Liars and Lunatics :: Film Blog

June 2006. A time when we were finishing up our auditions; hoping to have everything finally cast for our feature film Liars and Lunatics.

Monday, June 12th :: We originally auditioned Heidi Azaro for a different, but asked her to come back at a later date to screentest for the role of Mother Parrot. (She got the part…) 

Wednesday, June 14th :: We first auditioned Maya Serhan for the role of Paige… just an initial interview. We had her come back in later to screentest for us…  

Friday, June 16th :: We first interviewed Karen Lynn Gorney for the part of the Judge.

Wednesday, June 28th :: We still did not have our James!. Then, we had this guy named Joseph Halsey scheduled for the last day of auditions (that’s right, June 28, 2006). After his initial screentest on the 28th, we were hopeful. But since this was the last day, we asked him to stay to read in callback with some of the actresses up for Paige and Frolick. As it turned, he was the one we ended up casting…

On this date, one year ago…

We Moon Brothers posted our final open casting call for our independent feature film Liars and Lunatics.

We had already been auditioning for the film since February 2006. And we had had a good response from the casting notice we placed in the audition trade newspaper, Backstage.

From February to May, we waded through probably close to 1,000 headshots of actors of every description. And arranged for a good number of those actors come in for a screentest. Yet, by this time last year, we still needed to fill a few roles.

Including the role of the protagonist James; and that of his dead girlfriend, Paige. Plus we hadn’t yet firmed up anyone to play the role of the Judge.

Since we were in the middle of getting the paperwork to become signatory to SAG (the Screen Actors Guild), we were able to post an audition notice on their website…which we did on June 5, 2006.

As a result, we had to wade through a whole new set of headshots! Which also meant, more screentests. And the stress of choosing the right actors for the parts.

At this time, this year, we’re still feeling the stress. Okay, so we’re not pouring over screentests anymore, worried about which actors to choose (By the way, looking at the footage of the film at this stage, we’re very pleased with the actors we chose). Now we’re in the final stages of tweaking the film to get the best possible product. And that’s not easy… especially with film festival deadlines looming…

{{ photo :: The audition sides – short selections from the script – that the actors read for their screentest. }}