This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Eli Tokash: Hey everyone, and welcome back to episode 12 of Take A Bow.

[0:04] Sidney Lucas: I'm Sidney Lucas.

[0:05] Eli Tokash: And today we have casting director Jen Rudin on for our 12th episode.

[0:12] Sidney Lucas: And you guys, we are so excited because this is our first time that we are gonna have a non-actor, I guess you could say, on the podcast.

[0:23] Eli Tokash: It's pretty cool because we've only had actors on, so it was neat to hear from Jen and get a new perspective.

[0:28] Sidney Lucas: That's what I love so much about this podcast is because there are a lot of different roles in the business that, you know, like casting directors, directors, writers, dressers, makeup artists that also deserve to take bows.

[0:38] Eli Tokash: So we can't wait to share her perspective with you.

[0:41] Sidney Lucas: And she had a lot of incredible insight and things to say.

[0:45] Eli Tokash: So you're gonna love what she has to say.

[0:48] Sidney Lucas: And also, if you love this podcast, then after listening to this podcast, go check out her book, Confessions of a Casting Director.

[0:54] Eli Tokash: She has a lot of amazing information in that.

[0:56] Sidney Lucas: As well as her own podcast, which is with the same name, Confessions of a Casting Director.

[1:02] Eli Tokash: And it's very similar to the book where she talks about not only like auditioning and stuff like that, but also like acting tips, and it's really cool.

[1:10] Sidney Lucas: So yeah, everyone should go check that out for sure.

[1:12] Eli Tokash: Yeah, you're definitely gonna want to hear what she has to say.

[1:14] Sidney Lucas: For sure.

[1:15] Eli Tokash: Cool. So should we send it over to Jen?

[1:18] Sidney Lucas: Let's send it over to Jen.

[1:19] Eli Tokash: Jen Rudin, curtain up.

[1:52] Jen Rudin: Everyone, please welcome the award-winning casting director, writer, and audition coach Jen Rudin.

[2:01] Jen Rudin: So good to see you guys. Thank you so much for coming on.

[2:04] Jen Rudin: Yeah, I'm excited. I feel like an aunt because I feel like I've watched you both grow over the years, and now I'm like, oh my god, they're all grown up.

[2:12] Jen Rudin: And like I knew you when you were, you know, I mean, we're talking at least a good of Sydney for sure, 2013, Eli, probably before that.

[2:20] Jen Rudin: So wow, it's nice to see you guys. And typical at 2020, we have to make a podcast date in order to get back.

[2:27] Sidney Lucas: Yeah, no, we've known each other for like since I was nine, eight.

[2:30] Jen Rudin: Yeah, it's a funny story because it was the summer of 2013, and I call it the summer of Peter. I was casting Peter Rabbit for Nick Jr.

[2:39] Jen Rudin: And Jake Lucas got the part, and then I was casting Peter Bogdanovich's live action movie. She's funny that way.

[2:47] Jen Rudin: So it was I had two Peters going on, completely different projects. And Peter Bogdanovich said to me, we had to cast Owen Wilson's kids, Katherine Hahn and Owen Wilson's kids in the movie.

[2:58] Jen Rudin: And he said to me, you know, it'd be great if you could bring in some real siblings. And so I said, Okay.

[3:04] Jen Rudin: So I knew about a couple different sets of siblings, and then I wanted to bring in Jake Lucas because I had just met him for Peter Rabbit, and I thought, oh, he's brilliant.

[3:12] Jen Rudin: And so it was Rachel Altman, your agent, who said, you know, he has a little sister. And I said, Really? Well, okay, let's do it.

[3:21] Jen Rudin: And so I didn't know Sydney, bring her straight to Peter Bogdanovich, a famous, you know, filmmaker. And I'm thinking to myself, hope she's good.

[3:29] Jen Rudin: Because like it's Peter Bogdanovich, and we had a couple different sets of siblings, and he was cracking up, laughing so hard at you guys, and you guys booked the job.

[3:39] Jen Rudin: So I was like, Oh, that's Sydney Lucas, Jake Lucas and his sister. And then, of course, the rest is history because of you know, fun home and all of that.

[3:43] Sidney Lucas: The rest is history. That was such a fun part.

[3:50] Sidney Lucas: So there's a specific scene in it where I think it was the people who were playing my grandparents, and oh, I actually think it was just the people playing our grandparents and then Jake and I.

[3:58] Sidney Lucas: And then Owen Wilson and Katherine Hahn were supposed to be like in this theater, like presenting this show.

[4:03] Sidney Lucas: And so we get out of the car and we go into the theater, and in the this is part of the actual movie. In the theater, they're handing out playbills kind of, but also they're handing out condoms.

[4:12] Sidney Lucas: And so we have this scene where we take the condoms and we're like nine years old, and Jake goes, uh, look, it's uh rubber.

[4:20] Sidney Lucas: And then the grandparents are like, Whoa, what? And I go, No, it's a condom. And Jake goes, No, it's a rubber, no, it's a condom.

[4:27] Sidney Lucas: And then my uncle just recently, he saw this movie on TV. And I have a I have a little baby cousin, a nine-year-old baby cousin Riley, and he saw it on the TV, and he goes, Riley, come in, look, it's Jake and Sydney.

[4:41] Sidney Lucas: And it started playing at that exact moment. No, it's a condom, though it's a rubber. He was like, No, no, no, no, don't watch.

[4:48] Jen Rudin: I do remember that. I do remember that.

[4:50] Jen Rudin: But also, and for you, Eli, I feel like I first I mean, I think you were in Mary Poppins, and I was already done.

[4:56] Jen Rudin: I'd already left Disney, but I certainly knew because I left Disney in 2009, and so I feel like you might have joined the tour like right after that.

[5:05] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it was actually 2010.

[5:07] Jen Rudin: Yeah, it was right after that. But I always kept up with who the Jane and Michael Banks were because I spent so many years trying to find those kids.

[5:13] Jen Rudin: So I was like, Yeah, oh gosh, and then you just always came in, you know, every all the roles, all the casting sciences.

[5:19] Jen Rudin: So anyway, it's good to see you guys. So congratulations to you. You have your own podcast yourself, right?

[5:25] Jen Rudin: I do. So I have my book, which came out, Confessions of a Casting Director, and actually Peter Bogdanovich has a quote on the cover, Sydney.

[5:33] Jen Rudin: He said, Jen Rudin is as good as it gets in the casting department. She has a great eye for talent.

[5:38] Jen Rudin: The book came out right after we filmed that movie. So I had wanted to write a sequel, and then it seemed like everybody else in the world had a podcast, and so I started my own, and now we're 17 episodes in.

