NOTES ON CASTING
CLARA
Character Description
CLARA (18-29)
**Must have ballet, dance, or strong movement background**
She is shy, young, and anxious. Strong and driven in her craft, she is restless and unsure of herself deep down. An introvert in her early 20’s, she feels more herself in baggy clothes than tight fitting leotards and tutus. Confused if she still feels at home in the high femme world of classical ballet and dance influencers, but unsure of how to find a new path. She has built up a hard exterior, repressing any emotions surrounding her Dad’s absence and her own sense of self. But in this new part of life, these behaviors prove tenuous as an unrest boils up in her in the form of panic attacks and insomnia that she can’t subdue. A social media addict who lurks but fears posting, she struggles with no one in her life to help guide her through this difficult time as her body—the instrument she could always depend on—is sending her signals that something is not right. While intensely observant, words are not Clara’s strong suit, and to understand her is to follow how her movement and breath change over the course of the film. An artist at her core, dance is her calling, but how to hold onto that our in the world she’s yet to understand.
CASTING NOTES
Clara’s character needs to exist as a counterpoint to the mainstream world of classical ballet and the “typical ballerina girl”. There is an emphasis in classical ballet on the feminine, the traditional, the polished and refined, the straight lines and rigid movement language, the outgoing and charismatic personalities, the bright colors and make-up covered presentation, the perfectionism and dedication, and the smile on the face that covers any sense of weakness and fragility that is underneath.
In contrast to this, Clara is messy and unsure of herself, muted in her gender expression, shy, agitated and manic at times, slouchy and depressed at others. She prefers loose fitting cloths, darker, moodier colors, loud edgy music to the romanticism of traditional classical music. She lurks at the edges, afraid to be the center of attention, but so deperate to express something in her that is pent up feeling a pushing desire to achieve in a hope that it will solve this unrest. She is clearly talented, and the audience should feel this from the start, but also a tenderness towards her inability to confidently express herself without fear of what might happen.
So I think we need to keep in mind in our search someone who can stand as a counterpoint to mainstream ballet, both visually, but also in the way they move off stage, something less refined and proper than your typical dancer, but who onstage can still hold her own. It’s as if each time she goes on stage, she is pulling herself up into being a different person. The actor needs to have a deep interiority, who can be silent on camera but still communicate an inner world. She needs to be hard working and focused, but also be able to express an uncertainty to herself. It could be something in a physical trait too: a distintive shape to her face, or birthmark, or some characteristic in her physical body that right away the audience feels she is different. It could be in her ethnicity or race, the color of her hair or eyes. This isn’t a requirment, but I just mention it as a possibility of more ways to set her apart visually. In the end it will of course come down to the essence of this person. In most of my scouting images I’m sharing below it’s of dark haired, white girls, that have some masculine or ambigous gender presentation, but that’s not to saw that’s the only type possible for the role, just where my mind is stuck on at the moment
I like to look at some of these references side by side to feel that tension between the two.
TOM
CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
TOM (36-55)
While at his core a deeply sensitive soul, he struggles with the demands and pace of society. What we learn firsthand about Tom is what we see through the videos of him online: as a younger man, he is wide-eyed, curious, and naive, wholly dedicated to his art. In his interviews a decade later, he is thoughtful but defensive, depressive, and beaten down by life. And in the final cascade of paparazzi videos he is manic, aggressive, and unsettled. What we learn from him through the objects he left behind and the words of those on the island is that he was someone who was privately struggling, searching for some way to deal with an emptiness he had inside and shame about his past behavior. Whether he found some peace on the island or was caught in up unrest until the end remains unknown, for as Anne says, “we can’t know what he did with his private moments.”
**Only 5 shoot days**
CASTING NOTES
Tom has both a soft, senstive core, and also an aggressive side. His mental state can go from introspective and curious about art and life, to frustrated and angry with the way things are, to fully manic, verging on psychosis. I at least read him as manic/depressive or even bipolar, states that are triggered in his controntaiton with the media and success. Yet he also has a side that wants to move to a remote island.
One conversation we need to have is on age. I would like Tom to fo from this early/mid thirties guy in the first interview where he is young and open, to this heavier set, frustrated man of his mid 40’s that we see in the final long ineterview. In the paparazzi videos, he runs this gamut of age ranges as well. I think for the right actor, we could bump all this later, say, starting at 40, then seeing him ten years later at 50, as though he had success, and a kid later in life. But what I need to understand is if we have to cast someone younger and age them up, or if it’s possible to cast someone older, and age them down (which feels more dificult to me).
Here are some paparazzi videos
Interview videos
Images of his house
ANNE
I listen to this track a lot when I’m visualizing Anne’s property with it’s windchimes and gardens, hand built little shacks and outdoor kilns, and I feel it’s a good reference for the mood of her world that she’s built on her property and Clara enters into.
Character Description
ANNE (48-70)
She is strong, grounded, with a practical wisdom. She doesn’t have all the answers, but has found a balanced life in her homesteading and solitary ceramics practice on the remote island that she tries not to question. Though she still struggles with an inner unrest, she has made a choice to compassionately confront it, and while it may not work for others, it works for her. Fiercely independent, her wisdom on life comes from lived experience and contemplative practice that allows her to speak with a clarity of mind. An introspective and solitary person who could spend days alone tending her homestead, she has a self-assured gravitas, exuding a calm and grounded presence, yet doesn’t take herself overly seriously, knowing when to bring out her dry wit. She emerges as the unexpected mentor Clara needs as she tries to find her own way.
**Only 7 shoot days**
CASTING NOTES
At first I thought she must be a very “northwoods” person, and maybe she will be that, but in her talking about how she’s moved around all her life, I can also imagine her being from somewhere else entirley and having ended up, as much a shock to her as others, living on this midwestern island. In my own experience living on the island, I encoutntered both type of people hiding out in the woods: some who’d grown up in the area, and others from as far awy as palestine and russia who had somehow ended up making a little homestead in this remote place. So while many of my initial ideas have been focused on that northwoods spirit, I’m open to unexpected choices as well.
She needs to be able to effortless hold this space of ease and calm and not feel put on, but also have a bit of unrest to her to. A heaviness let’s say that we feel she’s lived many lives at this point, and where she is now is one that took her a lot of failure and hardship to come to. But where we meet her she is living out a spiritual practice of sorts that is her life, her garden, her creative practice, her personal relationship to the plants and the animals of the island, and sense of community and friendliness. Her and her world should be immedieatly intriguing to the audience (as it is to Clara).
She could be a wide range of ages. I believe I wrote “50’s” in the script, but I could see from late 40’s to 70’s. I don’t want her to come across as some cartoon wise grandma type. I think it’s why I’m open to someone a bit younger too, that puts more questions about what she is doing here at only 47 lets say rather than 67.
I see her mostly in old work clothes, thrift store items patched and repaired. Someone who values frugality and materiality.
I also think of a lot of outsider artists, like Agnes Martin, or Ruth Asawa. Artists who’s space around them is their work.
I will share some images of what her property could be like.
This book (which you don’t need to read, though I highly recommend) by Joan Tollifson, I’ve tried to pick out an article from her substack. It’s that sense of recognition that even though she is wise, that doesn’t mean she is free from her faults: as Anne says in the film “that knot that still comes to her”
