Today I decided to give the role of Jacqueline in Booked Out to Claire Garvey.
At the auditions Claire really made an impression on myself and the rest of the production team who saw her. When she walked into the audition she had a real presence and energy about her that none of the candidates had. I still can't quite put my finger on it but she just made us all sit up and pay attention. She came across as someone who you could really communicate with.
As with all of the actresses that I auditioned I got Claire to perform a monologue as well as a scene from the film. She chose to do a monologue from Monster which in the film it is a voice-over by Charlize Theron where she is explaining why/how she got into prostitution. The way Claire did this piece was beautiful. It was kind of sad and sweet at the same time. Not over-acted with the character bubbling away but just a real sense that she was really in the moment and recollecting how she had gotten to that point. I like to describe it as I could see the sadness behind her eyes.
After the monologue we talked about the scene and Claire ran over it a couple of times. She did have the warehouse owners dog barking in her ear throughout this scene. I guess he was trying to tell me that she was the right one for the part or something. On hindsight and from watching back the tapes, Claire was one of the first few actresses that we had seen so during the scenes I hadn't given her as good direction as the later actresses but what I had asked she did really well.
With all of the auditions completed Claire was the only actress that I really had a strong affinity with in terms of seeing her as I had always imagined Jacqueline when writing the script. What was really funny was that out of the sixty or so actresses that auditioned I only received one email thanking me for the audition and that was from Claire. I found this quite sweet and although I don't really believe in fate/etc I think that there we probably both had a feeling that this was the right project to collaborate on.
Not wanting to just go with my gut instinct I reviewed all of the audition tapes and selected a short list. Read more on this here. There was a couple of the other girls that I liked but none had the right look or style which I felt Claire would bring to the film. So I called Claire back and got her to work through a few scenes with Mark.
This felt really natural and more like we were rehearsing rather than it being an audition. I called up the next day and offered Claire the part and so now she is on board! Yeah!
One other thing I forgot to mention and applies throughout is that Claire consistently seemed to be thinking about who the character of Jacqueline was. She made some assumptions and decisions herself and always asked me when she was not sure. As a director this for me is essential as I can get an idea of what she is going to bring to the project as well as getting a clear idea of how we are going to work together.
I am really looking forward to working with Claire in the next few months as I feel that she is going to bring a lot of energy and creativity to the character.
