The Acting Podcast from The BGB Studio

Casting Virtual Roundtable: CDs tell it like it is 

~A conversation with 6 brilliant Casting Artists~ with (in alphabetical order) Juel Bestrop, Randi Hiller, Billy Hopkins, Hedi Levitt, Bernie Telsey, Mary Vernieu & Risa!

‍I sat down on Zoom with a few of my favorite people/artists/Casting Directors to talk about our world of Casting. This group is connected to each other in having established their careers working with me and my former casting partner, Billy Hopkins, starting decades ago. They are forever family. And they have become the most formidable Casting Artists in the...

Listen to other related The Acting Podcast episodes

Clayton Farris is an Actor. He’s a comedian, a filmmaker, a content creator, a great guy… and… he most of all is an Actor dedicated to being the Best Actor he can possibly be. 

Clayton is a long-time member of the BGB Studio, and Risa has had the privilege of working with him here and watching him work hard and grow brilliantly. His fellow BGB actors adore him, as does she. Risa and Clayton talk about his path and his process here on The Act...

This is our 60th episode of The Acting Podcast 🙌 which is a big deal for us here at The BGB Studio. So welcome to #60, and How to be Awesome.

You ARE awesome.

Say that to yourself, maybe even in the mirror; try it! I AM AWESOME. Now let it land. Right in your solar plexus. It’s TRUE. And while this Industry may not see you in your awesomeness- now or yet or since whenever- it’s your job… your responsibility… your privilege… to step into the light. To let your awesomeness b...

At our most recent BGB Actors Summit, Risa and Steve gathered with actors from all over the world- from Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai, from Glasgow to San Antonio, from Buffalo to all over Los Angeles. They offered the fundamental and practical steps necessary to nurture and rebuild your career, your collaboration with other creative professionals, and your art. 

These are essential practices that take you on the journey to success- from care for yourself and who you are as an artist through to expressing that art in and with the support of a strong creative community. A...

Hunting Season

“A story, in three parts, about Catfish Queens, Virgin Marys, and Losing your Damn Mind in the Mississippi Delta”

Saturday Boy

“A tale driving you into the heart of car bonnets, old ladies and existential dread”

Losing My Religion

“It’s 1992… painting houses, a break up, a presidential election, and poetry”

Murder at Heaven Avenue

“A mountaintop revelation changed everything”

Muqtada’s Room

“An invitation to stay in bed gets him out of bed and into the dream”

The Creek

“Things left said” 

Incomplete Knowledge

“Desire spirals into obsession amidst the labyrinthine canals of Venice.”

Cynthia Continued

“A bitter green salad and the awful reality of transactional relationships”

Trastevere

“Impossible moments and a Maestro’s long game”

Found Words

“A trip to Wales to find connection led to more than she could have ever imagined”

Hand Tools

“Hand tools and family trees”

You’ve Been Lurking Here

“A hazy memory of treasure and ruin in New Mexico”

Sidenotes

“Hope = the fire in the rear view is smaller, the further we get”

It’s Horror month. Halloween… and all. 🎃

In the spirit of spooky movies, I talk with 2 of our amazing BGB Master Teachers, Sydney Walsh & Corey Parker, on Zoom (so you can watch!) about what it was like to act in the HORROR genre- they each have starred in a few iconic Horror Movies. We talk Horror movie acting, and acting in any Genre, plus what it was like to audition in the 80s and 90s when big filmmakers were in the room, along with Casting Directors (like me!) who collaborated with actors, brought them back in many times...

An actor's mindset can make or break a career. Your job is to open your heart, remain sensitive and open. And you’re asked to do that job in an Industry that doesn't have the capacity to care for your needs and in which scarcity is the norm. You will lose faith. It’s inevitable. But how gracefully you can find it again is the difference between auditioning with the full power of your talent, and allowing fear and self-consciousness to drain you of your power when you’re trying to book work. 

Risa and Steve examine what it...

Risa talked on Zoom with with Anthony Meindl of fellow acting studio, AMAW (which is Anthony Meindl's Acting Workshop) about EVERYTHING… about art, big tech, climate change, self-tapes, casting, how Tik Tok is killing our attention span, and how things are really really hard right now. They talked about both getting started in the NY theatre and the power of community, and, something that resonates for us at BGB a well... being in process always, and being an artist first. It was a great conversation and we want to share it with all of you. So no matter where yo...

