Oppenheimer Casting Director: The New Rules of Casting

Orlando (00:00)
In a time when technology is reshaping every corner of the creative industries, what does it mean to cast a performance? Not just efficiently, but beautifully and memorably. We’re 18 months out from a sag strike that brought US production to a standstill. And at the heart of that conflict was a deep anxiety about the future. Actors are under increasing threat from AI, voice replacement, and shrinking residuals.

With global casting logistics driven by data and box office spreadsheets, it begs the question, what happens if humanity is forgotten for the sake of efficiency? This week, I’m joined by John Papsadera and Kim Winter, the casting powerhouses behind Oppenheimer, Tenet, Yellowstone, Landman, and the soon to be released Superman and the Odyssey. John’s company, Automatic Sweat, works with the best in the business, from Christopher Nolan to James Gunn and Taylor Sheridan, just to name a few.

John and Kim show us how leading with empathy, artistic instinct, and human connection doesn’t make you obsolete, it makes you essential. We talk about how the speed of international box office reporting was a technological shift that changed what kind of actors get cast, one of the first ways that casting was fundamentally changed by technology in the modern era, and whether a new shift is occurring with data surrounding social media. We talk about how self-tapes born out of COVID necessity have reshaped the audition process.

opening doors globally to new talent outside of LA, but sometimes at the cost of spontaneity and connection. And we talk about something far more important, why John trains his team to show up fully and emotionally in every casting session, being emotionally present as actors and humans on the other side of the script to ensure that actors don’t feel alone when doing the most important part of their job, being vulnerable on command. This episode reveals how the best in the business are adapting, not by chasing every new tool,

but by doubling down on what machines can’t replicate, intuition, emotion, and nuance. It’s proof that when you build trust through artistry, you don’t just survive disruption, you thrive in it. If you’re in the creative world and interested in how experts are adapting and thriving among the tectonic shifts in the creative industries,

This episode might give you a little inspiration.

Orlando (02:20)
and we can just say our hellos and you know, we don’t have to sort of do an official kind of like, and now back to our show. But yeah, no, what the podcast is kind of about is it occurs to me having worked in different creative businesses my whole life that there’s something inherently absurd about creative businesses, that businesses that are set up around widgets or making bicycles or computers.

Kim Winther (02:26)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (02:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Orlando (02:46)
make all the sense in the world because there’s a logic to it. And that piece goes there. but the, notion of setting up a business around something that’s inherently creative, interests me in general. so yeah, that’s really what the podcast is about. So, I mean,

John Papsidera (02:48)
Sure.

Hmm.

Orlando (03:01)
I think it’ll naturally go into technologies and things like that. But yeah, it’s not, you you don’t, you’re not going to be asked about the latest language models or asked to sort of divulge what tech you’re using internally. Okay.

John Papsidera (03:05)
Mm-hmm.

Too bad, because I was ready for that.

Kim Winther (03:15)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (03:17)
Yeah, I was prepared.

Kim Winther (03:19)
Yeah, John’s

been firing up chat GPT.

John Papsidera (03:22)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Orlando (03:25)
Well, cool. Well, I’ll just give a little introduction to you both. You guys are the… John is the founder and you guys are the casting team, at Automatic Sweat, doing some of the most amazing casting work in Hollywood for quite some time. But especially, I feel like you’ve really hit your stride in the last couple of years with…

Oppenheimer, obviously, which I think everybody recognized was a supreme feat of casting and, you know, working with Christopher Nolan on Tenet and the Odyssey now and also working in television on Westworld and on Yellowstone and having just very exciting for me cast Superman. So, yeah, I mean, I’m really excited to chat with you guys.

John Papsidera (04:07)
Hmm.

Orlando (04:11)
to the degree I feel bad for you ever, I felt when Oppenheimer, when Oppenheimer did so well and then immediately they announced the casting Oscar, I sort of felt like there must be a little bit of chagrin on your side. Because on the one hand, obviously amazing that they’re finally acknowledging casting and be such a bummer because you clearly would have won it.

John Papsidera (04:14)
You

huh.

Kim Winther (04:21)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (04:25)
you

Yeah.

Kim Winther (04:32)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (04:35)
I don’t know, know, people say that and it’s a kind thought and maybe, but, know, I didn’t win the Ardeos award that year. So, so for Oppenheimer. So, you know, who knows? Right. Yeah. Right, right, right. Right. but anyway, yes, thank you for saying that. And we’re really proud of Oppenheimer and, and everything that we get to collaborate on.

Kim Winther (04:43)
Yeah.

Orlando (04:44)
Right.

Well, what do they know?

Kim Winther (04:47)
Yeah.

Orlando (04:58)
Yeah, I mean, what do you think took so long for the Oscars to start acknowledging casting in that way? It’s something that the Emmys have done for quite some time. You have won some Emmys for casting. What do you think took so long? yeah.

John Papsidera (05:08)
Yeah.

From what I understand, and not having been in those rooms, but from what I understand of those meetings, there’s a certain proprietary quality directors and producers have over their products, over their projects. And I think for the longest time, no one wanted to give due to casting directors because they wanted to claim it as their own. I can remember many things that I had done and…

back in the day of DVDs when they had like little special added bonus tracks when it came out, you know, I’d sit and watch directors and producers say things like, when they came in the room, I knew it was them and I’m this and I’m that and take ownership of it. You know, for me, I always wanted to kind of go and you didn’t know who they were before they walked in that door. So, you know, it has been a long time coming.

Kim Winther (06:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (06:06)
Right, right.

John Papsidera (06:10)
but I think it’s been wrapped up in ego and, you know, and directors, you know, wanting the claim for their project. And I get it, and I don’t disagree with it, but if you’re gonna give awards to cinematographers and wardrobe and hair people and makeup and, you know, then why, yeah. I mean, none of those things exist without an actor. And…

Kim Winther (06:28)
Yeah, and makeup and sound.

