The Right Fit

May 29, 2009 World Screen

April 2009

It’s a classic Seinfeld moment: George and Jerry are sitting across from each other at their regular diner, Kramer has just left for another nonsensical adventure and in comes Elaine…played by Rosie O’Donnell. Though now it seems hard to picture, it almost happened. O’Donnell was actually up for the role of Jerry’s best gal-pal before Julia Louis-Dreyfus nailed it. Would the show still have reached its iconic status had the casting gone the other way?

Setting up a show’s cast is no doubt a crucial process, and one that involves a lot of fine tuning and finesse. A great number of factors are added up before it’s decided who’s in and for what role. And getting it right, especially in the format business, can mean the difference between a hit and a flop.

“Your cast makes or breaks the show and is the core element that draws an audience in and keeps them coming back,” says Paul Römer, the global head of programming at Endemol. “The key is to have strong individual characters that really stand out in your cast. The audience has to relate to them, and there must be an emotional connection through the screen. You have to love or hate them. Often the audience will love AND hate them, which is fine as long as you have the right balance.”

It’s not just about the cast’s relationship with the viewers, either. How the group gets along together is actually a huge part of the casting process, whether they mesh or clash. In the case of fly-on-the-wall reality shows, like Endemol’s Big Brother, the group dynamic can serve as the core the series is built around. Having chemistry between cast mates is key, and this is something that’s taken into consideration right at the outset.
Römer explains, “The beauty of our species is that you can, to a certain degree, predict how a group dynamic will evolve if you put certain people together. Let’s say it works out as being about 50 percent as expected and 50 percent surprise. I think that’s one of the secrets behind reality programming. This recognizable predictability, combined with the surprise element of human behavior.”
 
FIT THE MOLD
In order to create this group chemistry, reality-show producers often go in to the casting process looking for particular personality types. Having the token “tough guy” or “ditzy blonde” also helps ensure that there will be diversity within the show, with a colorful mix of characters.

“That’s how we cast the first Big Brother,” says Römer. “We wanted to have specific role models in the house like a father figure, a mother figure, a nice son, a rebel, etc. But bear in mind this is only how we started. We quickly learned that however you do your casting, you’ll only really discover what people are like once you have them on the show. There are always surprises. But that’s great—it brings flavor to the show.”

Rob Clark, the senior executive VP of entertainment and production at FremantleMedia’s worldwide entertainment division, relates the casting for reality shows to that of any theater production or TV drama. “We need heroes and villains in every story,” he says.
 
COME ONE, COME ALL
For talent competitions, like FremantleMedia’s Idols, The X Factor and Got Talent, casting can get quite specific. These shows highlight people who have the skills to be the best in their field, the next big undiscovered star. It’s important to get the contestants whose natural abilities could really take them to the top. So when sifting through the scads of truly talented applicants, do only the best of the best make it through? “I think if you have seen any of the talent shows we produce around the world, you may have noticed that we are looking for talented people, but we are also looking for people that will give the viewer an emotional experience,” says Clark. “This may be that their story makes us cry or that their particular talent makes us laugh.”

Another unique element of competitions like Idols is the way in which they attract talent. Clark explains, “We do open castings for all our shows, but these are with the producers, not with the judging panel. The advantages are that you can get thousands of people to turn up…The sheer volume of people has its drawbacks too, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!”

This method of opening the floodgates for all to audition only works in certain cases, though. For a more targeted casting, like in the case of celebrity-based reality formats, many turn to an outside agency.

“A celebrity booker is a must,” says Merrily Ross, an international production formats consultant for ITV Global Entertainment, which represents the likes of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! “They have strong relationships with agents and the talent and will hopefully be able to get the untouchable celebrities.”

Ross notes that another way of attracting celebrity contestants is through the broadcast partner, which will often have development deals with talent or other preexisting relationships.

