Lookin'Groovy
By Anne Kelly-Saxenmeyer

Wearing an AC/DC T-shirt and sitting behind a massive wood desk in her groovy, orange-lit den at the Casting Underground in Hollywood, casting director, Danielle Eskinazi can't help but smile as she describes the changes she's seen in commercials during her 15 years casting them. "It used to be the blonde, blue-eyed thing -- it ain't no more," she says. "It's gone in a completely different direction; it's gone dark, exotic, hipper, urban. No one wants blondes anymore, hardly. It's more the dark hair and the dark eyes, which is awesome because it's just so much more interesting. Not that blondes aren't, but when I first got into this commercial thing, if you didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes, they weren't interested. It was very vanilla, and now it's a little edgier."

Chatting with Eskinazi, one gets right away that her casting eye is as keen on substance as it is on style. The busy independent CD, who has cast a wealth of memorable, quirky ads (view her reel at daniellecasting.com), feels most drawn to complicated, introspective, and unusual comedic roles, and she prefers working on projects that come to her with some creative leeway.

While she certainly enjoys that commercial styles have leaned toward her personal aesthetic over the years, she cautions actors against relying on "look." "It's a combination of the acting and the visual for me," she says. "Someone could be really groovy looking and hip and exotic, and then when you, at least you want to have that depth or that sense of who you are. I think a lot of actors miss that sometimes. They work on the superficial stuff, when they should be getting to know themselves before going out there and working. When they have both, it's dynamic."

Crash course: A world traveler from birth -- she was born in Egypt, after which her family moved from Cairo to Paris to the Bronx to L.A. -- she was tiring of her job at Flip of Hollywood, the first retail store on Melrose Avenue, when she had her unlikely break in casting. A friend of hers working at Triad Artists, on e of the big three agencies at the time, was looking to connect New York Cds Billy Hopkins and Risa Bramon Garcia with an L.A. casting assistant for the film At Close Range, starring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. The friend offered the job to Eskinazi -- who had zero experience in casting --
and she accepted. She spent a couple of months on the project and never looked back.

" I had no idea what I was doing," she says, and she relied on friends in the industry to walk her through those early days on the job. "But the minute I stepped into that office and read the first person -- and I'm so not an actress, I mean, I went home and practiced because I wanted to make the actors feel comfortable when they walked into the room -- I loved it. I just thought, this is my thing. I loved going to work everyday, and to this day I still love what I do."

She later worked with Cds Vickie Thomas, Amanda Mackey Johnson, and Ronnie Yeskel, and then began casting independent films on her own, as she still does occasionally when she is brought an outstanding script. Her first commercial project came to her about 15 years ago, and she has been casting them ever since. The fast pace of the commercial world, she says, suits her well. "The work is, like, four or five days long, and then you go to another project. So it's perfect for my ADD," she says, laughing.

Her projects: Eskinazi has cast 25 commercials in the past three months, including spots for Chrysler, McDonald's, JCPenney, Ford, and Parker Brothers. She also recently cast an AFI short for first-time director Alexandra Hedison (actor and girlfriend of Ellen DeGeneres), and a short for director Barbara Green called You're Still Young, which won prizes on the festival circuit. She speaks fondly of the Green short, which is about a young girl who cuts herself. "I cast it in a day, they shot it in a day, and it was a little bit of a masterpiece," she says. "It just all came together so well, and the young girl that we found was awesome."

It's often the case, she says, that the projects that become most meaningful to her are those she takes on for free. She recently completed casting a PSA on rape for RAINN (the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). It was a pro bono spot for her as well as the talent, but when she put it out on Breakdowns she got a huge response. A powerful concept and the readings of actors for whom the subject matter was deeply personal made for a heart-wrenching casting day. "We cried for eight hours," she says. "It was amazing. We needed 40 people, and we had 50, and for free. That was the most powerful experience I've had."

How's business? With the fast pace of the commercial business comes volatility. As every commercial actor knows, insanely busy periods can be followed by stretches of total silence. We ask Eskinazi, clearly working steadily of late, what her sense of the overall market has been during the last couple of years.

"My business manager tells me I've done 20 percent better this year than I had last year, so it's definitely better," she says. "I think it's an individual thing; if your directors are working, you're working. If your directors are out in South Africa doing 15 commercials, you ain't workin'. Last year a lot of directors weren't working in this country; they were in South Africa, they were in Australia, a lot shoot in Vancouver. So it was very minimal here, and it was very depressing. There's also a lot of non-union stuff going on, too. I think, because of the strike, a lot of advertising people think, 'We can go non-union and get just as good talent.' But now it seems like they're coming back and doing more work in Los Angeles and New York."

With film and TV regulars increasingly crossing over into commercials, a crowded market for actors has perhaps make life easier for casters. High competition has raised the level of play across the board, she says, and she reports having plenty of actors to choose from who bring the depth and training that she's looking for. "I think because it's so competitive out there, they're working much harder," she says.

To the actor: Eskinazi looks at resumes when she's casting films, but, for commercials, she says, "it's just a look in the eyes." She expands the photo on her computer screen and takes a look, and she usually gets a strong feeling for whether someone is going to be right. For her, that inexplicable quality that gets the actor in the door has o do with sense of self, perspective, and the confidence to bring one's uniqueness to the role.

When the actor comes in with insecurities, they can be as damning in the lobby as they are in the room. "I'll tell you," she says, "a lot of people come in, and they want to please everybody, and it makes them so nervous. They come in and they're, like, 'Um, my hair's shorter, but I can grow it,' or 'I dyed my hair this weekend, but I can go back to blonde.' Don't worry about all that stuff. Just go in, do your work, have fun with it, and give us all you've got. We'll remember you."

Once in the audition, actors' honesty and fearlessness are what draw her eye. "I think when an actor does something that you would never think of yourself, sort of takes that extra step, that's very exciting. And the spontaneity of it, not being afraid of making as ass out of yourself in the room, that's always great. You know; it's all fun. It's going in, playing dress-up, and having a good time while you're doing it."

"When you walk into a room, just listen," she continues. "Absolutely include your input about how you se the role, and just be yourself. Don't go in there to please the casting director or please the director -- I mean, you do -- but do it for yourself. I think a lot more honesty comes out of that. In commercials right now, every Breakdown that comes out says 'real,' 'not model-y but real,' 'a real person,' 'not commercial-y.' So just be yourself, and then walk away from it. There's 10 more where that one came from, so do your best and move on. That's all."