He was a bit more than a consultant from the beginning, at least according to an interview I saw him give once. Kubrick just wrote an outline of the scenes with Drill Sergeant Hartman. He sat down with Ermey and a tape recorder and said things like, “You find a jelly doughnut in Pyle’s foot locker.” He then recorded the ad-libbed lines of dialogue. Kubrick then edited the improvisations and made a script. Ermey was not originally going to act in the movie until those sessions with Kubrick. If that is a legend, it’s one that Ermey is perpetuating.
Interesting fact. He was medically retired from the Corps as a Staff Sergeant. The Commendant of the Marine Corps made him an honorary Gunnery Sergeant several years ago, that’s why he calls himself “Gunny” on Mail Call.
I think the actress Shannon Sossamyn (with Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale and with Josh Hartnett in 40 Days & 40 Nights) was a dj who got tapped to play a role and it snowballed from there…
I remember some sort of duel interview with Ford and Lucas. It turned out that Francis Ford Coppla set Ford up so he would be in the right place at the right time.
“Despite the legend, she wasn’t at Schwab’s Drugstore, but The Top Hat Café, a shop across the street from Hollywood High. When W.R. Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, happened to be quenching his thirst at the same time, he caught sight of Lana. He introduced himself, gave her his card and asked her to call newly operating talent agent Zeppo Marx. This, in addition to a letter Wilkerson personally wrote, helped team her with director Mervyn LeRoy.”
I thought I heard from somewhere that Chris Walken was originally a dancer and acted in musicals and such, and then somehow got into movies.
Boy am I glad he made that transition.
So the casting director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was looking for somebody tall, dark, handsome and mysterious to the play the vampire with the soul.
Mr. Borneanaz was out walking his dog. Originally from Philadelphia, he was in California because he did want to work in The Industry, though not as an actor. His inclinations were behind the camera.
The casting director spotted him, and fell in love with him on the spot. She announced that he was perfect for the role and dragged him in to meet Joss. He was less infatuated with David’s good looks…but gave him the role anyway.
Andy Hallit, Lorne on Angel hung out in kareoke bars on the Sunset Strip and drank. A lot. Actually, he still drinks a lot. Anyway, Joss also has been known to hang out in the same sort of places, and that’s how they met, and that’s what inspired Caritas and the character, Lorne; however, Mr. Hallit still had to audition for the role. I really have no idea if Andy ever wanted to be an actor–I think he wanted to be in the music industry.
Kathleen Quinlan was just a local who signed on to be an extra in “American Graffitti”. Ended up with a small speaking role. (“Joe College strikes out.”) She was then on a “career track” in competitive diving.
Chris Klein was a similar story. Just a local who showed up for extra/bit part auditions for “Election” and wound up with a good part. So a nobody from Nebraska is now dating Katie Holmes.
Apparently Charlize Theron was discovered “by accident” when she was in a bank in LA (or Hollywood or Beverly Hills or something). She was busy reading a bank employee the riot act (can’t remember what over) when an agent saw her and gave her his card.
Minimal details, I know, but it’s info from an interview I watched about six months ago.
Irma P. Hall, whose most high profile role to date was in last year’s The Ladykillers, fell into acting accidentally. She was a high school teacher in Texas when a producer saw her reading a poem on the news and asked her to be in his movie (she was in her late 30s). Over the next few years she gradually did more acting until becoming in her late 50s/60s a full time character actress. Standout performances include the blind aunt of Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones in A Family Thing and the voodoo priestess Minerva in Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil.
Was a taxi driver, until F.F. Coppola cast him as Tessio in THE GODFATHER. Supposedly, Coppola liked his face. Anyway, I think Vigoda was around 42 at the time of GFI-yet he always looked like he was 90 years old!
Anyway, is Vigoda still acting?
Yup. He’s even done some commercial work fairly recently. IMDB, however, lists Abe’s first role as being in 1966, which predates The Godfather by 6 years.
> Was a taxi driver, until F.F. Coppola cast him as Tessio in THE GODFATHER.
No, this is wrong, or at least incomplete. Read the biography of him at the IMDb. He was about 61, not 42, at the time that The Godfather came out. He has two TV listings in the IMDb, one as a regular on a show in 1966 and another as a one-time appearance in 1949. However, it’s quite possible that he did a lot of small parts on TV without being listed, since the IMDb isn’t very good at noticing work as an extra.
The biography in the IMDb says that he was a theater actor up to the point he broke through to movies and TV in 1972. Indeed, he did his first acting job in theater when he was 17, which would be in about 1938. It’s possible that he supplemented his career as an actor by working as a taxi driver, but it’s not the case that he never worked as an actor before The Godfather.