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30 — Friday, December 11, 1998 ~ North Shore News

Actor goes from extra

From page 19

then benween the producer, dircetee, myself
and Heike (my associate) and sometimes the
Writer, we narrow things down to who “wins”
the role. Then I negeriate their deal, and do
up their contraci, blah, blak, bial, biah, blah.

Also, the casting director, generally, tries to
capture the essence of the talent poo! in the
city by attending as much theatre as possible,
pre-screening actors, and warching as much
local television as possible.

MV: So you're actually look-
iag for people all the time.
CM: Always.

MY: Are you out there scout-
ing?

CM: Net necessarily. If it’s
Sunday neorning and I'm at
Starbucks, generally speaking,
unless someone catches my eye,
no, I’m not out there “scout:
ing.”

I've often discovered people
on “down” moments. The sky's
the limit. I like to “discover”
new people, and it’s necessary
because I do a lot of series.

X-Files went for five seasons
so by the fifth scason we did the
best we could to try and gener-
ate new talent so that the show
always appeared fresh. Although
we did have our favourites and
we always liked to honour those
actors and give them roles every
scason.

Besides the two series, I'm
doing another show, 1 mini-
series called Atomic Train. 1
think we're on our ninety-first
role, We've still got mere to go
— we win a prize if we hit a
hundred! [ Laughing}

It stars Rob Lowe, Esai
Morales, and Kristin Davis. Then
we're doing a movie of the week
called Behind the Mask, starring
Donald Sutherland and Marthew
Fox (from Party of Five).

MV: You said that eccasionally
you do discover people. Is
there a situation that sticks in
your mind where that’s hap-
pened and it’s worked out for
that person? .

CM: I think that probably one
of the best examples of that is
Chris Owens who plays Agent
Spender on the X-Files.

.. He came in from Toronto
ahout three years ago auditioned
for the X-Files and we cast him
as “young cigarette smoking
man” for the famous “Musings
of a Cigarette Smoking Man”
episode. Chris [Carter] and the
writers loved him and ended up
casting him as the “Great
Mutatto” in the farcical episode
of the X-Files last year. They
loved him as an actor so much
that they wrote a role for him.

MV: Just because they liked
him?

CM:...because they liked him.
He now has moved to L.A. with
the show, and is a huge part of
the show. That to me was a huge
discovery.

There was a role on X-Files
last season where we needed to

. cast a young alien boy. Chris
called me from his office in L.A.
and said, “I need you to find
somebody for me. I remember a
boy sitting in the extras holding
area when I was directing
“Mutatto.” He never made it to
set but I remember him and I
think he would be really great
for this role.”

I called Lisa Ratke who does
Our extras casting and described
the conversation to her and she
knew exactly who it was. So I
couriered his picture down to
Chris, Chris said, “Yes, that’s
him.” And I said that he’s-never
done anything before, but he
said, “That’s okay, bring him in,
pre-screen him, work with him a

dit then present him to me next
week.”

So we worked with him, the

+ eee en near

director, Bob Goodwin worked with him a hit,
then we finally presented him to Chris,

We read all the young actors in the city
against this kid and hands down Chris loved
him. He went on to have a recurring role on
the show, he went to LA. to be in the first
episode, and I get calls trom all over North
America saying, “Who is that kid?”. He had
never acted a day in his life before that.

MV: That's great. It's really good to hear
that.

O principal

CM: That was cool. That occurred as a result
of Chris just casting direct from his heart. He
just knew that this was the right kid, whether
he had done anything betore or not, he just
knew,

There are a lot of stories tike that. My pro
ducers on Millennium always make fin of me
because [usually cast at least one rote from
outside the acting community that just feels
right, whether [ met them at Starbucks or
wherever!

I make Heike do that now though. We'll

be having dinner or wherever aad we'll sce

someone and PTH ayk her to eo ap to rem,

MV: What's the most rewarding part of
your job?

CAL J just love people, meeting people and
providing opportunity tor them. I like the teel-
ing of having a full day, and thar vou can actu-
ally get up out of the desk and have vour fin-
gers in more than one pic.

It also gives me the opportunity too ta do
other things like write which I stared doing a
couple of years ago. L wrote my first seript
which won the Kodak Canada Vision Award
this vear. As a result of thar — fingers crossed
— Pm going to direet it this May.

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