Orlando (06:36)
without an actor.

John Papsidera (06:39)
for me,

that’s the inception and the beginning of all of it.

Orlando (06:45)
So a rare example in Hollywood of ego stifling forward momentum. Right, right. Right, right.

Kim Winther (06:50)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (06:51)
There you go. Yes. There. Yeah, an anomaly in this business. But yes, there it was. Yes.

Kim Winther (06:54)
Yeah.

And I mean, it’s

also, you there was a documentary about this called Casting By, where they sort of address that some directors won’t even credit casting directors with the title casting director. It has to say casting by, because they don’t like to share the word director with too many people. And so, you know.

John Papsidera (07:07)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, but yet director of photography, you know, there’s plenty of other examples that, you know, yeah, that was Taylor Hackford, I believe, as the offending party.

Kim Winther (07:18)
Yeah.

They are fine to dole it out.

Yeah.

Yeah

Orlando (07:28)
Right. That brings up a question of sort of what you think then, you know, mean, A, I think it’s strange that it took them so long, but B, what do you think then is the sort of the heart or the creative essence of the casting director’s job? What do you think, where do you think you get to play as it were?

John Papsidera (07:39)
No.

Hmm. Kim, you want to start that?

Kim Winther (07:54)
John gives much more thoughtful answers on this. I always admire his answers, so I always just listen and I take mental notes for when I’m asked solo.

John Papsidera (07:56)
No. No.

Where does it start? For me, it kind of starts in the soul of the project. I think our job is about matching human souls to something that’s two dimensional on a page. And that is an intuitive process in a lot of different ways. mean, yes, there’s an intuition of…

Orlando (08:01)
Right

Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (08:28)
how you feel this character is and people that align with that in your kind of library and consciousness of actors, all the way down to physically matching people and having to worry about lookalikes. And so I think it starts in a lot of different areas. It’s amorphic in that way. It’s not a straight line from A to B. And I think it takes, for me,

It takes the influence of all those things. It takes the influence of sitting with Kim and saying, what do you think about this person? What do you think about that person? Her, you know, texting me and saying, you know, who’d be great is this person. It’s those conversations. It’s also dramaturgy. It’s reading a script and going, there’s a moment there to be played by an actor that I…

I imagine this person could do. So it’s a mixture of, you know, binary and non-binary actions, imagination and facts coming together to create what I feel is, you know, a

I guess a painting or a mosaic of human experiences.

Orlando (09:39)
or a mosaic of human…

Orlando (09:44)
There’s obviously a move it seems in the modern era that,

A lot of projects are coming prepackaged, and so those decisions are being made before a studio even comes to it. I imagine that moves you even further up the development process. Are you guys being engaged that early with a project?

Kim Winther (10:03)
Yeah, mean, absolutely. And especially what John and I have been doing with a company that we started together about a year ago called Fjord Horse, which our sort of intention behind it was to amplify newer voices or different voices or people that may not necessarily have the reach that when they’re starting kind of from ground zero and trying to get a project made, and we can…

attach ourselves and sort of use our connections and help amplify projects that we really believe in. And so especially on those projects, we find ourselves, you know, starting with nothing. Financing is dependent on who we can get talent wise. And then that will green light a project or that will then mean someone takes a project out to sell it. So we’re really starting from day one on a lot of these sort of especially indie films that have, you know, combo financing, foreign financing, things like that.

Orlando (10:58)
you mentioned foreign financing, it was obviously a big technological shift in your guys’ profession when foreign box office sales started to be reported a lot faster. It used to be, obviously in the 80s, that domestic sales were all anybody cared about because domestic sales, at least you could reliably get information on last weekend’s box office immediately.

And then once foreign sales got the technology to be able to report that a lot faster, it meant obviously that people were realizing that certain talent was incredibly valuable in foreign territories. And then it led to this shift in independent film financers pre-selling foreign rights based largely on talent in those territories. Obviously that’s a technological shift that impacted your job. does that, or how did that practically change

Kim Winther (11:37)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (11:47)
the way you approach a project, you know, as that’s become a bigger part of the way films get made.

John Papsidera (11:56)
Yeah, did. You know, there was a point in time where, you know, foreign financing and foreign properties, you know, and like you said, reporting of the success or failure of projects was delayed. so, you know, and there still is.

that to some degree. When you talk about financing a film, there are people that will mean something to a domestic market that mean absolutely nothing to a foreign market. so the time has happened faster. mean, it used to be that they were probably a year or so behind what the studios were doing if you’re just talking about foreign financing. They wouldn’t know about who had films in the can.

Orlando (12:24)
Right.

John Papsidera (12:43)
that

was coming up the pipeline. It wouldn’t take risks on people. was all about, what is their value? And let’s look at the numbers and what their box office has done. That is still true by and large. I mean, to some degree. I think it’s quicker now, but I think, you know, diversity can still be a challenge in a foreign market. People that have not been in huge box office successes or tent

movies still find it difficult to, you know, be banked on by foreign financiers. So it still exists. It might be a tad bit closer, but the realities is this still is a very different marketplace, even though the entertainment business has been globalized in so many ways.

Orlando (13:20)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (13:36)
And it’s also, you know, for us on our end when we’re talking about starting earlier and earlier on projects, when they’re putting financing together or they’re trying to pre-sell something with someone attached, I mean, it is, you know, affecting the creativity behind the project and who you go after, because it’s just the reality of, you know, who makes that math equation work and who will give you the $10 million you need to do that movie. That might not be your top choice.

Orlando (13:54)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (14:04)
It might be someone that you really like, but it might be your third choice. then it sort of branches out from there of just who you target and who you go for.