[5:49] Jen Rudin: And you know, I keep it lean and I go to a studio. Like Danny Burstein was a guest, so I went to a studio, but I'm doing it all. I'm editing it and I'm promoting it.

[5:57] Eli Tokash: Wow, good for you.

[6:01] Jen Rudin: It's fun.

[6:02] Eli Tokash: That's amazing.

[6:03] Jen Rudin: It's fun. So it's kind of an extension of the book. And actually, now during the pandemic, for parents, Wednesdays at two, these free online Zoom chats about different topics like life on set for young actors, voiceover self-tapes.

[6:15] Jen Rudin: And so usually I just end up turning one of them into a podcast episode for people who couldn't attend.

[6:20] Sidney Lucas: So productive.

[6:21] Jen Rudin: Yeah, we see that we saw that on your website, and what you're doing has been great for not only parents, but like also kids to give them an understanding of what really goes on.

[6:32] Jen Rudin: Yeah, they don't know. And I thought, you know, we're all here, we're all home, and I started making it Wednesdays at two.

[6:39] Jen Rudin: So tomorrow I think is our eighth week, I think. We're gonna talk about voiceovers.

[6:43] Jen Rudin: So that's what I've been up to, but hey, happy to talk about anything.

[6:47] Eli Tokash: Hundred percent. That was actually gonna be one of my questions for you is basically like, How is this pandemic affecting your work right now? I can't imagine.

[6:55] Jen Rudin: I'm actually busier than ever, but that's because I cast no, it's because I cast so much animation.

[7:01] Jen Rudin: And so voiceover has really been happening, and I was in the middle of casting an animated series for Netflix.

[7:09] Jen Rudin: I can't announce it until they announce it. So we were casting. I literally was in LA like right Friday, March 13th when I flew back.

[7:17] Jen Rudin: So we're still casting it. And we've been doing callbacks and doing things on Zoom and gathering MP3s.

[7:24] Jen Rudin: And so that's been busy. So I feel like voiceover is the one area right now where it's busy.

[7:29] Sidney Lucas: Oh, yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between voiceover acting and stage or on camera?

[7:36] Jen Rudin: Sure. I was a child actor and did voiceovers. That was actually the one area of my childhood acting career that I enjoyed the most because it didn't matter what you looked like and how tall you were and if you mixed and matched well with the family.

[7:49] Jen Rudin: So I always liked voiceovers, and then luckily for me, in the summer of 2002, I went out to LA and Disney was hiring for a new casting director for the feature animation division.

[8:01] Jen Rudin: And if you look back at some of the classic Disney animated movies like Little Mermaid, Lion King, Pocahontas, it was all Broadway people.

[8:08] Jen Rudin: Beauty and the Beast, um, it was Broadway people who were voicing those roles.

[8:13] Jen Rudin: So I got hired based on my theater background, my background casting theater. Tom Schumacher, who runs Disney Theatrical, was also at the time running Disney feature animation.

[8:26] Jen Rudin: So when I got hired, it was like great, we have a New York theater casting director coming. They moved me out to LA, and I really didn't know much about animation except that I brought all my playbills with me to California on my playbook collection.

[8:39] Jen Rudin: They were all up in my office, and then I got there, and we were at the point in animation where everything was going from hand-drawn to computer and going from voice actor to celebrity.

[8:50] Jen Rudin: So I was there during that huge transition period. There's a whole chapter in Confessions of a Casting Director about that time and what was happening.

[8:59] Jen Rudin: So even though I had a I like would bring my playbills to meetings and be like, let's hire Tony Shalhoub. And they would look in my playbill and be like, somebody looked and said, Is that a yearbook? Like that's the disconnect between theater in New York and animation.

[9:14] Jen Rudin: And I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, I think I have to go back to New York. But anyway, I did cast, and I still do cast as many theater people in animation as possible.

[9:23] Jen Rudin: Jennifer Cody was the lead in The Princess and the Frog, Anika Noni Rose, both of those women obviously are musical theater at heart.

[9:31] Jen Rudin: But there's a big difference. I feel like everybody and you would know Sydney from Jake.

[9:35] Jen Rudin: Animation and voice recording, and you've done it too, I know, is so tiring and so precise, and it is such a skill, and either you love it, or it's a really excruciating way to make a movie.

[9:47] Jen Rudin: So it's almost like doing ADR, but all the time. Um, and four-hour sessions.

[9:53] Jen Rudin: And Sydney, I used to see you at Big Yellow Duck, Jake would be in the session recording Peter Rabbit, and you were hanging out with your mom, and it's like you're doing line after line three times in a row, three different ways.

[10:04] Jen Rudin: It's very technical and precise, and the best people who are good for animation are theater performers because you have the theater training, and comedians because they're funny.

[10:16] Jen Rudin: But I can't tell you how many people will email me and say, I want to get into voiceover, and it's like, okay, good luck. It's hard, it's really hard and technical.

[10:27] Jen Rudin: It's really good practice though. It's very tedious, but I know if you go to an acting class, one of the things that they have you practice is saying one line as many different ways as possible.

[10:38] Jen Rudin: So I think it really does help with the kind of variety and be like, oh my gosh, I can say this one line a plethora of ways.

[10:45] Sidney Lucas: Yes.

[10:45] Jen Rudin: And also when you think about animation is moving all the time right the story is moving, the animation is moving.

[10:51] Jen Rudin: So you have all these efforts, right? You're running through a tunnel. You're an elephant and you're gonna get not galloping, however elephants move through the tundra, you know, and so you have to have like so much energy to be able to do it.

[11:04] Jen Rudin: Keenan Thompson is somebody who did a voice for me in Rock Dog. And I would think to myself if people could just come to Big Yellow Duck and watch what he is doing, you would see how precise it is and how amazing he is at it.

[11:17] Jen Rudin: Same with Lewis Black, you know Owen Wilson's done a lot, but it's just not one of those it's just everybody thinks it's so easy because they're like oh it's I'll put on my pajamas and I'll record voiceover and it's it's really difficult.

[11:29] Jen Rudin: And the other thing is that if you take away your beautiful faces and you don't have your face and your eyes to tell the story you just are telling a story with your voice and some people's voices can tell a story and some people are at this sort of Soto you know monotone level.

[11:46] Sidney Lucas: Right.

[11:47] Jen Rudin: I find that so intriguing about voiceovers is like you can't tell it with your face as much as you try to when you're doing a voiceover you want to do it with your face and maybe it'll reflect in your voice but it does it doesn't always happen like that.

