How did you get into casting?

I think I've always looked at the world as a casting director, since I was a small child. I had to know every single actor, in everything I saw, but for no apparent reason. And luckily a reason became apparent.

I started out my career out of college working at Sesame Street. A freelance producer who had an office next door to me [noted] the way I would talk about talent and movies [and] said to me, "You know, you're a casting director."

Largely due to my own naivety I said, "You know what? I am. I will go and be a casting director." I quit my job at Sesame Street and sold myself as a casting director.

I don't know that this could happen now, although, maybe if you had a desire and a will and a lot of naivety you could. But at the time there was this whole group of little TV movies called after-school specials in the mid 80s, moralistic tales about like drunk driving and date rape and things like that. Because people assumed that I had worked a lot with kids and these were geared towards kids, they gave me a chance [on these].

The first movie I ever cast was A Christmas Story, the Jean Shepherd/Bob Clark movie, which is a classic here. Then in the late 80s I was very involved in the New York independent film scene as a producer and a casting director.