#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)