[12:00] Jen Rudin: And so when you have to like create a character it's cool because you're just able to do it with your voice or you're allowed to experiment with your voice as much as you can and get to know your voice to make it that new character that you want it to be it's so fascinating.

[12:15] Jen Rudin: And you don't know until you try, you know, you don't know how it's gonna go until you're in the booth, till you take off till you take off anything that's ringing and dinging and jewelry until you make sure that you've had a lot of water.

[12:25] Jen Rudin: I mean, I can hear so much because I've been casting animation for 20 years. I can hear when somebody has a dry mouth.

[12:31] Jen Rudin: I can hear when somebody has a some sort of speech thing. I know when somebody is wearing invisalign. Like I'm like a dog, really attuned sense of hearing, and which is why I have to sleep with earplugs and a noise machine.

[12:43] Jen Rudin: But it's it's a fun thing to cast. I mean, this Netflix show is so I'm so excited about it.

[12:49] Jen Rudin: And just Friday I got to call an actor, a theater actor, and tell him he got the part. And it's like he, you know, it's like those are the moments where you're like, you are going to get to voice this role.

[13:01] Jen Rudin: And it's those are the joyous moments I think in casting that we love and they don't come every day. So when they do, we celebrate them.

[13:08] Sidney Lucas: Are you normally the people that calls people when they get the part?

[13:08] Jen Rudin: We usually call the agent or the manager and say, guess what? You're gonna get an offer, you know, and those are exciting calls to make.

[13:18] Jen Rudin: So I made it I think to Rachel and Elise when for you guys for for the Peter Bogdanovich movie. Like, guess what? I'm so excited.

[13:24] Jen Rudin: And twenty years later I still get excited, you know. I just cast three people on Sesame Street and I got excited to call their agents because it's exciting, right? To get that news.

[13:33] Jen Rudin: I mean, you guys get it on your end, and you're like, Oh my god, I can't believe it.

[13:37] Jen Rudin: I can't believe it. So usually it's me calling the agent, but in this case on Friday, I just got to call the actor directly and it was like, Oh.

[13:44] Eli Tokash: And you kept going, Are you kidding?

[13:46] Jen Rudin: Are you kidding me?

[13:47] Eli Tokash: Are you kidding me, Jen?

[13:49] Jen Rudin: And I was like, I'm not kidding. That would be awesome to see their raw reaction. Because you hear it from your end, right?

[13:55] Eli Tokash: Your manager calls you and you're like, Oh my god.

[13:58] Jen Rudin: So you mentioned Kenan Thompson.

[14:00] Jen Rudin: We love Keenan Thompson. And I think something that comedians bring to the table, 'cause it like, for example, in Saturday Night Live, one of the biggest things to make us get funny is the commitment. I think when you're in an audition room and it's completely silent around you, and you're by yourself in a booth, and you have to play like I don't know, a squirrel with like the super high voice. It takes a lot of commitment to do that and just be like crazy and wacky in a voice booth by yourself. I think that's also you know, you can kind of I guess elaborate on this, but I think that's something really important for voiceovers.

[14:34] Jen Rudin: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be willing to just go for it and take a risk, you know. Like, we expect when we hire somebody to voice a role, we are expecting them to do all the efforts. That's all the dog barks and yips and yaps and whatever sounds are necessary. And I've had two really well-known actors who I can't name, been in auditions with me over the years. One of them just said, I said, Okay, great, that's great. Now I need some dog barks. You know, we try to save the efforts for the end of the session. And he just looked at me and he said, 'You know, I just it's not I that's not in my world.' And he walked out, and I was like, Okay, well, he has a Tony Award, so that's okay, I'm not gonna run after him.

But it just to him, he was like, 'I'm good, I can voice just something regular,' but if you need all this barking and yipping and yapping, it's not in my wheelhouse. And I respect that. And then I had another actor just say to me, This is not for me. Meaning, you're asking me to like do all the theater stuff that you guys do in theater classes, movement and you know, let loose and take risks, and it's just not for everybody, right? Because it is, as you said, Sydney, just you in that booth with your imagination. And so you better have an imagination and want to play and collaborate, otherwise just do TV where the camera comes, you do your scene, and then you move to the next scene, right? It's not for everybody.

[15:54] Jen Rudin: I also think it's very important to just like let go of any embarrassment as well. Like you know what your first kind of instinct when you go in the room is like, oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I think it's important to just let that go. Cause that's that's also not gonna serve you in the Well it's true. You have to let go and you have to be willing to put yourself out there. But animation also like whether it's TV animation or adult sort of big mouth or Bob's burgers or Phineas and Ferb and or Peter Rabbit, which was a sweet, softer sort of more earnest animated show, it just doesn't matter. You just have to play and go for it because it's a super fun job but also really difficult and technical and not for everybody.

You also have to be really patient. Four times in a row again and again and again you know it's it's not for everybody. I personally when I was a young actor I loved voiceover because and I was like the voice of I think Ramona's sister Bezus in the Ramona books and did some voiceovers that I enjoyed but I liked it because I couldn't stand being on set. I was like why is it taking so long for them to move the lights? Why is it four in the morning and we're at this mall in Kentucky I'm tired. I couldn't deal with set life at all. I don't like to not know when I can't when I can go home. You know when you're on set you can't be like excuse me when can I go home? You you're just not you can't do that.

So for me I loved voiceover because you had your booking you did it and then you could go home and do your homework. So I don't know it's different you know everybody has a different sense of what they like to do.

[17:29] Sidney Lucas: It's interesting because like as far as voiceovers, when you go back to saying that each actor has to do each line three times or three or four times or whatever. I feel like getting those, I guess you could say embarrassing lines out of the way on the first day, because that's like most awkward. You kind of just get into the rhythm. And like I feel when doing voiceovers, doing them four different ways is super helpful to give not only you, but also the creative team the totally different options that it could go in all the different voices that you want to portray and lay out there because especially like me, because Sydney knows I have like 14 talking voices. Oh one day it's like lower, one day it's like super high. I don't know, it's like crazy. I don't know. I just wake up that day, and then I love to make like random sounds and stuff. So like when I'm in a recording booth, it's so fun for me.

[18:18] Jen Rudin: No, it's for you and and giving the giving the creative team options, right? Yeah. We find that like the first recording session is kind of get to know each other, and you know, sometimes there's stuff you can't use in the final movie. I know that you know, Eddie Izzard is one of the geniuses I've cast him in rock dog and in a movie called The Wild, and he's so willing to throw himself in there. He put a garbage can over his head once in a recording because he was supposed to be trying he was supposed to be stuck in a he was a koala bear stuck in a you know, stuck in a tree. I mean, just very inventive, very inventive. And so I always make the young actors I work with, I make them watch some of these animated movies and like let's look at Janine Garofalo's performance in the wild.

