#355

Sex, Drugs, & Pilot Season

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Legendary former casting director ⁠Joel Thurm⁠ chats with ⁠Trey Elling⁠ about ⁠SEX, DRUGS, & PILOT SEASON: CONFESSIONS OF A CASTING DIRECTOR⁠. Topics include:

  • Joaquin Phoenix’s influence on the book (0:00:57)
  • Growing up on a dairy farm in Brooklyn, NY (0:02:58)
  • David Merrick’s influence on Joel’s career (0:08:16)
  • How Pearl Bailey got Joel to Hollywood (0:13:03)
  • LSD, a puffy shirt, & Jesus Christ Superstar (0:16:21)
  • Learning how to handle people from Ethel Winant (0:21:12)
  • The Minutes on CBS (0:23:46)
  • Charlton Heston (0:27:18)
  • Casting Susan Sarandon The Rocky Horror Picture Show (0:28:03)
  • Why Aaron Spelling Leonard Goldberg made such a good team (0:30:49)
  • The Boy In The Plastic Bubble (0:33:14)
  • Grease as an example of Joel’s philosophy on money & creativity (0:38:45)
  • Olivia Newton John’s “Slutty Sandy” scene (0:40:52)
  • Getting the team back together for Grease Live in 2019 (0:43:26)
  • The joys of working on Taxi (0:47:11)
  • Airplane! (0:55:36)
  • Why Peter Graves & Kareem Abdul Jabbar getting cast (0:59:06)
  • Leslie Nielsen reinventing himself with Airplane! (1:00:55)
  • Ted Danson, Shelly Long, & Cheers (1:03:10)
  • Choosing Claire Huxtable for The Cosby Show (1:06:59)
  • Joel bucking “casting couch” stereotype (1:11:39)
  • What he would’ve done differently (1:20:25)
  • Why he stopped casting in the early 1990s (1:23:24)
  • Joel’s last casting job (1:25:30)