Of course, and I would probably thank my husband and children. That's so corny.

[00:35:25] Mike: You have to do it. You have to do it.

[00:35:27] Juliet: Well I think maybe also, I think I had, would have to throw in a few directors too. 

[00:35:32] Mike: Absolutely. And on that note, thank you so much for joining me today, Juliette,

if you couldn't tell, it was an absolute honor to learn from your career.

[00:35:40] Juliet: Okay. Thank you very much. 

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