Orlando (14:14)
And that’s really the genesis of when we talk about A-list actresses or A-list actors, is the actor or actress who’s getting you the most amount of money in either foreign presales or backing from the studio. Your B-list is your maybe up and comers or people who were, you know, top of the tree, but took some time out. That’s very interesting.

Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke mentioned the power currently that social media influence has in getting one cast in a project and that that’s actually almost mirroring the foreign sales approach Are you guys seeing that as well

Sometimes it’s socials that are tipping the balance or people having an unbuilt following on social media.

John Papsidera (15:00)
I think it’s been a phenomenon that people have been trying to figure out for years and nobody successfully has done it because every TikTok star would then be starring in a movie if there was any correlation. The fact is that sure, it’ll come up at some point of, yeah, but they have 7 million followers.

but it’s kind of an ancillary conversation. It is not really a primary conversation because I don’t think anybody really can prove that that turns into people buying a ticket. It’s one thing watching stuff for free online.

and following somebody in a, you know, passive way. It’s very different when you then, interactiveness with those talent, with those, you know, the talent becomes more solidified, you know? And I know that’s what people are trying to go for, like the interactivity between, you know, their followers and who they are. You know.

some actors really try and give content to it. Some people are just promoting things they’re paid to promote. So I think there is probably some algorithm in there about, you know, how much people are really invested in the people they follow. But I don’t know that there’s a direct correlation and I’ve not seen anybody be able to prove that in numbers yet.

Orlando (16:29)
Do you find that that question is a bit of a canary in the coal mine?

John Papsidera (16:33)
Yes,

totally.

I think it’s something people hope for and they try and add to the equation of, well, we should cast them because of this. But, you know, and that doesn’t mean that, you know, social media marketing campaigns don’t work and get more eyeballs and things and expose it. But I don’t think that there’s a direct correlation between followers and and people buying tickets and going to the theater.

Kim Winther (16:43)
Yeah.

Orlando (17:00)
you were talking before about, your human connection to a project and starting with the soul of a project, which I thought was a really beautiful way of describing how reading something impacts you and then kind of taking the vision of what you’ve seen, the brief descriptions. mean, generally a casting description in a script is ideally one beautiful line, you know,

John Papsidera (17:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (17:23)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (17:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Kim Winther (17:26)
Yeah.

Orlando (17:27)
It certainly is in Chinatown. It certainly is even in with John McClain and Die Hard. You know, it’s one great line that you go, I get everything I need to know about this person. And that feels you have to have a connection with the writer. Then you have to to have a connection with the director and how they’re, you know, potentially going to see it. I’m I’m interested in, you know, really the last year you’ve done an incredible example of of by

John Papsidera (17:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Orlando (17:56)
casting in Oppenheimer and then you’ve done, know, Yellowstone has just ended, but that was your handy work as well. How does it, how does your perspective from casting a film to a television show change? Because obviously with a film, you know, everything that character is going to experience in that 120 pages in television, you know, the smallest amount that they can possibly show you to tell you who this person is.

and then they’re going to put that person through the wringer for 10 seasons or, you it must change your perspective of how to come at a project and how does it.

John Papsidera (18:34)
I get, Kim do you wanna talk about this?

Kim Winther (18:36)
Well, I think, you you sort of hope that the other creatives that you’re working with, like the writers, producers, they have a sense and can give you a sense of where the character is going, at least in that season. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they have a pilot written and they’re like, we don’t have anything else to show you. And then it’s sort of at least my approach to it is I go the selfish route and I think, okay, well, what do I think? What is my take on this character? And I just kind of run with it until we start having

creative conversations around lists or watching auditions and them saying, I saw it this way or, you know, it’s sort of something develops out of that. But yeah, that’s sort of kind of…

John Papsidera (19:16)
Yeah, I think the oneness

is on us to some degree and I’ve always taken it on in that, you know, it’s our job to give people, you know, talent with as many bullets in the gun as possible, you know, and that you think about, especially in television, but even in film, what an actor can bring to this role, whether it’s explored or not.

that’s on the director and that’s on editing and a lot of things. But, you know, I’ve always felt like it’s important to try and give people the most talented person that you can and look at it in a limitless way as opposed to a, you know, a finite way.

Kim Winther (19:58)
And I think that also, you know, it’s our job. Our job isn’t just to cast projects. Our job is to be familiar with these actors and their versatility and to know them beyond just…

John Papsidera (20:05)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (20:10)
the one scene or two scenes we bring them in to read for for this specific project. Our job is to know, you know, to have seen them do all sorts of different things or have had them read for all sorts of different things for us before. To be able to speak to them sort of holistically, not just this version of this actor doing this character.

Orlando (20:29)
Right. That’s very interesting because I think that one of the beautiful things that you guys get to do, there have been lots of actors, the one I remember most clearly is Michael Keaton saying, when I realized that going into a casting wasn’t trying to get the job, it was the job itself. I have seven minutes where I’ve been given lines. I’ve got to inherit a character. That’s my performance. I’m, I’m right now doing a job and

The beautiful thing about that is you guys are sitting there watching lots of, hopefully, very good actors, really giving it their all and taking their own unique perspective on a character that everybody in the room has read. And then suddenly you’re seeing somebody with different takes on it. That must give you, over time, a really good understanding of what an actor can do. And I would assume that you see someone take unique

decisions enough times in the room and you start to believe in them. How does that work? Cause I’m sure a lot of actors, walk out of that room going, well, I either lost it or I won it. And they don’t realize that actually on that cutting room floor are people like you who see their skillset or, or don’t.

