Vince Gilligan’s shows have featured many of the most unforgettable characters of the 21st century, and Sharon Bialy – alongside Sherry Thomas and Russell Scott – has been an integral part of the process in finding the perfect actors to bring those characters to life. Bialy tells Screen Speck that a central part of Vince’s philosophy is always casting the actor that is right for the part, and not the actor that is more well-established. She kindly sat down with us to discuss this casting ethos, her joy at seeing Pluribus’s supporting actors have critical and industry success, and why she is most proud of casting Kusimayu (Darinka Arones).
Screen Speck: Karolina Wydra and Carlos-Manuel Vesga managed to snag Emmy nominations, basically on their first try. To start, I wanted to ask what it’s like for you, personally, when the actors you spend a lot of time casting in these roles go on to garner this awards consideration and critical success.
Sharon Bialy: I think we get very emotional, and speaking personally, I get very maternal, like, here are my children, and their hard work is being recognized, and rewarded with a nomination. There’s so many people who are deserving, but Karolina was a little bit known within the industry, because she has worked before, but she hadn’t worked for a while, because she was raising her children, and she didn’t have an agent or a manager, so to see her come back in such a great way was really rewarding, because we all knew her and loved her. You know, she had a relationship with our office. And Carlos was truly, truly exciting. That was a big search, and we actually met with Carlos over the Christmas break, in between casting. He happened to be in America visiting his sister, and I just thought, I’m not going to be able to get Vince because everybody’s on break, so I went and met him at a Gelson’s, and we sat and talked for an hour. I really got a sense of who he was as a human being, which is important to Vince, and also the depth of his background and artistic work. So you felt really good about [it], even though it was someone you had just met once, you really got a sense spending an hour and a half with them.
Screen Speck: That is a very nice segue to my next question, because what I’ve always really loved about Vince’s shows is how fresh and unconventional the casting can be. He doesn’t just rely on well-known, relatively well-established TV actors. He propels a lot of these journeyman actors into prominent starring parts. I’m curious if there’s a philosophy of casting he and your team work by, and what that looked like when you were casting Pluribus.
Bialy: You nailed it. He doesn’t ever underestimate the intelligence of his audience, and what he really wants is the audience to delve into the story and listen and pay attention and go along with the emotional journey. And if you are going, “oh, wow, there’s the guy from that thing,” or there is a moment where you might say, “oh, there’s the guy from that,” and a good actor can overcome it, but it takes a couple of minutes. And in a couple of minutes, in a Vince show, you lose something if you’re really not paying attention. I just think he’s always been like that. He doesn’t care. And from a practical point of view, in fact, the pilot of Pluribus, nobody got to read the script. Vince is incredibly popular with actors, and a lot of agents of some very, very fine actors, very well-known, were like, well, they want to be in it, what do they [need to] do? They don’t read, they’re on offer only, [so they ask] “Well, [will] he meet?” And we’re like, “No, that’s not how it works.” [laughs] “Can we read a script?” “No.” [laughs] You either dive into the Vince Gilligan world and trust, and participate in his process, or enjoy the show as a fan. And it’s a process for Vince. He really needs to see it and hear it, and then when it’s right, it clicks.
Screen Speck: That’s always what I thought is really amazing about his work. I’ve always assumed that there are probably a lot of people that want to be seen for it, but that’s just not really a part of the process.
Bialy: So it’s a part of the process that a lot of people do read for it. And that is really joyful, but it’s much more of the casting team searching out for some very particular skills, which those actors are not always represented by agents or the top agents. You know, some of my favorite people, talk about Karolina, and Carlos, and Miriam Shor, and Jeff Hiller, you know, it’s great, and they were great, but I think we’re proudest of Kusimayu, you know? Like, you know, who’s Darinka Arones? To find someone who speaks Quechua fluently was a real search, and even Ravi (Rayaan Kamal Khan), the little boy. And one of my favorites was Otgonbayar (Amaraa Sanjid). Just, I love that actor, and he was an opera singer, and had not done a lot of acting, and was driving a UPS truck. So, that’s giving journeymen people a chance to bring Vince’s words to life.
Screen Speck: I did read that you cast several non-actors in these parts. I’m curious why that was the case, and what you thought that quality could specifically evoke in these performances.
Bialy: Well, there’s not that many actors that speak Quechua [laughs]. But [Arones] happened to be a student, taking the [language], taking that class at NYU. So, when there’s a special skill involved, if the people are really intelligent, you can give a quick lesson about auditioning and listening. And when somebody will really listen well, you can help them through the first audition, or a second audition, and nail in what the character needs, and what qualities the character needs.
Screen Speck: The nature of the hive mind means that everyone on Earth is now the best at everything. How does a premise like that free you up to think outside the box when it comes to casting?
Bialy: I think Sherry [Thomas], Russell [Scott] and I screamed with glee. We have a concept meeting [with Vince] to talk about what you’re looking for. We were like, this is amazing, because the airplane pilot does not have to look like an airplane pilot, she could be the candy striper from the local hospital. So you have just so much freedom to do that. And Marie McMaster, our local casting director in Albuquerque, casts a lot of the others. Vince is always looking for really interesting and unique faces, and that’s part of it. And it was fascinating to find people who would understand the loss of free will and giving up individuality in order to have peace and love and no violence, so I think everybody who was in The Others just went for it.
