Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan, and today I'm wondering what it takes to spot comedic genius and put together an ensemble cast that works.

This is the second episode in our Wired to Create series.

We called it Wired to Create because we believe, and the science backs us up,

that every single one of us, from toddlers to retirees, is physiologically and psychologically

wired for creative expression.

As Susan Magsman, the executive director of the

International Arts and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins puts it, we've left so much of our human capacity

on the table by stripping creativity out of daily life, and we're only beginning to understand

the profound neurobiological impacts of that loss.

This series is our attempt to do something about that, one conversation at a time,

because we are, if nothing else, team human.

Today I'm talking with Allison Jones, one of the most beloved and respected casting directors in Hollywood

about what it takes to spot talent before anyone else does and why the algorithms will never

be able to compete. Allison Jones started her career while a student at the American Film Institute

where she stumbled into casting and then spent years

in the back rows of comedy clubs, memorizing every face in the room. She has cast some of the

most iconic comedies of the last four decades, TV shows like Freaks and Geeks, which is the

creation of writer, director, producer, Jud Appetow.

And that launched a decades-long partnership between the two of them.

They gave us 40-year-old Virgin, knocked up, this is 40.

She also cast The Office, Parks and Rec, and Veep, as well as films like Superbad,

Bridesmaids, Barbie, and most recently,

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