#355 - Joel Thurm on SEX, DRUGS, & PILOT SEASON

Legendary former casting director Joel Thurm chats with Trey Elling about SEX, DRUGS, & PILOT SEASON: CONFESSIONS OF A CASTING DIRECTOR. Topics include:

• Joaquin Phoenix’s influence on the book (0:00:57)
• Growing up on a dairy farm in Brooklyn, NY (0:02:58)
• David Merrick’s influence on Joel’s career (0:08:16)
• How Pearl Bailey got Joel to Hollywood (0:13:03)
• LSD, a puffy shirt, & Jesus Christ Superstar (0:16:21)
• Learning how to handle people from Ethel Winant (0:21:12)
• The Minutes on CBS (0:23:46)
• Charlton Heston (0:27:18)
• Casting Susan Sarandon The Rocky Horror Picture Show (0:28:03)
• Why Aaron Spelling Leonard Goldberg made such a good team (0:30:49)
• The Boy In The Plastic Bubble (0:33:14)
• Grease as an example of Joel’s philosophy on money & creativity (0:38:45)
• Olivia Newton John’s “Slutty Sandy” scene (0:40:52)
• Getting the team back together for Grease Live in 2019 (0:43:26)
• The joys of working on Taxi (0:47:11)
• Airplane! (0:55:36)
• Why Peter Graves & Kareem Abdul Jabbar getting cast (0:59:06)
• Leslie Nielsen reinventing himself with Airplane! (1:00:55)
• Ted Danson, Shelly Long, & Cheers (1:03:10)
• Choosing Claire Huxtable for The Cosby Show (1:06:59)
• Joel bucking “casting couch” stereotype (1:11:39)
• What he would’ve done differently (1:20:25)
• Why he stopped casting in the early 1990s (1:23:24)
• Joel’s last casting job (1:25:30)