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Exclusive interview with US Casting Director Lana Veenker
Exclusive interview with US Casting Director Lana Veenker
| StarNow: | Can you tell us how you got started in the casting industry? | | Lana Veenker: | I had been a theatre actress and director, but hadn't ever really thought about working in film or in casting. I was a more of a starving artist/bohemian type and spent 10 years schlepping around overseas on a shoestring. I studied acting in Paris and Cambridge, crossed the Atlantic on a sailboat, had coconuts and machetes thrown at me in the West Indies, got stranded in a tiger park, lived through two South American military coups, crossed the Venezuelan Gran Sabana in an armored Lada Niva, started a theatre company and motorcycled 20,000 miles around India. And at one point on this odyssey, I landed a job at a casting office in London. I thought it might be a good fit for me, so when I returned to the States in 1999, I decided to start my own casting company. |
| StarNow: | You have worked as the casting director on some big films with well known actors (such as Jennifer Aniston, Harrison Ford and Charlize Theron), what has been your favourite film to work on and why? | | Lana Veenker: | They have all been rewarding in different ways. Working with Robert Benton on "Feast of Love" was an honor, because of his long career. My staff and I just wanted to be sponges and learn as much as possible. "Management" was a blast because I really hit it off with director Stephen Belber and got to hang out a bit with Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston. "Twilight" was a life-changing experience; to be involved with such a big project that the fans were so invested in was as much a privilege as it was a responsibility. |
| StarNow: | You were one of the casting directors for the movie 'Twilight' and ran an open casting call for the Native American principal roles (Jacob, Sam and Embry). How did you find the pressure of discovering actors to play these roles? Were you looking for actors who could continue to play their character through the series? | | Lana Veenker: | We were thrilled to be given the opportunity to try to find these roles. Catherine Hardwicke had seen a lot of actors already in Los Angeles for the Native American roles and she threw down the gauntlet for us to find them through our own resources. My associate Lori Lewis immediately took up her challenge and told her we'd have something to show by that weekend. And we did. Of course, none of the sequels had been greenlit at that time, but we always kept in mind the transformations that the characters would need to undergo as we looked at actors for the roles. |
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