John Papsidera (21:43)
Yeah, I I think that, you know, it is a fascinating and magical process, casting, you know, for me, in that you do get to see different interpretations. I think it would be surprising to a lot of people, though, how similar a lot of actors will be.

in reading a role as opposed to, and I encourage actors to do this all the time, to, you know, really try and make unique decisions and choices in what you do, because that ultimately is what separates you from everyone else. Everybody else is, like you said, has the same lines, the same words, the same context of the scene. It’s how you infuse yourself.

into that scene and bring parts of yourself to that character, whether it’s how you talk, whether it’s a choice of assuming something about that character or not making an assumption about that character that then plays out. And you know, for me, that’s the real reward of casting. know, people will say, well, how many bad actors or how many horrible auditions have you seen? To me, what stays with me is the moments when you feel like you’re in the presence of an artist.

those are the things that still give me chills when I think about it over time. And, know, that’s what we hope for all actors. I mean, we want them to come in and be brilliant. And we just, all we can do is try and encourage and lead them that way.

Orlando (23:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim Winther (23:22)
Yeah, I think there’s

a lot of actors that are scared of going into the room with casting directors or feel like it’s this. And I’ve only ever worked for John, so I can’t speak to other casting offices or how other casting directors work. But I think the number one mantra in this office and that environment that John has created and has, you

long and incredible career is just that he is rooting for every single actor. He wants every actor that he brings into a room and shows a director or producer or writer, he wants them to be the one to get the role. He is rooting for every single one for different reasons or, know. And so I think there’s a lot of anxiety and it sort of breaks my heart when actors come into the room and they’re so, even if it’s just reading with me and they’re so nervous and there’s so much baggage and there’s so much just sort of going on.

And sometimes it’s just about kind of like giving them the space to just feel that and then get over it and then realize, okay, cool. This is like very, you know, low stakes chill. Let’s just play and have fun and do the job. Like Michael Keaton said.

Orlando (24:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

it’s interesting because I think that I think actors think that everybody’s not rooting for them in the room, whereas in the room, if they nail it, everybody can go home. mean, this is jobs done. Everybody’s happy. And we move on to casting someone else.

Kim Winther (24:35)
Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. If they nail it,

it checks the box on that role and we get to, you know. But it is funny that the perception is, you know, like, why would we bring an actor in that we don’t believe in and that we don’t like and we don’t think can do the role?

Orlando (24:47)
Right.

John Papsidera (24:56)
Right. Yeah, we don’t. Right. Yeah.

Kim Winther (24:57)
then we’re bad at doing our jobs. Because

then we’re suddenly bringing in terrible people for directors and producers and writers that, you know, when they turn to us and say, what do you think? well, we’ve hated them their whole careers. Like, you know, that just would never happen. But it’s funny that that is sort of the perception at times. And, you know, there’s that scene in the casting scenes in La La Land, too, that don’t really help portray casting in the most favorable light.

Orlando (25:10)
Right.

John Papsidera (25:12)
Right, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Orlando (25:24)
I think it’s comforting, A, I think to know that you guys are so, you know, receptive to people’s performance. But I also imagine that it means that the more somebody takes a risk and is talented, the more likely they are to get at least callbacks in to the last round. And the last round, probably comes down to all sorts of ephemera

I would imagine the best actor has made it to the last round almost every time, even if you end up choosing someone else for some other reason.

John Papsidera (25:55)
Yeah, I think that’s by and large the truth, you know, unless there’s somebody that they just absolutely don’t, I’m not gonna name names, but you know, there’s a show that we did that…

the actress has gone on to do incredible work in her own right that I was campaigning for and they just didn’t see it. There was a physicalization of the character that they were like, no, that won’t work. And I was like, why not? And so there are those things that you come up against time and time again. But yes, I mean, I think by and large,

process whittles it down and it separates what’s really special and what resonates with actors with a role and a role with actors through the process of reading and auditioning and taping and talking.

Orlando (26:55)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (26:56)
And you know, just to add to that, like what’s cool for me as someone who’s been mentored by John my whole career, I’ve been so lucky, but sort of growing up under his, you know, tutelage and just there was an, won’t again, won’t name names, but there was the show that we were doing where they were trying to cast the male lead. And there was one obvious person that John and I felt very strongly about and the producers, the studio, no one saw it and kept entertaining these ideas that to us, we just thought like, this is just going to set you up and take you down a

direction with the whole series that just isn’t what you told us you were trying to make. And to see sort of, you know, there are a lot of people in this industry that are a lot of talk and no walk behind it and to see John basically threaten to say to quit the show.

not if they didn’t listen to him, but basically said, I have expressed that I creatively feel so strongly about this, and you’ve hired me for my opinion, and if we’re not creatively aligned, then I should bow out, because this isn’t how I see this for you. And just to see someone throw sort of their weight around and just, you know, and after that conversation, they…

you know, come to kind of a reality check, but it’s just cool to see someone with John’s sort of career and success be able to advocate for someone and get people to listen, just because they have so much respect for John and his opinion at the end of the day.

Orlando (28:23)
that’s, that’s amazing. That’s probably when they were like, this is a creative endeavor. We should give it an Oscar. This, you know, we’ve got casting directors chucking their toys out out of the pram and threatening to walk off the project. They are creatives.

Kim Winther (28:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

John Papsidera (28:29)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Kim Winther (28:34)
Yeah. Yeah. But also, you know,

it’s you were sort of saying that the best actor gets in the room. Sometimes they might not get the role. But I mean, John has been a career maker for so many people because they kept kept bringing them in for things that they wouldn’t get. And then eventually they booked the one gig that they broke through. And they are a huge star now. And they’re an A-list actor now.

because he just kept putting them in front of the right people and sort of pushing it forth. So even if, you know, I think to actors, I would like to say just, it’s not always about not getting that one specific gig. It’s just about being in the rooms, being seen and doing good work so that the people that need to advocate for you and need to root for you continue to do so and want to keep bringing you in and putting you in front of people.