Risa sat down with some of our amazing BGB teachers (Cate Cohen, Sydney Walsh, Corey Parker, and David DeSantos) for an inspiring conversation about redefining your relationship with the Industry. About how to successfully step into your power in your work, your art, and your career. What leadership looks like so that you're in the driver’s seat, not waiting for the Industry to invite you in. Why we all need a community in which to be creative, to grow, to thrive- we were never meant to do this alone. How to become a creative force and impact your au...

Change is the only constant and the changes have come fast and hard. So what is the Industry now? What does it mean to be an Actor right now? What does it take to make it today?  Risa and Steve discuss the current state of Industry, what actors can expect from the Industry and the essential shifts actors need to make right now to position themselves for success. Listen in and let us know how this resonates with you.

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“Script Analysis” is an often misunderstood term that can result in an actor robbing a scene of its art by reducing it to mathematical calculations. Some actors love the idea of script analysis so they can “solve” the scene and control it. Other actors abandon the idea of script analysis altogether because they are afraid of adding any structure to their art. The truth of Script Analysis is more interesting and dynamic. BGB Master Teachers, Cate Cohen, Sydney Walsh, and Corey Parker, sit down with Risa and Steve to talk about the dance between structure and fluidity in your preparat...

An actor who books work consistently is an actor who has the capacity to remain vulnerable in the face of intense rejection, to stay focused in a world full of distractions, and to stay sharp in one of the most competitive Industries around. The actor who books work consistently has found a way to stand out from hundreds of others. They have expressed themself in a way that makes them a singularity. In a hard industry and a hard world, that kind of singular expression must be supported by a lifestyle that nurtures their art and their career. Listen...

2023 was a really intense year. Two strikes, wars, a contracting Industry, inflation, lingering effects of the pandemic, etc. And that intensity revealed some powerful lessons that every actor must hear and understand in order to be a working actor in 2024.  Risa and Steve delve into the lessons of 2023 that point to the new reality for actors and light the path to success in the New Year!

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Your words will help connect us all and bring these valuable conversations to even more actors- and o...

Ok, so the Industry is back. But it won't be business as usual. It can't be. Too much has changed. And if you want to book work in this new reality, you're going to have to change too. So listen in and let us know what speaks to you! You can meet this moment, but it won't be easy. Risa and Steve discuss where the Industry is at right now and the important first steps that every actor must take now that the strike is over.

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This is a new world for actors. And the Industry that emerges on the other side of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes will be different than anything we've ever seen.

The ways in which Actors have thought about their careers for over a century are, in many ways, no longer relevant.

So, what's an Actor to do?

Risa and Steve shed light on this strange new world, offer insight into what it might look like, and discuss the action that Actors can (and must) take right now if they want to have a...

John Levey loves his job. He loves actors. He loves storytelling. He loves diving into the worlds each character inhabits. He’s been loving it for 40 years and is one of the masters of this passion profession, having won multiple Emmys and Artios awards, putting actors into groundbreaking roles on some of the most popular television shows of all time- E.R., The West Wing, China Beach, and Shameless, to name just a few. Listen in as Risa & Steve have an honest conversation with the legendary John Frank Levey.

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Generative A.I. is not the future. It is here. Now. And as the technology gets better and better, and audiences become less able to discern whether or not the actor on their favorite TV show or movie is human or A.I., the Industry will choose A.I. generated actors over human actors. A.I. actors are cheaper, less demanding, don’t have a union, and don’t require inconveniences like air, water, food, physical space, etc. 

But as Generative A.I. comes for your jobs, it forces all of us to ponder important questions that, left...

We wholeheartedly support the writers as they fight for what they rightly deserve. And also, a strike means that the Industry is slowing/shutting down. For actors, that can mean fewer auditions and less hope of booking jobs. It can bring up fear and disappointment, especially after three years of pandemic-related uncertainty. In this episode, Risa and Steve offer tools to navigate it all, and reveal some of the incredible opportunities that present themselves when the Industry stops.