Let's look at Eddie Izzard and Mae Whitman. Mae Whitman is another example. Mae Whitman from Parenthood and Good Girls, and she's the voice of Tinkerbell, and she's an avatar, and she's done, you know, so much animation, and she also does live action. It's like how to be able to go back and forth between those two, you know, genres is really a gift. So, and also what's fun about animation is scheduling is not an issue. So, Sydney, like, I think I called Elise once about a project, and she's like, Sydney's in Texas, she's shooting the sun, and I'm like, Oh, she's she has a job, like she can't do, she's not available. But with animation, usually it's you know, where can we find the four hours? No matter how busy you are as an actor, where can we find four hours in your schedule to be able to do the session? And that's a great relief, I think, for us on the scheduling end.

[19:54] Eli Tokash: You also mentioned that you started out in the business when you were eight, I believe, uh as an actor. And then also I read that when you were 12 and when you're doing a final callback, that that's when you kind of got the bug for being a casting director. What specifically was it that made you like, oh, I want to do that?

[20:14] Jen Rudin: In this podcast and in Fun Home, we call that the ring of keys moment. We see Oh, the realization moment. The real that's great. I'm gonna use that the ring of keys moment. Well, I think for me, I found auditioning to be very stressful and very I don't want to say anxiety provoking, but I got so caught up in the auditions, you know. It's very hard for me to not lie awake at night praying to God, please, please, please let me get the part. And meanwhile, God would be like, Why should I listen to you now, Jen? We never talk, we only talk when you want a role. Why would I possibly like we had no relationships, but I would just lie there and I couldn't sort of let it go. You know, I couldn't just go to an audition, let it go, and get on with the next one.

And I also don't think I was very good. I had like a very limited, I was sort of like the funny friend in the afterschool special with like the funny lines. I didn't have the depth that you two have, and that you both had as young actors. But actually, at this audition, I was it was the final callback for an afterschool special, and there was like group A and group B of kids, and I looked at the casting director, and I really had, as you said, the ring of keys moment where I looked at her and I thought, that is what I'm gonna do because she's making this very stressful situation better. She is making us feel good, she's putting us at ease, and she is facilitating this meeting between us and the director and the network, and we had to go and wait in the hall while the next group went in.

And I also have a photographic memory, so I'm very clear with like who was in what and who's with who in terms of agents. I have a very good memory, and I'm good with people, so I thought that's probably what I'll do. So it took a long time before it actually happened. Most of my 20s I spent trying to act again, and also I worked at innovative artists for a year, assisting an agent there, and decided like, should I be an agent or should I go back to casting? So it took a while, but yeah, 12 years old, I remember that that day. And meanwhile, I didn't get the TV show. I went back to theater camp and was miserable because I didn't book it. Turns out the girl that booked it then booked a much bigger movie.

So she couldn't do it. She became unavailable. I had to go back in one more time to the team and like pulled it all night or coming home from summer camp. And thank goodness I got the part and it was just it made for a happy ending. But it also goes to show actors that timing, you know, timing is everything. You never know what's gonna happen.

[22:34] Jen Rudin: That's a very interesting perspective from a casting director saying, Yeah, man, auditioning is stressful. Yeah, like, oh wanted to write confessions of a casting director was because I kept seeing everybody come into the audition room making very minor mistakes that I knew could be corrected if there was time. So when I was around the country, it was January 2009 to find a new mermaid for the little mermaid on Broadway. We did open calls in 10 cities across the US. 600 young women came in to sing for Ariel. And I wanted to say to them, You're lovely, but that's the wrong song cut, or you did a great job, but you're wearing a mermaid dress. You don't need to wear mermaid dress. So I started taking notes for the book.

And then when I got back to New York, I talked to Tom Schumacher and said, I really want to write this book because I really want to help actors because if they would just do a few different things, I guarantee you will have a better audition. And it's little things like be early, be memorized, have yourself in order, leave all your messy baggage out in the hallway. You know, come in, do your job, don't linger, don't shake hands, you know, things like that. Little things, little things.

[23:49] Eli Tokash: You have a photographic memory. That is so cool. Like you can read this is just so cool. I'm sorry, I'm only super interested in people who have photographic memories. Can you kind of explain what that is?

[24:00] Jen Rudin: So yeah, I can. It just means, well, my husband who you've met, Sydney would laugh because he's he calls it a selective photographic memory because he's like, You can remember who replaced who in Brighton Beach memoirs on Broadway in 1984, but you can't remember what drawer the serving utensil goes in in our kitchen. So I just want to preface it by saying, you know, selective meaning like I'm very good with names, agent names, agency names, facts about people, remembering what people wore. Like I remember so many child actors that have come through the doors. I know their names, I remember what they came in for, what day they came in. Like it's just it's a good, very sort of hyper-focused photographic memory.

That being said, as much as I can tell you these facts about who replaced who and what Broadway show, you know, back in the 80s, again, it's selective because it doesn't seem to work in our kitchen, but it works in other places. So it's a database in my head, right? I remember actors' names. I'll know, like, not you, Sydney, because we have a relationship and I've known you for a long time, but another young actor will come in and I'll think, like, oh, they came in in 2011 for touch, the Kiefer Sutherland show that we did for Fox, things like that. So it's just having but you guys memorize lines somehow.

[25:20] Sidney Lucas: Oh, that's short term. I memorize it, it immediately wipes from my brain.

[25:27] Jen Rudin: That's okay. You know, it's everybody has their everybody has their strengths. I've got a good memory for things. I'm very organized because you really have to be in casting. So I'm very much like a task-oriented and action steps, and here's my to-do list. And you know, in casting, I think people think casting is like it's a creative, and you're like in the room with Steven Spielberg, and it's like, well, you are in the room with Peter Bogdanovich, but there's so much that has to happen. There's so much work. There's status reports, you know, when we find out like Sydney Lucas is not available because she's shooting a TV show in Texas, like that all has to be documented. And there's the log sheets of who came in for the audition, what date did they come in, who's their agent, you know, what's their height, like all that stuff.

So I think that that's also why I'm good at my job is because I know that if you don't have that type of brain, then you get fired. You know, they'll find another casting director to cast. So, and keeping things on track, you know, the Peter Bogdanovich days of casting. I mean, we had so many actors to see, and you know, we were behind, and it's like you have to how do you gently tell a famous director that he needs to kind of pick up the pace a little bit you know in the audition room and it's sort of about being diplomatic like being a casting director is sort of like being a bartender. It's like you're presenting choices right for the director to choose and you're also facilitating as I talked about when I was 12 facilitating a day where a lot of moving parts are happening and trying to do it all you know flawless so that it all goes well it's it's not easy and it's but it can be fun for sure.

