Today I decided to cast Mark West as Jacob. I have known Mark for the past year or so. We met at a swing dancing club and have been friends since. Whenever anyone asked about Jacob and who might play him in the film the only person that I thought of in my head was Mark although I spent the last six months without telling him this. Not quite sure why but I always thought that I would give him an audition if he was up for it but always tried to come up with excuses for why he wouldn't want to do it. Couldn't get time off work, concentrating on his music, etc. Thinking back I think that this was a defensive mechanism on my part in case he didn't want to do it and I had my heart set on him for the role.
Anyway we held auditions last week for Jacob and I saw about 30/40 male actors. After the first day of auditions I was sitting down for a beer with my friends who had been sitting in on the auditions with me and we were discussing the candidates we had seen so far. We had been auditioning for Jacob and Jacqueline at the same time. The general feeling was that we had seen some potential Jacquelines but all of the Jacob's were completely wrong. I showed them the headshots that I had chosen based on and they agreed that they had the right look on paper but that hadn't came across in person.
They then started asking the question of if I could have anyone in the world to be in the film who would it be and I told them about Mark. They knew who Mark was so could understand where I was coming from. They convinced me to get in touch with Mark to get him to come for an audition. Five minutes and a few text messages later and Mark was booked in for the next day of auditions.
By the time it came to Mark's audition we had sat through another set of male actors who were equally not right for the character as the day before. Mark came in and read for us and I think we all knew in the room that the part was his. I decided to wait and watch all the tapes back first but I was pretty certain by this point.
After the audition we were going to lunch so Mark joined us and we were discussing whether he was interested in the film and it turned out that for the last six months since I had let him read the script that he wanted to be involved with it but never wanted to ask me. I found this really sweet that we both wanted to speak to each other about it but never could find the way to bring it up as we thought that the other didn't want it.
I reviewed the tapes and it was a bit of a box ticking exercise. There were a few other good actors who came along but just didn't seem right for Jacob for one reason or another. So now Mark is on board and I am excited about working with him over the months ahead!