Screen Speck: You looked high and low for Zosia (Karolina Wydra) and Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga). In the case of Karolina, you said in another interview that there was, like, 5,000 actresses who had submitted for that role. I’m curious if you could share anything about what specifically set Karolina and Carlos apart, after searching so hard for those roles, and presumably seeing so many people for them.
Bialy: With the role of Zosia, you really needed someone who was instantly likable and lovable, that you have to fall in love with her as soon as you see her, and kindness [just] emanates from her. Not because she’s in a cult, just because that’s who she is. And Karolina has that as a person. You just fall in love with her when you meet her, and that sweetness is really a part of who she is. I remember Sherry Thomas, my partner, always saying, we have to find the soul of the actor to match the soul of the character. And I think that was really good, and that’s what took so long, because I’m sure there are a lot of nice actors who audition, and kind people, but it was just a quality you had to have when you were just talking. That it was… there was no artifice involved.
And for Carlos’ role, we hired a casting director in South America to help us with the search, so we were seeing a lot of people. And I think in particular for that role, we wanted an actor with a high level of intelligence, and who understood the power of being quiet. And as you can see from the show, there are so many moments where he is not speaking, and it’s all in his face and in his eyes, and that’s difficult to find. And the audition was that phone scene when they first “meet,” where they don’t understand each other, and what is often important to Vince is finding humor in scenes, and there’s a lot of humor there. Carlos got the humor right away, and you can’t play at it, it’s just subtly underneath two people not being able to speak to each other.
Screen Speck: I wanted to ask about Karolina’s chemistry read with Rhea Seehorn, because chemistry is always a funny thing to me. I never really know how to define it, in part because it does kind of exist in the intangibles. I was curious, what were the elements of that test that made you think, okay, together these are the actors who we can build one of the show’s main relationships on?
Bialy: We did a first round of chemistry reads with Rhea, and then went back to the drawing board to keep looking with some fine actresses, but they weren’t different enough from Rhea in tone. With those two people, you really wanted to see completely different kinds of actors.
Screen Speck: Yeah, that comedy that you were talking about, their relationship has that comedic element.
Bialy: Yeah. So, that chemistry read was very important for us, and in a chemistry read like that, it was just the ease in which they were able to talk to each other. And Rhea is a class act, and she did what Bob Odenkirk taught her when she auditioned for Better Call Saul, [which] is just spend some time alone with the actor in the audition room with all of us gone, just so they could talk to each other. And then, you know, casting came in, and Vince came in, and Jenn Carroll. So, that helped.
Screen Speck: What are the challenges of casting for a show like this, where actors get dummy sides and the plot is under wraps?
Bialy: We were sworn to secrecy, and we kept it. We’ve, you know, we’ve learned with Vince how important that is. My kids tried to get it out of me, and I was like, no! [laughs] So we knew exactly what it was, and the sides that the actors read to audition aren’t the real sides, so what we try to do is, in a callback, when we’re on a Zoom with them we can explain some things, but not give away too much storyline that you would never put in an email or in writing. So we did know, and it was important for us, because some people guessed, are they in a cult? And we were like, no, it is not a cult. The first challenge is, even if an actor has a very small role, you need an actor who really has a lot of depth and is capable, because when Vince falls in love with an actor, he starts writing to them. And the course of things can change with Vince, because he’s responding to an actor. So that’s important, and I think it’s challenging because people judge an audition, and it’s not always fair to an actor to be judged on that audition when they don’t have those answers. We always ask actors, just pay attention to the text, don’t pay attention to character descriptions, and have your clues from the text. And even though the sides aren’t real, they’re very much in line with the emotion of what the actual scene will be.
Screen Speck: So I wanted to ask, what makes John Cena the best person to make the audience feel comfortable with cannibalism?
Bialy: [laughs] You know, we don’t often write lists for Vince, but in that role, we did, and credit to Russell Scott on that one. He really thought John Cena would be great, and I don’t know why I watch a lot of action movies, and I’d seen everything John Cena had done, and I said, that is a great idea, because you just trust him right away with your life in an action movie. Like, you want him protecting you. And he didn’t want [someone] too famous to take you out of it, but someone everybody would recognize and laugh.
Screen Speck: Every project brings with it its challenges and its specific parameters, obviously depending on the showrunner or director that you’re working with. What was something that you learned while working on Pluribus?
Bialy: [laughs] My French got better! Because we had to speak French, and we auditioned actors all over the world who spoke French. But even when you think you’ve left no stone unturned, when you trust the creator’s vision, and [it’s] still not there, then you just keep going. And I think that my whole office, we just didn’t give up, even when we were frustrated. And we learned that, in the end, Vince is always right. Because we were like, he’s driving us crazy, what, 7 supermodels? They’re not even gonna talk in the scenes, and we have these scenes we have to audition them for? And he was right. You really needed them there, you know?
Screen Speck: I like that you brought that up, because it just shows how the minutiae and the attention to detail, that even the actors you might not think are as important to the scene as they are, but they really, really are.
Bialy: In Vince’s world, they really are, and I think you nailed it, the minutiae in each scene, from the costume to the colors to the face, and you need that.
This interview was edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
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