Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/994862
DGA QUARTERLY 51 CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT and Barry's like, 'I don't quite get it.' But not really that much. I mean, we're pretty much in sync. I remember I had somebody in L.A. putting things on tape for a Liberty Heights part. We were looking for Adrien Brody's younger brother, and Ben Foster came in and Barry right away said, 'I like this guy.' I like it when direc- tors know what they like. LEVINSON: I don't remember anybody else. I just responded right away to him. DGAQ: Is there a value placed on stage-trained actors versus those who maybe started out in television, whether it be in soaps or primetime? What are the pros and cons? CHENOWETH: I think Alec Baldwin was on a soap. A lot of people have been on soaps, and I think the trick is to not stay on a soap too long because you start getting trapped. I get stacks and stacks of pictures and résumés and turn them over to see who they studied with and where they went to drama school. I do like that, but I don't think you can discount somebody just because they didn't study with Lee Strasberg or go to Juilliard. I do think there's some people who have a very natural talent. But I do like it when actors have trained. LEVINSON: I never really looked at a résumé. Somehow you either respond or you don't. Even if they are doing it incorrectly, you can tell. And then you have to work with the person a little bit. So you don't discount somebody and say, 'Gee, they are terrific but they didn't read it right.' There is an instinct to it. I'll have an in- stinct, Ellen can have an instinct, and they mesh quite frequently. DGAQ: I saw The Wizard of Lies recently, and the actors who played Bernie Madoff 's sons, Nathan Darrow and Alessandro Nivola, seemed equally capable of projecting a kind of integrity and shadiness simultaneously. Was this moral ambiguity key to their characterizations? LEVINSON: I think it's all part of the character that you believe is there, and when you meet certain actors, you can see not only can they fit the role but there are other possibilities. I guess that is the simplest way to explain it. CHENOWETH: We studied a lot of footage and read a lot about the (actual brothers), and both were sadly gone by the time we were working on it. We got to know the writer of the book (Diana Henriques) and talked to her a lot. I wanted to get a certain boy/man quality with these guys. You didn't ever really know what they knew. There was a kind of blankness or hid- denness to them that I think was really interesting. Those guys were very deft actors, and they were able to communicate that. DGAQ: Robert De Niro pops up continually in your résumé, Ms. Chenoweth, and he appears in multiple projects the two of you have done together. Do you consider him a kind of repertory player for the both of you? And what is it about him that causes you to repeat- edly return to his skillset? LEVINSON: Well, normally he is a part of the project, not every time but certainly in [The Wizard of Lies]. He was there at the be- ginning of the project. CHENOWETH: It is true, Bob is usually in on the beginning of things. LEVINSON: The same thing with Wag. DGAQ: It is interesting that in these two HBO movies, Paterno and Wizard of Lies, the lead characters are both marked by repressed emotion and a certain amount of denial. I would i magine these kinds of internal performances are hard to pull off. LEVINSON: Well, you take the three HBO films, you are talking about two of the really great actors of our time (De Niro and Al Pacino) who have that ability. There is an interior motor going on that sort of draws you in. Some actors are much more to the surface. Those guys have a depth to them. That is a special talent that does not apply to all actors. DGAQ: What is the longest time you have taken on the casting process? CHENOWETH: I don't remember anything being longer than The Natural and Avalon, which took about three or four months, because they were so layered. LEVINSON: On The Natural, I remember we had to have some of the actors we liked for the ballplayers up in Columbia on the ballfield seeing what they can do as athletes. Then we also had athletes up there playing around and talking (in) char- acter. That was a long process trying to whittle it down. We ended up with actors who had been in the minor leagues. And one or two had actually been in the major leagues. So that was a time-consuming process. You have to be able to have these guys play. DGAQ: Since we're talking baseball, what do you think your bat- ting average is in terms of getting your first choice for a key role? LEVINSON: I don't know, what do you think, Ellen? CHENOWETH: I think it is pretty good. I would say 75%. ® Bandits Wag the Dog Paterno