Orlando (29:05)
Mm-hmm.

I imagine that’s incredibly gratifying to be, you I mean, you’ve done it twice. I can remember recently with Kelly Riley and David Corrensweet now who’s going to be a Superman. It must be incredibly gratifying to, in the case of Kelly Riley, you probably knew it was a special role, but then watching her really level up through her performance, you know, really getting her that and then.

With something like Superman, you are immediately leveled up the moment you get the role of Superman. And those are two flip sides of the same coin. But what does that feel like when you feel like you’ve really been a part of changing an actor’s not just career, but their life?

John Papsidera (29:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a huge honor and one at times where I feel I’m not worthy of to be a part of an actor’s…

you know, career in a, a, as an agent, not as somebody that isn’t on their team, but as a bystander, but you know, an integral part of that. It is a, it is a real honor when you look at that over, you know, a career, you know, I had people and actors in Oppenheimer that, you know, guys that I had known since they were kid actors or, you know, actors that I’ve known for 20 some odd years playing smaller roles. I think

virtually almost everybody in that cast we knew and knew for a long time. And for them to talk to me afterwards about how important that was to them or how much they appreciated the opportunity and my support and stuff, it’s an incredible honor.

You know, I feel that the actors bestow upon casting directors, especially when it’s recognized in that way. I got a sweet, sweet email from an actress that’s in Landman, the Billy Bob show, literally this morning, to say, and I’m going back to set and I was thinking about you and I just wanted to thank you. you know, those are the things that stick with you and are, you know, lovely and it makes you happy for those people.

Orlando (31:13)
Hmm.

That’s awesome.

John Papsidera (31:43)
that have put up with as much disappointment and as much rejection as they do to get to a different place in their career.

Orlando (31:43)
Mmm.

Yeah, and you see them, have to be vulnerable on command and you’re seeing them in these moments of peak vulnerability. Yeah, that must be incredibly, yeah.

John Papsidera (31:55)
Mm.

It’s a brutal, it’s a brutal,

brutal existence to come in and share a bit of your soul every day, four times a day, three times a day, if you’re lucky, with a room full of strangers is incredibly courageous. know, I feel as an artist, know, it’s, you know, painters don’t invite people in every day to watch them paint, yet actors have to invite strangers in to have opinions about them and judgments about them.

Kim Winther (32:03)
Yeah.

Orlando (32:28)
Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (32:30)
about them every time they audition and you know it’s brutal it’s brutal work.

Kim Winther (32:36)
have to be on the other end of having to do sometimes incredibly emotional work opposite someone who’s sitting there like this. Sorry, what was my line? Yeah, I don’t know. Who’s giving them just absolutely nothing? It’s, yeah. Yeah.

John Papsidera (32:43)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Orlando (32:57)
Well you could try a little harder, Kim, when you’re reading opposite

John Papsidera (32:59)
Yeah.

Orlando (33:00)
them. It’s an idea.

Kim Winther (33:02)
Well, that’s

no, but that’s, you know, that’s sort of what John is known for. If you talk to any actor that’s auditioned with with John, that’s the one thing everyone leaves just talking about. And that’s sort of all the people that work for him now in our office or have worked for him. think that’s the biggest gift he bestows upon us as casting directors as we grow in our careers is that you act with the actor and you show up and you’re as present as they are and you try to give a little bit of your soul back to them. And I think that just comes from

Orlando (33:06)
course.

Bright.

Kim Winther (33:31)
John being, you know, studying acting and being an artist himself. But I mean, I definitely, when I first started this job, was not expecting that I would be crying opposite actors and auditions, which I have. And so it’s just, you know, I think our little bubble, we’re just very lucky. I think it’s just, I think actors are very lucky to get to work with someone like opposite someone like John.

John Papsidera (33:45)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (34:00)
I had to just toot your horn a little bit.

John Papsidera (34:03)
about the TV.

Kim Winther (34:04)
Yeah.

Orlando (34:05)
You brought up something there about some of the junior actors that you had worked with who came in and did smaller roles in Oppenheimer. I would imagine there’s a difference in your approach. When you’re working with somebody like Taylor Sheridan or James Gunn or Christopher Nolan, there’s a degree to which these are auteurs that people want to work with and that they will.

John Papsidera (34:11)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (34:31)
clear their schedule to a degree and it’s a really wonderful opportunity for an actor. You know, when they’re thinking about their career, they’ve worked all this, they’ve gone through all this slog to just even get a career. Now they’re getting to make choices of who to work with And then you’ve got other projects, I’m sure, where you’ve got to duck and dive and kind of be, I assume, selling the project a little bit more,

Kim Winther (34:33)
Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (34:42)
Yeah.

Orlando (34:54)
How does how does your approach change from a marquee project versus somewhere where you’re in the middle maybe and it’s a bit more on you to to get the people in.

John Papsidera (35:07)
Yeah, I mean, you do, you I think you do have to sell.

You know, you part of that job is to convince agents and managers why their clients should work with this person. Be in this film, be in this television show, whatever that is. And, and that’s, that’s a real part of our job. You know, I always felt like I always wanted to be a buyer, not a seller. and why casting, you know, agreed with me, but you know, the more I look at it over the years, you are just as much a seller as you are a buyer.

Orlando (35:13)
Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (35:42)
You know, there are, yes, I will say to Chris, Nolan, you know, things like, okay, well, who do you want? You know, it’s good to be king in the world. But, you know, on the other hand, the majority of projects are fighting and putting your Dukes up and trying to convince people why they should come in the room, why they should do this project, what it might lead to, what the value of it is, all those things. And that’s just as

Kim Winther (35:51)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (36:12)
important is the victory lapse you take on the other ones.