Just because the cast is made up of familiar faces doesn’t make it immune to typecasting. These star-powered shows still pick and choose cast mates based on the need to fill personality roles, Ross explains. “With celebrity formats this is part of the process, getting a full breakdown of demographics of celebrities to entice the demographic that the channel is looking for.”
 
HITTING THE TARGETS
The audience composition of the commissioning channel is a prime consideration during casting. The contestants’ characteristics should be in line with the broadcaster’s desired demographic. If it’s a young, commercial channel, having a group of attractive 20-somethings and 30-somethings is a good pull. In the case of a channel with a broader, general-entertainment audience, the shows must cast a wider net.
 
SevenOne International’s hit game show Beat Your Host!, sold into 14 territories so far,has gone through a few incarnations to get the right fit for its various international broadcasters. “This is a show like any other, which needs to be profiled and set up according to the channel,” says Jens Richter, the managing director of SevenOne. “When it comes to Beat Your Host!, look at the Swedish version, Vem kan slå Filip och Fredrik,for Kanal 5, a young-skewed commercial channel. The solution was: Let’s not have one host, let’s have two hosts. Let’s have Fredrik and Filip. Those are two characters that compete in other shows as a duo. They’re young, they’re outrageous and are commercial-skewed hosts. They’re funny and are very motivated. So we adapted the format to have two hosts.”
The show took a slightly different direction in the U.K., where ITV1 is on board for a second season of its version, Beat the Star.
 
THE PERFECT HOST
“There, the idea came up that instead of having that one well-rounded, highly motivated host, let’s have stars competing against audience contestants,” Richter continues. “Let’s do a different star each episode, and let’s take those stars from the field of sports and entertainment. If you get an ex-professional sports star, you know that they certainly want to win; that’s how they made their living. For ITV1, by choosing a different star each episode, you create a show that is extremely wide-reaching when it comes to attracting an audience. You get a show whose casting can vary a little bit episode by episode, and the end result might be to open it up for an audience that ranges from the very young to a bit older. The Swedish version, with the duo of hosts, is going to be for a young audience.”

Thus, the question of whom to cast as host for a game show brought SevenOne to three different versions of the same format: beat the host, beat the two hosts and beat the star. What remains the same, though, are the qualities Richter believes each host must have. As the games are physical and also demanding intellectually and creatively, whoever is guiding the competition should be highly motivated, eager to win and well-rounded. The same rings true for the contestants. “We want to be really credible with the game, so we need the same qualities for the contestants as we do for the host,” explains Richter. “We have a public casting-call, and we have them go through a procedure where we’re looking for people who are really physically fit. We have people sometimes who have been part of an Olympic team or a national team. Real competitors!”

In the German version of Beat Your Host! (Schlag den Raab), for example, Stefan Raab, a popular German entertainer, singer and comedian, is the competing host. “He is extremely motivated and well-rounded and fits the audience profile in a perfect way,” Richter says. “He won the first episode, in the second episode he won again, then in the third episode he lost. The person whom he lost to was young and loved all kinds of sports—he was even competing in triathlons—but was also well-rounded. He was working as a development engineer and for the volunteer fire brigade, was into languages and extremely smart. That person finally won. The level for the contestant casting there is very high.”

 

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Not all game shows are looking for the über-intelligent, however. Oftentimes, viewers are drawn in when they feel like they’d actually have a shot at winning themselves. “It’s very important that the people at home recognize themselves in the contestants,” says Michel Rodrigue, the president and CEO of Distraction. “I think the most important thing is to have a contestant that people can relate to. It also depends on the type of game show—whether it’s cerebral, or physical or funny. Sometimes people watch the game show to learn. For example, Countdown is very cerebral and people like to watch it to see some very smart people give answers to very hard questions. It’s a small percentage of the game shows that are like that, though. Most game shows appeal to the public in general. 

People at home always think they can beat the contestants. Viewers who watch game shows are competitive and like to compete against the TV players. So the players have to be at their level. Most of the time, you’d like to have somebody that looks good, that speaks well, has a good vocabulary, that is middle of the road.”