[27:03] Eli Tokash: What an interesting comparison bartending I like that yeah I like that you're right it's so or or being like we're working at a retail store. So sometimes I used to joke like pilot season it's like we're open from 10 to six we're seeing actors from 10 to six we will close the door and eat lunch um you know and by retail meaning like every actor that comes in you're like hey Eli how are you good let's get let's any questions good let's go like let me sell you let's do the scene and you want to be friendly and courteous but there's not a lot of time to chit chat as you know with casting directors because they're on a schedule.

[27:39] Jen Rudin: Like you've mentioned you have you have a book called Confessions of a casting director help actors land any role with secrets from inside the audition room we actually have that book my mom got that book I think kind of when I was starting a business I'm not entirely sure when she got it but she was like oh yeah we have that book and she read the entire thing I think especially when you're kind of starting out in the business, the prospect of auditioning can be very daunting and scary.

[28:05] Jen Rudin: What I want to ask you is, is there some advice that you can give to either new actors or people who've been doing it for a long time about, I guess, what to do in auditions or the do's and don'ts of auditioning, and especially, like I said, with people who are new to the business, even knowing just what to expect going into an audition.

[28:27] Jen Rudin: It's such a crazy, I mean, that's why I wrote the book to help people, right? To sort of break down the walls that we're not just these casting people on this side of the table and we're mean that we want you to please come in and do a good audition and help us get, you know, cast the role. There's no logic in show business or to auditions, you know. I always say to people, especially parents who are thinking, considering starting their kids because they want to help their kids pursue their dreams. I always say, it's not like when you sign up for soccer, you get a soccer uniform, you get a schedule, and you know that for the next, you know, three months or however long soccer season is, your child is gonna play soccer and they're gonna keep score, and some team is gonna win and the other team is gonna lose, and you can sort of chart how you're doing.

This is like there's no soccer, there's no uniform, there's no guarantee. Every single time you come into the city for an audition, you may, you're probably not gonna get it. You may not get it. It's a numbers game. So it's hard to try to understand it from an analytical brain because it's just got no rules. I mean, it's so last minute, there's highs and lows that we all know. The highs are high and the lows are really low, you know, in terms of the possibility, the promise, the rejection. It's just very heartbreaking. So I think you have to just know, like, I am embarking on pursuing my dreams in a business that got its own really big set of challenges, and to just kind of roll with the punches, but being prepared is the most important thing, and it sounds so easy, but you would be shocked how many actors will come into an audition and be like, um, I just got the sides, but what I read was really good, and I hope, you know, and so and they're a mess.

And it's like, I did my job, I sent the agent the sides or posted them three days ago. You don't have your, you don't know, you don't have your sides, and now you're coming in and you're insulting, you know, let's say Janine Tesori, right from Fun Home and Lisa Kron. If somebody walked into that audition room for Fun Home and was like, oh my God, I just got the script and it's I just they're a wreck, it's like they're gonna look at them and be like, you're wasting our time. So you have to look at every single audition as a potential job interview, but also there's no guarantee you're ever gonna get that job, but you might get another job, the same casting director six months later. So it's just it's very difficult.

And I think trying to manage expectations, you know, be as prepared as possible. Show up 15 minutes early, but not an hour early. And if you're an hour early, go to Starbucks and don't come to the casting office an hour early because we can't see you, or we're eating lunch, or we're on a conference call. But being prepared is the most important thing because once you know your script, then you can come into the audition and do some acting, right? Actors just want to act. So that's the beauty of the audition is that you get to act at 440 on a Tuesday, even if you don't love the part, you get an opportunity, but it's not like soccer, it's just not. And also at the end of the day, you could still do so well at the soccer game, but then they're like, well, you didn't get it because they don't like your hair color, or they're, you know, you're too tall. And it's like, but I'm good at soccer, doesn't matter. So I feel like the sports comparison can really help people try to see the differences.

[31:44] Jen Rudin: It's interesting that you say that because we actually had a guest on, Josh Layman, and he said something similar. He was like, the one thing you can do in an audition room is be present, be prepared, and passionate. And it stuck with us. And Sydney and I, and we were like, it's so true, because if you're not prepared, you won't be present. I mean, rejection is gonna come like that's, it's gonna come way more often than you actually get cast in something. It's also interesting that you mentioned sometimes this was gonna be one of my questions. What kind of goes into casting a role? There's so many different factors in how people get cast, it could genuinely just be like their hair that maybe like, oh, I mean, I like this person's hair better. Maybe they like the way this person acted, but this person looks exactly the way they intended. It's, you know, there's just a bunch of different factors that go into casting a role.

[32:40] Jen Rudin: Yeah, and I think for actors to understand, like if you didn't get the part, it's just not the time. You know, there's so many, as you said, Sydney, there's so many factors that go into it, you know, mixing and matching, you know, when we're doing kids' casting, like you know, Owen and Kathryn Hahn, we knew that they were cast as the parents, and so we knew, like, oh, we probably should be looking for Peter Bogdanovich's movie with like sort of redheadish, you know, um paler kids. We don't need dark-haired, you know, Italian, we need like Owen Wilson, Kathryn Hahn, you know, sort of um wasp-y, you know, aristocratic looking. I say aristocratic just because that means like, you know, cheekbones and aristocratic.

But um, but yeah, there's so there's so much that goes into it. I mean, and also to keep in mind that while our job is to present, like of our gender, we can't shove, you know, my philosophy on casting is I can't, I don't want to shove my opinion um down a director's throat, right? I don't want to be like, you have to hire Sydney Lucas because she's that uh because then the director will be like, okay, like she better be good when she comes into the audition room because you just told me how great she is. I knew deep down that Anika Noni Rose was the very best choice to be Princess Tiana in The Princess and the Frog. Okay, she went to ACT and had the acting training. She had won the Tony Award for Carolina Change, right?

She came to see me at Disney about six months before the movie was greenlit. There was a piece of artwork upstairs on the development floor with uh Disney's first African American princess. I knew deep down, I was like, oh, okay, she would be a beautiful voice to come out of the princess. I said to Anika, listen, if we ever have an African American princess, you would be perfect for the role. Well, the movie gets greenlit, which means for your listeners, gets put into motion. She was the very first person to come into audition, um, gave an incredible audition, sang five songs, and sounded like a girl from New Orleans in the 1920s. But during that time, Dreamgirls came out. And while Anika was in the movie Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson walked away with all of the accolades and the Academy Award and the Golden Globe, and Beyonce was in it, and suddenly we needed to see Jennifer Hudson read.