Orlando (36:17)
What, and this question’s just for me. We may edit it out, but I need to know, having cast Batman, having now cast Superman, there’s obviously a lot of pressure. There’s fan pressure from nerds like me. What goes into that? You know, and what do you draw upon? I know Kim was reading.

John Papsidera (36:24)
Yeah. Yes.

Kim Winther (36:24)
you

Orlando (36:40)
Am I allowed to say it? We can edit it out if I’m not. But All-Star Superman to kind of get a little bit immersed in the characters that James Gunn is going to be drawing from in this new version. Obviously, when Chris did Batman Begins, he’s doing, cutting off Batman year one. And so a lot of things are being drawn from the comics. What do you do when you’re, is it just like any other job or do you?

Kim Winther (36:44)
Yeah, you can say that. Yeah.

John Papsidera (36:44)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Orlando (37:08)
go through a slightly different process at all.

John Papsidera (37:11)
I mean, there’s a lot of, I think with any project, you have to look at the set of parameters that you’re given. And there’s different demands on every different project.

Some of it might be like we were talking about earlier with name, recognizability and bankability, financeability. You know, obviously when you’re doing superheroes, there is a archetype of what they are and how they look and how they speak and all that kind of stuff that has to be first and foremost, you know? And so you’re looking to fill the shoes of that character

Orlando (37:48)
Mm.

John Papsidera (37:53)
different way as opposed to kind of the flip side of that, having an actor breathe life into a character. They still have to breathe life into that character, but it starts with the form. It’s like outside in as opposed to in other projects, it’s inside out. And I think that’s just a determination that you kind of have to make when you start a project and you read something. know, obviously if you’re going to do Superman, you’re not bringing in actors that are five, six.

Orlando (38:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (38:23)
and pounds. So it starts there and then you kind of work backwards and work inside to those characters. Whereas if it’s a total blank slate and you’re doing a…

Orlando (38:24)
Mm. Mm.

John Papsidera (38:40)
a series that’s about, you know, an every man, it can start in a different place. It starts about, you know, emotionally and how you work outside, you know, inside to the outside, you know, and they become that character. So I don’t know if that really answers it, but I think that’s a, that’s a basic kind of format that you kind of start with.

Orlando (39:02)
I’m just thrilled that you didn’t answer shut up nerd.

John Papsidera (39:04)
Ha ha!

No, no, you know, it’s funny because, you know, the advent of online fan, you know, fan base and fan boys and stuff that watch it is incredibly, you know, tracked by those filmmakers in those studios. And you want to fulfill.

Orlando (39:05)
you

Kim Winther (39:22)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (39:26)
what that, you know, I mean, look, it’s all about projection for those people as well and what they make up about those characters. So you don’t wanna let them down in any way. It just adds to the…

Kim Winther (39:39)
But I think on Superman

too, was just.

because they did so many, usually, I mean, I can’t speak to Batman Begins and stuff, because I wasn’t there for it, but I imagine a lot of that stuff usually starts in secrecy. And Superman was kind of, James Gunn and Peter Safran have taken over DC Studios, they’re gonna do Superman. There was a lot of visibility around it from the get-go, and so there was just a lot of chatter all the time. And we would see Deadline Note articles and stuff, and people in the comments were Googling,

John Papsidera (39:52)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (40:12)
casting it. it’s John Papsadera and he just did this and da da da da and you know people with opinions and you’re kind of like how do they even know you know why do they care how do they know and so I think especially for Superman that was probably my first sort of that was probably the biggest project sort of worldwide attention wise that I’ve worked on while casting it and trying to not

really look at the comments and not really go on Reddit and read stuff and let that sort of affect me because we were watching, I mean, were watching hundreds of self tapes for all of these roles and at the end of the day, trying to show James Gunn a very limited amount.

Orlando (40:55)
Mm-hmm,

right.

Kim Winther (40:56)
to be like,

these are the best people, this is what you’re looking for. Because when we’re watching 400 tapes, he can’t watch 400 tapes. And so trying not to let that chatter in was really interesting on mine. And also just so many people asking about it, and like you and friends and whatever that are just curious about it, yeah.

Orlando (41:09)
Yeah. Kim getting 10 texts from me a day.

John Papsidera (41:14)
Yeah,

right. Who’s in the running today?

Kim Winther (41:16)
And so

it was an interesting sort of casting process for me on that one especially, because also there were so many rumors of who was testing and then there were drones above the studio on the test day and we were like, how do they even know we’re here on a Saturday? And so it was very strange to feel like the world was really watching the whole time and trying just not to worry about that and their opinion of it. Yeah, I know.

Orlando (41:17)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Papsidera (41:39)
love the internet.

Orlando (41:42)
another major shift that’s happened and we were speaking before about, the magic that can happen in the room. I feel like some technological shifts are for the better, other for the worse. It seems like there’s been a massive shift post pandemic to self taping rather than actually being in the casting room. what do you think is lost? What do you think is gained? I mean, what are, what are your thoughts on that? Is it, has it,

Is the benefit of the streamlining of the process and the boiling of the ocean worth what you lose in the room? Or is it just, great, that’s how we boil the ocean and then we get them in the room anyway once we’re at the next stage. How do you guys feel about

John Papsidera (42:21)
Kim, you want that?

Kim Winther (42:22)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think for me, I love it and I hate it. And I think what during the pandemic and sort of immediately after the pandemic, whenever that we decided that that ended now.

I think it was all, everything was on Zoom. Everything was a self tape. No one was back in the room. People were still scattered all over the world. And I think we’re slowly starting to get back to a mix. And I think a balance is great. I really appreciate self tapes as a first round approach to things. It allows me as a casting director to be able to say yes to more people. Cause I can, the amount of time it takes me to read one actor in the room and do the greetings and the hi and the hello and the in and the out

I could probably watch four self-tapes of that scene in that same amount of time. And so it’s just a more efficient sort of first line of defense, I find.