Distraction’s catalogue features a number of game shows in this vein: All Against One, DNA and Dirty Rotten Cheater, among others. And there’s also a slate of scripted formats being offered up by Distraction, presenting a whole new set of casting criteria.

“With scripted, people have to learn text,” says Rodrigue. “They have to be professionals. When you cast for a comedy, you have to have somebody that has learned to play. People that know how to laugh and make others laugh. Not everybody has that naturally, and it’s also a trade that is crafted over many years. Most of the successful comedies employ not necessarily very experienced comedians, but definitely comedians that have been trained.”

There are many differences when casting for a scripted format versus a reality-based series or competition. Most notable, though, is the need for actual actors. A game or contest can drive an entertainment format, but with fiction, the cast has to deliver the whole story, episode after episode. And if those actors happen to be easy on the eyes, well, that helps a bit too.
“In entertainment, you probably have a host and the values that you look for in a host wouldn’t need to be the attractiveness,” says Michelle Wasserman, the head of international distribution, programming, formats and production services at Telefe International. “Sex appeal wouldn’t be that important. But in fiction, in telenovelas, the show is meant to entertain, in the end. When you think of a telenovela, it’s fantasy, it’s the ideal life, but about somebody who has to suffer a lot to be happy. The actors not only have to like the idea, but they have to feel that they can reflect the character. In the end, though, the audience would like to see nice faces, very attractive people and people who are appealing. In entertainment, the game shows and so on, it’s more about the charisma. One of our most important hosts in Argentina is small, fat and ugly—you wouldn’t have a lead actor that looks like that.”
In the U.S., Telefe works with the William Morris Agency not only to find the right fit for the characters in the adaptations of its novelas, but also the right person to adapt the series. Dori Media, meanwhile, searches for many of its lead actors through a more organic process.

“Here in Argentina, it’s not so common to have a casting department,” explains Celina Amadeo, the VP of production at Dori Media Contenidos. “We work with the actors through their managers. I’ll even go to theaters to see new talent. We also work together with the producers and the actors to build the cast. Sometimes I’ll take the protagonist and actors in the main roles, and ask them if they can propose two or three actors they think could fit the other roles. That way everybody works together building the project. It’s like a boiling pot for making soup. If all of us bring something to the soup, we will make it better.”

CROSSING BORDERS
After nailing down the perfect cast, and watching the elements combine, the challenge of how to replicate that success with local versions arises. Many companies, including Endemol, oversee this element by supplying explicit details. “We have very specific ideas on how the casting should work on each of our different shows, and we do have international consultants who work closely with our operating companies all over the world,” says Römer. “The key is to make the casting work for the concept behind the format, while taking into account the fact that cultures differ and some countries have different needs.”
Telefe’s Wasserman shares a similar sentiment on guiding the casting of the various versions. “We try to get involved in the adaptation process early on because it’s key. You need to work hand in hand with the ones who gave life to the story because they know what all the options are for changing the small or big things. For some markets, the local tastes and ideas could really change the rules of the story. So this is why we try to get really involved in helping choose the cast.”

Then there are those times when a one-of-a-kind star comes along and forever changes the show’s formula. For FremantleMedia, a certain moody Brit did just that, setting the standard for how to cast the adaptations. “Simon Cowell is unique,” says Clark of the tetchy panelist, who’s been a judge on Pop Idol, American Idol, The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. “He is brilliant to watch on TV or at the auditions. He innately understands his audience and, because of this, has been able to dominate the U.K. and U.S. talent-show arena. It is true that after the first series of Idols we have tried to replicate the role that Simon plays on the panel: the lead judge, the brutally honest judge, the judge that can be controversial, and the judge that can wind up the rest of the panel. We have been successful in this in many territories around the world. But from a point of absolute respect, I would still say there is only one Simon.”