Avy Kaufman sitting in the five star cake shop, soft spoken,is in some ways unassuming. But, when she talks movies, a world of knowledgecomes through. Today, Kaufman is one of the biggest casting directors inHollywood and is fresh off discovering Suraj Sharma, who plays the lead role inAng Lee’s latest offering, ‘Life of Pi’. This is her fourth film with Lee,after ‘Ice Storm’, ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ‘Taking Woodstock’, giving her acertain comfort level with the acclaimed director. And it does help. Avyelaborates, “It would be so nice to always find work with nice people. But weknow that never happens. Everything always starts out beautifully. Ang and Ithough, we work well together.”
When Avy Kauffman got the brief for ‘Brokeback Mountain’ shebegan to look for actors who would fit the briefs for the main cast. One of herbiggest worries was that director Ang Lee had not read the script yet and soshe was unsure of selecting actors until he went through it. Eventually, herpicks went through and Brokeback Mountain became one of the most honoured filmsof all time, winning 71 awards and a further 51 nominations. It also won Lee theAcademy Award for Best Director. For Kaufmann, picking a good cast is a mixtureof “intuition and experience.” And it showed, considering that MichelleWilliams and Anne Hathaway were both relatively unknown actresses. The latter,Hathaway, won critical acclaim for her role. When it came to Jake Gyllenhal andHeath Ledger, it wasn’t easy getting two actors who played macho cowboys, butended up falling in love, while herding sheep. But somehow Kaufman seemed toget it right.
Then comes an interesting story, this time in the mid-90s,when Avy was casting for ‘Ice Storm’. She was looking for a new face to play asecondary part in the film and after going through many faces, chanced uponsomeone who just happened to be in town. She cast the girl, who was recognised,offered more roles, acted in television, big banner movies and even married(and recently divorced) one of the biggest Hollywood stars in the world. The‘newcomers’ name? Katie Holmes.
Intuition and experience? You got that right.