We also wanted to go to New Orleans to see if we might be able to find a young actress there, because wouldn't that be a nice story? And I went to New York. So between the three different cities, Anika was the very first person to come in. And then Alicia Keys came several times to audition. So it was sort of like, and then Montego Glover, Broadway star Montego Glover, was understudying Fantasia in The Color Purple, and she gave a great audition. So at the end of the day, it was between Alicia Keys, Anika Noni Rose, and Montego Glover. And I would lie awake at night or, you know, then be like, who is gonna get this part? And I didn't push Anika. I knew what how I wanted it to go, but I let them decide.

You know, they had to cut the voices to picture, and everybody, I mean, it's trying to get a bill passed in Congress most of the time, especially at a studio to get casting done. So she got the part. And the good news is her manager and agent let me be on that phone call, which was really nice of them because I at that point I was like so invested, and she got it. But it was seven months of a casting process, and we just didn't know how it was gonna end up. There's political reasons why people get cast, personal reasons, and then there's the good old fashioned, she was so perfect for the part. So there's different ways to, oh, and Nikki James, Alicia's client, she was in the mix at one point.

So it's like there's a lot of factors going on, and you know, and that that whole story is in the animation chapter of Confessions of a Casting Director because it was this long process and you know, a complicated one. And you know, and you hope you make the right choice. And sometimes you cast and you're like, that was not, you know, it didn't work out, and then you have to replace people. That's a whole other terrible.

[36:34] Eli Tokash: You brought up another question of mine. When you are casting for something, you bring in the people and you bring in the options for the director and producers and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, it's them that choose that.

[36:47] Jen Rudin: Well, it's sort of everybody together having a discussion. So, for instance, with the Mary Poppins casting, I'm sure you will remember that, you know, we would bring the kids, you know, there's the final rounds, we'd bring the kids in groups and we'd play those theater games, and a lot of it was to assess, you know, who plays nicely, right? And can you guys work together? A lot of it was to assess which kid in this group might have ADD or can't sustain the concentration, you know, to play Michael Banks, which is like two hours and 50 minutes pretty much. You had to really focus. So sometimes we'd see kids and it's like, well, they don't, they're not ready yet, but we'll have them come in in six months.

Maybe they'll be a little bit more mature. That was the case for some kids. So those mixing and matchings was for the creative team to take a look at everybody and observe and see, and then from there, we would choose the final people to put in front of Tom Schumacher, and then he would decide, or you know, everybody would decide together, and Tom would say, okay, that sounds good, and I approve. And Tom would then ask questions to people, you know, to the kids, and then we'd put all the headshots on the table, and it's like I would watch and go, okay, somebody's dreams are about to come true, and somebody is probably gonna go home and be crying, you know. How could you not? I mean, I ran an open call in Atlanta for Mary Poppins.

I'll never forget. We had all these kids, they sang a little bit of "Let's Go Fly a Kite." Everybody did a little solo, and then it was time for me to decide who was going to stay and who was going to go. And I'll never forget. I mean, I called out the numbers, you're wearing these numbers at these open calls. You guys probably have never been to them. It's crazy. And I called out a few numbers, and this one little redhead girl just burst into tears because she didn't make the finals. And I was like, oh my god, I've just made this young girl cry. Well, it wasn't me, it was the disappointment of not making it to the next round. And so finally I realized that the best way to approach it is to say, we are gonna make some cuts and keep some people.

Please keep singing with your voice teachers. Please keep going to dance class. Please keep training and come back and see us again. Because otherwise, no amount of ice cream or going off for lunch is like gonna make them feel better. So that goes back to my own, you know, rejection as a child actor and how I would process stuff. But you know, that's heartbreaking. Really, but then like she was more right for Annie than Jane Banks. And then by that point, we were so clear with like who's a Jane Banks, who's a Michael Banks. You know, I could pick before anybody even opened up their mouth.

[39:18] Eli Tokash: You played it on the tour, Eli.

[39:20] Jen Rudin: Yeah. Did you go to Broadway after?

[39:21] Eli Tokash: I did not.

[39:22] Jen Rudin: Oh, okay.

[39:22] Eli Tokash: It closed. There were like talks, but then it closed and I just closed out tour.

[39:29] Jen Rudin: Okay, yeah.

[39:30] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[39:31] Jen Rudin: And life, uh, dream or dream role.

[39:33] Eli Tokash: Oh, absolutely. Especially because like it was my first ever professional job outside of my hometown, and the fact that I was able to travel and see the world, which is something that my family and I rarely do. It was just an incredible experience.

[39:49] Jen Rudin: Well, I have a chapter in the book about life on tour, and it's funny because um I had originally pitched the book to Harper Collins to be just for stage parents because there's so much back to your question, Sydney. There's so much misinformation out there and so much bad information. So when Harper Collins bought the book, they said, why don't you just make that a chapter for the parents and like cover actors of all ages and we'll, you know, it'll sell better to more people. Um, so I interviewed all these parents about life on tour and about life on Broadway. I didn't know your mom then, Sydney, otherwise I would have had Carrie come over to my house. And like going on tour with your kids, like, my God, like one parent's at home with the sibling, and you're sharing a hotel room, and for the kids it's really fun, but like for Mondays, your day off is when you're traveling. I mean, it's not glamorous at all.

[40:42] Eli Tokash: Well, to be honest, when I was a kid, I always wanted to go on a tour. Like it was like, oh my god, because I love traveling. I thought it would be so much fun. And then my brother Jake got cast in A Christmas Story while I was in the off-Broadway run of Fun Home. So my dad stayed home with me and, you know, took me to and from my shows, and then my mom traveled with my brother all around the world. So yeah, it really does split the family apart.

[41:07] Jen Rudin: It really does take that sacrifice, not just from you, but from the entire family if you want to be a child actor. It was crazy for me because I was just nine years old and I didn't know what even theater was, to be honest. Like I was just kind of there for the ride, and I saw like Mary Poppins on Broadway before my audition just to get like reference. And that was like my real first experience. And then when I was being taken away for a year from my family, it was just so out of the blue and out of right field, and it was like, but it was the best I wanted to be.

[41:41] Jen Rudin: Oh, and you I'm sure you're still friends with your Janes and your Michaels. I mean, but I mean, because you bonded in these incredibly, the, you know, I know like for you, Sydney, with Fun Home. Um, your understudy was Sawyer. Soy, who also I think was in Peter Rabbit. So I'm sure you and Sawyer became friends.

