ABSTRACT
The next step is perhaps the most challenging, the most time-consuming, and often the most important part of the director’s work. Mike Nichols, the late great stage and film director, stated that he believed it was 85% of the work. At times it can be mystifying, arduous, entertaining, bewildering, and/or intensely frustrating. Because it is all these things and more, I feel that we must be as prepared as possible in terms of what we seek. The more structured we are in the way in which we go about trying to find exactly the right choice, the more satisfactory and productive the end result will be. Of course there is always a degree of luck involved, as well as the possibilities of certain imposed restrictions that are beyond the director’s control: budgetary limitations, the demands of a producer or a studio in terms of packaging or marketing requirements, such as star names or a gaggle of actors attached to an agency involved in the picture deal, or the demand of an investor who has a “talented” niece who wants to be in the theatre, etc. Sometimes it becomes necessary to make painful decisions, such as eliminating the choice of a friend or former collaborator for a role or withdrawing from the job altogether if the demands coming from other participants in the project are so outrageous as to jeopardize your ability to stay true to your vision.
