DEB AQUILA - Casting Director

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2024

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Casting director Deb Aquila (CODA, LA LA LAND, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) joins us on this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Deb grew up in an arts-loving family, whose encouragement to enter the field led her to attend NYU and study under Stella Adler. Pivoting into casting, Deb found herself working on the hit series MIAMI VICE for two seasons before growing into a veteran independent casting director. Deb breaks down what really goes on in the audition room and how she works with actors to bring out their best performances as she hunts for the right choice for a part. We learn how she works with directors after being brought on to a project, and she shares how a character can evolve over the course of the audition process. Deb later shares what her responsibilities are as a studio executive at Paramount and how she balances those with her responsibilities as a casting director. Towards the end, we discuss “casting” personalities, when hiring both the cast and crew, and the value of creating a safe space for actors to give their best performances during the shoot.

This episode is sponsored by Aputure

Instagram: @aputure.lighting

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to season two of the Team Deacons podcast, a collection of
0:08.8	informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. We never know where the conversation
0:15.6	will take us so listen in and see where it goes. This episode is sponsored by Aperture, a company with a global footprint spanning four continents.
0:28.0	Aperture is a driving force in LED cinema technology, renowned for their cutting edge lighting and
0:35.1	software solutions.
0:37.0	focused on enabling filmmakers to achieve their creative vision,
0:41.0	they've built a lighting ecosystem of over 20 different fixtures that can
0:45.8	be controlled wirelessly through their software platform, CITES Link. Just a warning, the sound quality. link.
0:53.0	Just a warning, the sound quality of this episode is not great.
0:57.0	But we found the content of the episode interesting enough to go ahead and publish.
1:03.0	Today we're speaking with a casting director.
1:07.0	Her credits are many.
1:08.0	A few are Lala Land, the Shawshang Redemption, and Cherry. We're pleased to welcome Deb Aquila today.
1:16.2	Deb, thank you for doing this.
1:18.2	Yeah, welcome.
1:19.2	It's very nice to visit with you. Thanks for having me. It's an honor, honestly. We have so many questions for you, but I think we'll start with our normal one, which is, how did you get to where you are today? Were you casting as a small child saying, no, that person shouldn't be there, someone else should be there, or did you find this later on?
1:37.0	You know, it's funny, I thought about that over the years. My mom and dad, I'm a Brooklyn girl and my parents were you know working class folks my dad was a military guy you know went through
1:51.2	World War II and then you know spent spent the rest of his life in service as a civilian with the Army.
1:57.6	But my mom loved the movies.
2:01.6	And in true Woody Allen fashion back in the day, she was a depression baby, they both were.
2:09.0	When they would get their two pennies together or three pennies together, know they would go and sit in the movie
2:15.2	theater and sort of forget their woes as it were right and my mother loved the movies
	...

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