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As an actor, your vulnerability and emotional sensitivity are not only tools of your art. They are your products.  But being a sensitive person in an often cold, emotionally violent industry can be a train wreck waiting to happen.  Risa and Steve explore the kind of consistent healing necessary to stay open enough to bring the fullness of your talent to your auditions, and not compromise your mental health while doing it.

Your nervous system is your tool and your product.  It’s also a sacred element of your being, through which you receive and process the world...

Actors can often see CDs as faceless, soulless gate-keepers with the potential to grant wishes or kill dreams. This perception is not only wrong, but it’s bad for an actor’s business.  Casting directors are human beings who, like you, often struggle to do good work in an emotionally violent industry. In fact, the humanity of casting directors- their ability to be emotionally affected, to be moved- is often the reason an actor gets a callback and gets cast. Actors must believe then and constantly remind themselves that casting directors have the capacity to be emotionally moved by their...

In a business this competitive, navigating the slings and arrows to find happiness is a revolutionary act. Pursuing an acting career is hard. Heck, just being an actor, an artist in a violent world, is hard. You can feel unseen, discouraged and lost. There are challenges at every turn. And yet, amidst all the challenges, there is a way to be an actor, to pursue an acting career, and be a happy, whole human being. It takes focus and discipline but it’s possible. Risa and Steve sit down with BGB Master Teachers, Sydney Walsh and Cate Cohen, to di...

Beyond the BS- mastering the latest audition/self-tape “trends,” getting the hottest agent or hiring the best personal trainer- there exist the real, less-talked about elements of success. After many decades in the business and a decade of guiding some of the best and most successful actors on the planet at the BGB Studio, Risa and Steve reveal the bad-ass practices that not everyone has the capacity for, but that are required for success. This is how amateurs become professionals. This is that Next Level shit. Listen in.

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An artistic community is an essential part of your success. In order to do amazing audition/self-tape work consistently, you'll have to combat the isolation and inhumanity of the Industry with the collaboration, connection, and care that you only find from community. The right artistic community lifts you up, challenges you to be better, keeps you accountable, reinforces your values, reminds you that you are an actor, and that art matters. On the 10 year anniversary of BGB, Risa and Steve explore the power of this artistic community, and how you can leverage artistic community for your own success.

Risa sat down to talk about the Commercial Casting world with not one- but two incredibly talented commercial casting directors. Danielle Eskinazi (to whom Risa gave her first job decades ago!) and Renita Gale (see bios below) are both long standing CDs who are passionate and talented artists and truly care about actors. We are excited to have you listen as they share how they got into the biz, why they have stayed, how the commercial landscape has changed and lots about the audition process these days. AND why we all must walk through the door when the universe...

 Risa and Steve sat down to talk about the Self-Tape crisis- an actual creative and professional crisis that actors, casting directors, agents, managers, and others in our business are experiencing right now.

Self-tapes are here to stay. But at this point in their evolution, they have the potential to consume you; to pull the entire focus of time and attention as you navigate the technical elements, the lack of collaboration, and the limitations of the process. We see a crisis in our Industry. The proliferation of this process has made actors forget about art. It’s time to...

Richard Hicks is a Casting Director for film, television and theatre (see bio below). He’s done it all, he loves it all, and his work is beautiful. We’re excited to have you listen to our conversation with Richard, and we hope that it humanizes casting directors even more, which is one of our missions- to remind each other and our community always that we are ALL dancing between art and commerce, and we are doing it together. That the faces of the business are simply human beings, often vulnerable, navigating the Industry while making work the best they...

Jason Clodfelter is hardly whom you might think of when you imagine a big Hollywood Studio TV (Co) President. He’s sensitive, caring, personable, charming, thoughtful, and an artist - a fantastic writer, director, actor, and collaborator. Risa got to know Jason in class every week where the work was intimate and intense, and he went all in. And, as he tells us here, his job at Sony TV became an act of artistry, something he needed if he was going to continue to work in what can be considered a soul-sucking job. But he found another way! 

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Nothing makes Risa and Steve happier than creating space and facilitating a path for actors to find their voices as creators: filmmakers, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, etc. When they started BGB, Risa and Steve brought their love of the process of creating from theatre, film, and television into the work that they- and all our teachers- practice in class. And out of that, they have nurtured the fullest expression of each artist’s unique voice, along with the practice of artistic leadership. In and out of class, we all make films together and we continue to watch BGB ac...