And I think it also gives opportunity to more actors that I’m not familiar with because I don’t have to limit my time and say, I only have two hours this whole week every day to do a session. can now say, never heard of that actor, but this agent that called me and feels really strongly about them, sure, have them tape, I’ll watch it. I’m now learning, I’m now getting more familiar with it. I’m exploring new talent, learning about new actors. It’s giving opportunities to people all over the world, whereas it used to be, they in LA? Can they come in to read?

tomorrow. And I think a perfect example of that is, although this was pre-pandemic, was when we were doing Power Rangers and we were having, you know, there was the, I forgot how many there were, but I think the fifth Ranger, this sort of the bro-y leader of the group. We had, you know, people that we had liked, but there wasn’t sort of a clear, we were going to do chemistry reads, we were going to find the group together. This one kid out of Perth, Australia, the end of the earth submitted a self tape on a Wednesday.

John Papsidera (44:03)
Five, I

Kim Winther (44:19)
and the director said, I love him, can he be here Saturday?

Orlando (44:23)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (44:23)
and he was still finishing drama school and technically wasn’t even allowed to be auditioning for stuff yet. And then he ended up being cast in the movie. And so I think it’s, know, stories like that that make me, you know, still believe in doing self tapes and stuff as a first line of defense. But I do miss the magic that comes out of being in the room, auditioning someone over Zoom. You just don’t get the same connection. You don’t get the same, you know, it just doesn’t.

Orlando (44:25)
Right.

John Papsidera (44:28)
No.

Orlando (44:28)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kim Winther (44:51)
create the same magic all the time that being in the room with someone does. So that’s my long-winded answer. Yeah.

Orlando (44:57)
No, that’s great.

I think that’s a terrific story, because I think especially for actors, they only see the downside of it. And then when you’re able to kind of point to an example and say, well, somebody who never would have gotten the opportunity to be in the room got an opportunity that they wouldn’t have gotten because of this shift. That’s pretty great, actually.

Kim Winther (45:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, and

I understand that actors that are used to being in the room then are being asked to self tape and that feels less intimate or that feels less like the level that they are at in their career.

But I think it’s, know, part of it I think is times are changing and we have to sort of adapt to it. And I also think that we want to be fighting for keeping things the way they were to some extent as well. I do think the best casting comes out of a combination. Probably mostly after like the first, you know, after the first round, preferably probably mostly in person.

John Papsidera (46:02)
Yeah, but we also get that actors are missing out on notes.

Actors are missing out on, you know, redirects. If we go, yeah, you got this wrong, do that again. That kind of feedback. We try and do it as much as we can. If we really feel like somebody’s right and they’re close to it, but they just missed it a little bit, we’ll ask them to re-tape. So I get both sides of it. You know, I think there’s no perfect answer to it. you know, here we are. So we do the best that we can with both processes.

Kim Winther (46:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

John Papsidera (46:38)
and try and still give as much as yourself as you can. I always did feel, when directors and or producers feel like they have to be in the room, it’s like, well, okay, but you’re not really casting for theater. You’re casting for the medium by which you’re looking at it at the moment. And especially now with kids that won’t even sit in front of a screen, they’ll only look at stuff on their computer or their phones, it’s even more relevant of how it works.

Orlando (46:43)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (46:56)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

Hehe.

John Papsidera (47:08)
coming across a computer. So, you know, there’s advantages and disadvantages to both.

Orlando (47:11)
bright.

Kim Winther (47:14)
Yeah.

Orlando (47:15)
Right. So there’s a question I’ve been kind of asking everyone, which is I had a boss who started a large advertising agency named Dan Wieden And he had this quote that he sort of had permeate all of the offices. And so even me, a lowly editor and then assistant producer in Amsterdam, I sort of heard it and it was a very supportive thing. But he said, you’re useless to me until you fucked up big at least twice.

And I, and you know, it was amazing cause it actually created this environment where everybody felt supported and your boss couldn’t really yell at you for fucking up that big because even his boss had basically said that this was a growing and a learning lesson. Are you guys, can you think of, or would you be willing to admit, anytime you screwed up, whether it’s when you’re an assistant or yesterday, that, that was a big screw up and what you learned from it.

Kim Winther (47:49)
That’s funny.

John Papsidera (47:55)
Hmm.

Kim Winther (47:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

John Papsidera (48:16)
Hmm, that’s a good question.

Kim Winther (48:19)
Yeah.

Orlando (48:20)
John, you maybe have a list for Kim.

Kim Winther (48:22)
Yeah, exactly. was gonna say.

John Papsidera (48:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang

on, let me pull out her employee file one second. No, I don’t, you know, look, I try not to, it’s a funny comment. It’s an interesting comment. It made me think of something that somebody said to me recently and I’m forgetting who said it, but, I know who said it, but they said,

Kim Winther (48:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (48:26)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (48:43)
Nora Ephron said once, anyone that’s only been married once is not that interesting. so, you know, fucking up, you know, multiple times. I try and take screw-ups in stride. I try and keep a…

Kim Winther (48:52)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (49:01)
a perspective that, you know, we are not doing brain surgery.

We are not, nobody is gonna die if there’s a screw up. That doesn’t mean that you blow over them and you don’t excel for perfection. We’re probably, Kim is a much more perfectionist, a much bigger perfectionist than I am. And I think it’s really important. I think details are very important as a casting director and how you do your job. But nothing so insurmountable, I don’t think that,

Orlando (49:22)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (49:23)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (49:37)
that it can’t be forgiven or that you don’t learn something from it or kind of go, it’s fine, let’s move on. I’m trying to think what would be a I guess it’s a screw up. I’ve told this story before, but what I went in to meet on Final Destination.