[42:01] Jen Rudin: But even if you guys bonded or bonded with your understudy on Broadway, it's very different when you're on tour. The level of bonding is even because it's like summer camp. It's like you're on this trip. You do everything versus New York where you would go home at night and sleep in your own bed. You're, you know, Eli was going back to the hotel and like jumping on the bed and eating pizza and all these things. I mean, I think my one friend, my sister's neighbor, um, her son got cast as the swing in School of Rock. And she was like, it's just six months, we're going on tour. And I said, I need you to reread that chapter in my book because I just want you to know that while he's 11 and is gonna have the time of his life, you are his mother, and you are going to be in the hotel room with him, traveling on days off, making connection flights, you know, cheapest flights available. It's just not glamorous. Different pillows. I mean, I just I don't think I could handle it.

[42:56] Eli Tokash: Yeah, it's crazy. No one really adds those things together, I feel like when they, I don't know. I feel like not many people understand the whole process of it, that everything that goes into it, and that's kind of why Sydney and I wanted to make this podcast to shine a light on things that maybe people didn't really take into the case.

[43:13] Jen Rudin: No, and there's so much wisdom that people can learn from you guys, but also you got the call, like you booked the tour, you're starting rehearsal Monday in Lexington, Kentucky, and you're like, oh my god, I'm going on tour. I started in Canada. And so you often don't have. I mean, I used to have people call me at Disney and say, well, you know, she managers would call me and say, well, she lives in Westchester, so can they just give her the Broadway? Why did they offer her the tour? And I'm like, I can't control that, you know.

[43:40] Eli Tokash: Why?

[43:44] Jen Rudin: I mean, for Lion King, we used to put the out-of-town kids on the tour because they could make up her GM, and we used to put the New York, try to put some new of the New York kids on Broadway because they lived here already. But to relocate, you know, to come be in a Broadway show is expensive, and so sometimes we would say, well, we'll put them on the tour. But and they would say to me, can't she? Her mom's gonna have to quit her job. She's how who's gonna take her on tour? And it's like, I don't know, but you know, you auditioned, you came this far. You need to have these conversations ahead of time so that so it's not such a shock.

[44:15] Eli Tokash: Exactly.

[44:17] Jen Rudin: Definitely. Yeah, it's just flexibility. Flexibility. Now, how many years were you in Texas filming your show?

[44:24] Sidney Lucas: So we did two seasons. Each season took about five to six months. So in total, it was about a year in Texas. And yeah, it's also really cool, like having to do online school because if you're coming from a place that you don't, especially as a kid, if you're coming from a place where your school is there, and then you come to New York. You're how are you gonna do school? You can either get a new school or what normally happens is.

[44:49] Jen Rudin: I like to say tutoring in quotes.

[44:52] Sidney Lucas: Amen.

[44:53] Jen Rudin: Tutoring. Oh my god, that's so accurate. Yeah, it's a big, I mean, schooling is a big deal, but I do want to share one story about your dad, Sydney, which is the sweetest about Ed. So we obviously became friendly between Peter Rabbit and Peter Bagdanovich. So I got engaged, it was June of 2015 to it's my husband Andy, and we ran into Jake and Ed on like 46th Street. They were on their way to school or Big Yellow Duck, and I was like, we ran into them and we were going to get my ring resized. We had just gotten engaged the night before, and I was like, oh my god, Jake. We took a picture. I have a picture that I'll try to find. And I said to Ed, what are you guys up to? And he goes, yeah, we're done with the recording and we're, you know, I'm taking Jake to school.

And then he turned to my husband and he said, you know, someday I just want to be on my boat, go on a boat where nobody can find me, and I gotta have a little quiet and you know, where I don't have to, you know, be so scheduled. Or he said something really brilliant that I'm I'm paraphrasing, but he just basically was like, someday, because he, his point was I, I got Sydney's here and she's and this is happening, and I gotta get Jake to school, and I gotta get Jake to the recording, and Sydney has rehearsal and all this scheduling and the taking the kids around. And it was just this moment where he said to my husband, like, someday I just wanna have a boat and go on my boat and nobody can find me.

So you have to tell your dad that I remember that story. And meanwhile, I was like, I'm in, you know, look at my ring, Jake. And Jake's like, hey Jen, how are you? with his big glasses on, like it's just a nice moment, you know.

[46:26] Sidney Lucas: He's uh he's a man now.

[46:28] Jen Rudin: He's he has grown up. It's insane. I can't even I don't even recognize him anymore. Tell him I say hi.

[46:36] Eli Tokash: Jen, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for giving us a lot of things. I hope this is focused. I we could just sit and talk. I mean, just the bottom line is folks, you know, buy buy yourself a copy of Confessions of a Casting Director, because it really it's the type of book you can keep in your bag and sort of thumb through and flip through. And I always love when I meet actors and they show me the book and it has all of these like stickies in it and all of that. And then if you want to listen to the podcast, it's been so fun. Uh, you know, either maybe we'll see if we can share the episode and air item and we'll see about that. We'll see what's allowed. Is it on like it's on Apple, Spotify, you know, wherever you wherever you get your podcast fix.

[47:16] Jen Rudin: Yeah, give it a listen everyone. But I'm so so nice to see you guys, and I always feel a really nice like lump in my throat when I see everybody grown up because I'm just like, oh my god, they were, you know, because of my specialty with kids' casting and sort of my connection with young actors and to see that you guys have, you know, sort of survived and are coming out the other end okay, which is no small feat.

[47:40] Eli Tokash: Seriously. Thank you so much. This has been so informative and wonderful.

[47:44] Sidney Lucas: Thank you so much for for giving it to my person and so you're amazing.

[47:50] Jen Rudin: Bye bye everyone.

[47:51] Eli Tokash: Take a bow, Jen Rudin. Thank you for coming on. Those stories that she had were pretty incredible because I don't know I feel like sometimes casting directors get underappreciated in a way because you know there's no Tony award for them and there's no like oh yeah there's no major thing for casting directors.

[48:11] Sidney Lucas: And casting directors have an interesting job to where they are the ones that bring in the talent.

[48:16] Eli Tokash: So they're handed the script right and they're like hmm who could I see playing this and they kind of put the puzzle together.

[48:23] Sidney Lucas: Yeah.

[48:24] Eli Tokash: They're like the first brainstorming and then they bring those people in and then from there they can actually see the people in action and be like yeah that actually does work or no I thought something else. So then if they fit that image then they go on to the creative team and the creative team ultimately decides and gets their image of it but that initial trying to puzzle it together out of nothing like at least they're the ones that give the creative team something and like already like a picture but she literally brings it out of nothing and with all of these candidates that she just brings in and has to limit it down. So it's quite amazing what they do.

