Backstage: 1 Way to Book Acting Work (That You Probably Haven’t Thought Of)
Lynne Carole works in casting, but when she’s placing talent, it’s not for the types of projects you typically associate with casting directors.
By Elyse Roth | Last Updated: May 21, 2020
Through her company The Lynne Experience, she finds actors and models for events, immersive experiences, commercials, and more—like those occasions when brands employ actors to draw in consumers with an activity or performance. She works with clients all over the country to find performers for experiential events to “bring a brand to life.” Carole says the talent who work these jobs make them memorable for audiences and consumers, and it’s a different way for actors to get noticed that can lead to more work. It’s a way to get a paycheck between bigger or more long-term jobs while still using, practicing, and expanding your skills. Plus, you never know who could be watching.
What skills are required to perform in an experiential event?
Beyond being someone who is able to act, they have to be really good at improv or have an affinity for speaking to people and have no inhibition. Those are the people who do well in experiential because they’re not afraid to talk to you, they’re not afraid to engage with you. But we do find that a lot of times the client will ask for improv actors because, generally, they can come up with some interesting material on the fly.
What is the casting process like?
Generally, a client will reach out to us. It could be the brand directly, [but] a lot of times it’s through a marketing firm. When you’re trying to promote a film or television show live, that’s also experiential. First, we put up a posting on Backstage and we put it through our own database of actors, then we go through the pictures and see who has the look we’re thinking might fit this, just like any casting. Then we look at their videos, and if we don’t see what we think is a good fit but we still think they might have the right look, we’ll ask them to submit to us either with an impromptu script that the marketing company may have provided or [we’ll] just give them a situation and ask them to come up with how they would play that out. Then they send us a 60-second clip to submit to the client. The client reviews what they see, and if they like them, they will go ahead and interview them, usually by Skype.
Where do you look for talent?
If I’m in Chicago, I’ll call Second City. Even in New York, when I need really good talent, I’ve reached out to UCB, and they’ve been very helpful because they know who their good improv people are. If I don’t have what I need, I will find it, whether it’s using a casting site or contacting schools or theater groups. Like any good casting director, I look under every rock until I find the right fit.
What makes your job similar to and different from a more traditional casting director?
It’s not different in the sense that casting requires the expertise to know who’s going to make a good fit and who’s going to impress the client. I still use my experience to know who’s qualified and how to screen candidates. It is similar, but they’re not appearing in film or TV, they’re doing this live. There may not be an audition because the client’s not necessarily located in the market in which they’re hiring the actors. So the difference may be that, generally, if there is an audition-based casting, it’s going to be through Skype or FaceTime.
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