The original. I just went in knowing that the writers and the director was going to be in there. They were a team. And I didn’t know that there’s a third person in the room, the producer. So I go in and we’re talking and there’s three people and I don’t know who the third person is and lovely guy. We’re talking and I have the meeting. And at some point during the meeting, they brought up why I liked it or something. And I said,

I loved the Rube Goldberg aspect of the movie and those kinds of things. But I remember saying, look, you’re talking to a guy that passed on American pie. And because I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to have to ask teenagers to do the things that were in that script at times. And I thought, this is, no, I’m not doing this thing. So I left, the meeting was fine. About an hour later, I get a call from the producer in the room that I did not know. And he said,

Orlando (50:40)
Right. Right.

John Papsidera (50:56)
Look, the good news is James and Glenn, the writer and director, they’d love to hire you for it. And even though you shit on my movie, American Pie, I’m gonna allow them to hire you. So.

I didn’t know that he produced that movie. So that could have been a pretty bad fuck up, I guess, you know, in hindsight, Craig Perry, who’s a friend, you know, could have said, screw him, you know, he shit talked my movie. But that’s how much I know. know, those things, look, I’m sure there’s 10,000 things Ken could even think of when I put my foot in my mouth. You know, there’s not a lot of filters with me at times.

Orlando (51:15)
Mm. Right.

Hehehe.

Yeah.

Right.

Kim Winther (51:38)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (51:42)
And so I will say things, but I think if you’re around me enough, you learn to expect it. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think Kim’s had any real big screw ups, have you?

Orlando (51:51)
Right.

Kim Winther (51:55)
I, yes, well,

one that, like, one that really still to this day when I think about it, I get like a little panicked and it was when the, we were gonna do the remake of Ghostbusters, but then, why am I blanking on his name? Passed away.

John Papsidera (52:02)
Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Orlando (52:02)
Mm-hmm.

John Papsidera (52:13)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Winther (52:19)
And so Ivan, no, so Ivan said, I’m tabling this film. I can’t do it without him. He was one of the Ghostbusters who was his close friend. Yes, Harold Raymond’s passed away. So we had started on it. Harold Raymond’s passes away. Ivan sort of tables the project, but.

Orlando (52:19)
I’ve been right man.

Yeah.

John Papsidera (52:29)
Harold Ramis. Yeah, Harold, yeah.

Orlando (52:30)
Harold Ramis, yes.

Kim Winther (52:38)
when we were, you know, I think there was a couple months that we thought it was happening and we were doing it. And I was an assistant at the time. And so I was sending the first sort of list, the creative list of here are all our ideas and the availabilities and photos and credits and links to material. It’s this huge document of basically just like the creative thinking of the project for these two main roles.

And as someone who’s a perfectionist and has OCD, I triple check every email address that I send it to. I copied all of the CCs from a different email chain from the same project. So I knew they were safe, dragged them over, no problem. I hit send on the email. It’s a Friday night. I go to Caleigh’s house. And about two hours later, the head of casting at Fox starts texting me and calling me nonstop. And she goes, why can I curse?

Orlando (53:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, please.

Kim Winther (53:30)
Why the fuck

did you send that to a manager? Why is a manager at Luber Rocklin on this email? And how do they know who’s in the mix for this role? I mean, it had like, these are the people with notes and likes and things. And I had somehow copied some chain that either he mistakenly was on or some snafu that just…

Orlando (53:42)
no.

Kim Winther (53:50)
And I had a full panic attack and I think about it to this day and that’s why I just, you know, I think the biggest lesson is I called John in tears and I think John was like a dinner. And I think it’s sort of to the point of your boss, you know, he, after I’d been yelled at by the head of casting at Fox for a good 30 minutes, John just said, listen, you fucked up.

Orlando (53:52)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (54:12)
It’s fine. Apologize. We’ll fix it. We’re not, you know, again, we’re not curing cancer over here. It’s a list of ideas for a movie. By Monday, everyone will be fine and be over it. And so I think, you know, what I took from that is what I tell every assistant. I say, like, triple check who you’re sending an email to always. But also… yeah. I was trying… Well, sometimes, you know…

Orlando (54:22)
Yeah.

John Papsidera (54:33)
assistance. say that to me all the time. Yeah, yeah.

Orlando (54:41)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (54:42)
yeah. So I try to reiterate that part, but also

John Papsidera (54:42)
Now sometimes it’s needed. A lot of the times it’s needed.

Kim Winther (54:47)
I really try to instill the mantras of the office of like, you know, we’re all human, you’re going to make a mistake, just move on and learn from it. I’ve never accidentally cc’d anyone ever since then. So.

Orlando (55:00)
You

guys seem to be a great double act like that because, you know, one…

Kim Winther (55:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

John Papsidera (55:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, she catches

a lot more problems than the than I do of hers.

Kim Winther (55:09)
Yeah, I’m just looping

Orlando (55:10)
Yeah.

Kim Winther (55:10)
people out as John is accidentally looping them in on every chain. Yeah.

John Papsidera (55:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Orlando (55:14)
Right. Well, guys, gosh, thank you. This was so fun. I really enjoyed talking to you guys. And I hope it was fun for you too. But I really enjoyed it.

John Papsidera (55:22)
Thank you.

Kim Winther (55:24)
Thank you. I’m so fun.

John Papsidera (55:27)
Yeah, anytime. Really great to see you. Congrats on everything you do in Orlando. Really impressive.

Orlando (55:32)
Thanks so much, really appreciate it. Well thanks guys, have a good one. All right, bye bye.

John Papsidera (55:35)
Of course. Okay. Talk soon. Take care.