[49:00] Sidney Lucas: Yeah, it's like it's m like magic. I'm so grateful though that that she came on because perspectives from a casting director herself or themselves are are like rare. I don't see them often. And so that's why it's so that's why, you know, you should go and check out her podcast and her book because casting directors are very powerful and to hear what they want to see in when when someone comes into an audition room or to see what what goes through their mind when they're when they're casting is it's pretty big.

[49:32] Eli Tokash: Yeah, I mean, oftentimes when you're auditioning and doing stuff, you hear other people who are going through the experience and have more experience, you know, they're saying like soak it all in, be a sponge, like listen to what they have to say. So the fact that we were able to like listen to a casting director themselves and actually like have that kind of conversation. I've never really had that before. So having her actually like say stuff really resonated with me and it just like is very helpful for anyone, I feel.

[50:05] Sidney Lucas: Yeah, and to tell the story of what it's like on the other side. Because all of our guests have talked about, you know, what it's like auditioning, what it's you know, how it feels for us, but on this podcast we haven't yet talked about what it's like for them, what it's like what you know, what an audition is for them. So very special, very, very cool.

[50:23] Eli Tokash: And if you guys like, you know, obviously you whoever's listening, you probably like the entertainment industry and stuff like that, but it's not everyone wants to be on stage. So like if you are one that wants to be more behind the scenes, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we're gonna have more episodes like this from people that are behind the scenes just to get more perspectives and try to just help you guys grab grasp a better understanding of like, oh yeah, that is something that would be really cool and something that I'm interested in.

[50:53] Sidney Lucas: Yeah. Anyone from from child wranglers to tutors to directors to dressers, like and and writers, like we'll have all of those people on. So again, that's that's that's why I I love this podcast because all of those people deserve to take bows, not just the not just the actors.

[51:10] Eli Tokash: And that was definitely something like we took going back on the that name, just take a bow. Like that's why we wanted it to be so general, like that, where it could fit anyone that we bring home.

[51:23] Sidney Lucas: Yeah. Even like people that just love theater, whether it's just watching it, whether it's wanting to be a part of it in any way that they can, like, everyone deserves to be recognized for it.

[51:34] Eli Tokash: Exactly. But yeah, going back to Jen Rudin, like you were you and I were talking, and the the pieces that she's been a part of, like oh my god. She's worked for Disney for like how long?

[51:44] Sidney Lucas: It it's incredible.

[51:45] Eli Tokash: She did the animation and then she did the th did the theater. And the animations, she did movies like Princess and the Frog, The Incredibles, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons, which are literally like s four of my all time favorite animated films ever. I love those movies.

[52:02] Sidney Lucas: I couldn't imagine any other voices portraying those people.

[52:07] Eli Tokash: It was it was nice to hear her perspective on casting those and and just hearing her thought process.

[52:13] Sidney Lucas: Well, I loved that. Like those four movies aren't like those are tough movies. Like those are like legit movies that deal with you know, you could say like I know in seventh grade you and I we did like a whole report on the Incredibles and how you the men are like super like muscular and stuff, but they portray the women as like the weaker things, you know, and then you have like Princess the Frog with like a black black princess, who is Disney's first black princess. Like those were tougher stories, I guess, that were portrayed.

[52:45] Eli Tokash: And so yeah, it was important to get it right. All of these impactful and amazing stories that was revolutionary for Disney. And so for her to be a part of that is just something so cool. Like all four of those movies ha are really special in their own way.

[52:59] Sidney Lucas: And so I think that it's cool if you look at Jen Rudin's resume, all of her work is really like deep and like you could tell she can look at a script and really tell if she can put her all into this and giving it all to help portray this meaningful story. So I really love that about that.

[53:19] Eli Tokash: And what's also really special is and we touched we touched on this in the actual interview, but Janice cast Eli, me, and my brother in for me and my brother, we were cast in a a movie together.

[53:32] Sidney Lucas: Oh, gotcha.

[53:34] Eli Tokash: Which was so much fun.

[53:35] Sidney Lucas: In the same movie?

[53:36] Eli Tokash: Yeah, we we yeah, in the same movie. We literally did the odd well, I I think how it went was I auditioned on my own, Jake auditioned on his own, and then we got a call back and then we auditioned together.

[53:49] Sidney Lucas: Oh and that was a movie that was a movie with Owen Wilson and Katherine Hahn and Jennifer Aniston. Uh it's it was called uh She's Funny That Way. It was so much fun. I think it was and just to do it with my brother was just so special and so much fun. It was crazy fun.

[54:06] Sidney Lucas: We had s we had a r we laughed a ridiculous amount on that movie.

[54:11] Eli Tokash: Yeah.

[54:11] Sidney Lucas: Yeah, that's awesome.

[54:12] Eli Tokash: She casted me and Mary Poppins on tour.

[54:16] Sidney Lucas: Oh really?

[54:17] Eli Tokash: Yeah, so I all of my auditions with her have been for theater. There may have been one like T V slash film audition that I had with her, but I remember like she for a bit I was literally just auditioning for Jen Rudin. Like I felt like she was casting like every theater thing for a second.

[54:36] Sidney Lucas: It's also so special the fact that she's cast voiceovers and and movies and film and theater and she has all of this knowledge about all of these different side of the entertainment business.

[54:48] Eli Tokash: She knows she knows her stuff. And it's not like it's one category. Like her age range is literally from kids.

[54:59] Sidney Lucas: Like literally small really little kids.

[55:03] Eli Tokash: Yeah like six, seven year olds um to like six year olds, you know like with the with the movies that she's casted and the shows that she's casted I mean it's incredible. So not only is it like it's not a small circle, you know like with that age range it's quite it's quite large. So she's definitely like knows her stuff and has done a lot of research on it all. So bravo Jen Rudin.

[55:28] Sidney Lucas: Yeah.

[55:28] Eli Tokash: Thank you guys so much for listening and thank you so much Jen for coming on. Tune in next week for another episode. It's our thirteenth episode which is actually one of my lucky numbers which is really weird.

[55:41] Sidney Lucas: Yeah I actually remember us having this conversation because okay maybe we should talk about this on the 13th episode.

[55:47] Eli Tokash: But yeah. Well stay tuned for the 13th episode and we hope you like this one. We love this one. We we we love Jen so much and uh stay safe.

[55:57] Sidney Lucas: We love you.

[55:58] Eli Tokash: Bye everyone thanks for listening.

[56:00] Sidney Lucas: See you next week.