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72 DGA QUARTERLY aired on PBS' American Masters, we see you reading and rehearsing with the cast of Everybody Wants Some!! It highlights one of your gifts, which is casting. How do you go about the casting process? A: It's so instinctual and I do love it so much, like a painter picking the colors. It's so important and I really do believe I have gotten better at it. Though I think I've al- ways had a good eye for really interesting, unique people with energy. If it's an intimate movie, like with Julie (Delpy) and Ethan (Hawke), if you get one actor wrong, you have nothing. With a big ensemble, it's a matter of how you put ev- eryone together. For my Everybody Wants Some!! cast, they all accepted each other so fully. No attitudes. You get a lot of en- sembles and it's like high school again. Everybody is like "Well, I don't like him." I never had that happen because I'm really studying personalities and I have an intu- ition who wants to work hard, who wants to collaborate, who's funny, who's a team play- er. I spend time with them. I talk to them. I get a vibe from a person. If there's some malcontent or someone who's the skunk at the garden party, I'm going to sni them out early and replace them. Early on in my life as a director, I was try- ing not to hurt feelings and let go of some- one. But if they stay, it just poisons the production to some degree. I tried to make them fi t and it was usually a mixed bag. In the few times I did replace an actor, it was always for the better. Everybody benefi ts, them especially because they weren't hav- ing a great experience. Q: Does it start with audition tapes and then move on to conversations, interviews? A: It used to be the opposite, where I would start with meetings and then auditions. With today 's technology, people record themselves and I look at these. That's how casting 's largely done. You often see tapes first, and then you meet people. I threw out a challenge on the tape auditions for Everybody Wants Some!! I did this on Dazed and Confused a long time ago—a total pain- in-the-ass homework assignment. I needed some athleticism from the guys, and so I told them to record themselves throwing, hitting, catching, because some had played college baseball or a little bit of pro ball. But make it creative and funny. And some did that. They took the assignment and really ex- pressed themselves and did something, like Quinton Johnson, who's gone on to Last Flag Flying (2017) and Hamilton. He was in the back of a car doing a bit with some Jheri curls and wigs, doing something kind of funny. In a brief amount of time he showed me something that he must have thought I was looking for. Then there are other people who don't take the assignment seriously. I'm thinking, "OK, if they do that, are they go- ing to want to rehearse for three weeks and take this as more than just a job?" It has to be something fun that they really want to do. Q: Fast Food Nation (2006) appears more timely than ever. The fi lmmaking represents a real logistical triumph since you juggled so many storylines and locations. Can you elaborate on the challenges involved during production? A: Oh my god, it was such a challenge. A 30-day schedule, locations in the U.S. and Mexico, in Colorado, with a lot of interi- ors shot in Austin. We had a sequence in Mexico, and we're starting pre-dawn, then shooting all day. Almost all the Mexican desert scenes, I think we did that in one day. The crew would be shooting one thing and I'm setting up the next shot. That was a real logistical chessboard, boom-boom-boom, the next shot is go- ing to be here and we're working our way across the desert. My 1st AD, Vince Palmo , and I, have worked together a lot over the years, and Vince is also a co-writer friend of mine on a number of projects. He and his wife, Holly (Gent), are co-collaborators on Bernadette, so we take on different roles. We had to shoot a commercial for the Big One burger that appears in the movie, and we had a burger place to shoot in for half a day, and we had to do all the scenes there. Vince got the whole crew together and goes, "Anybody could shoot this in a day. Only we can shoot this in an hour and a half. That's why we are here, let's go." We could do it be- cause we prepared. ® CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43 distracting," she says, "and it doesn't make people feel confident that you know or care about what you're doing." Instead, as the instructors suggested, she jots ideas on note cards that she can easily refer to. Tips like those, along with "knowing what to expect" on the job, likely helped her snag the next fi ve episodes (for Paramount Network and PopTV) she'll be directing later this year, she says. Writer-producer Mock, a graduate of an April workshop in L.A., picked up on prag- matic advice like eating breakfast and drink- ing co ee before hitting the set, and arriving at least 30 minutes early each day. It was an eye opener when the teachers "hammered into our heads that we are in charge" and stressed the importance of "setting the tone as a leader every single day." She liked hearing various opinions on where to sit in the van on location scout- ing trips, with some instructor-directors insisting that shotgun is the best spot. It's a not-so-subtle power move, they say, while others prefer to embed with the crew. (She chose the first row behind the driver for her directing debut on Pose.) Mock says she understands better how to communicate with actors, with advice like: "Keep your instructions short and be very direct and clear about what you want from them," she says, "and keep it as sim- ple and precise as possible." She didn't know to ask for private re- hearsals, which she called one of many "intangible" lessons, but she learned she should "fi ght for that, no matter how much time pressure that you may be under." Armaganian, whose class last August came shortly after she'd completed the Warner Bros. directing program, says it drove home the concept of giving credit where it's due. "The class emphasized that you need to appreciate all the hard work going on around you—the crews that are breaking their backs for you," she says. "Gratitude goes a long way, and you can never forget that." ® CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47