Listen: LITTLE KNOWN FACTS with Ilana Levine and Special Guest, Casting Director James Calleri

Little Known Facts is a weekly podcast hosted by stage and film actress Ilana Levine. With over 250 interviews to date with today's most successful artists, Levine engages her celebrity guests in intimate conversations that are hilarious, vulnerable, revealing and inspiring. Ilana's unique brand of celebrity interview has been called "Podcast Vérité," because her conversations are unfiltered, raw, honest and uniquely funny.

Today's episode features James Calleri, who, with his partners Paul Davis and Erica Jensen, owns Calleri Jensen Davis, a creative casting partnership. They have been awarded 16 Artios Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Casting.

"I think that we have been inevitably changed somehow. I don't see a world where we go completely back. There is grief to that, and a sadness, but there been so real pluses to that too," James said on the shift in casting since the pandemic. "For many actors, not having to be in one place, in one city, has allowed for more freedom."

James proudly served on the Board of the Casting Society of America for many years. He is an Associate Professor of Theater at Columbia University School of the Arts where he co-heads the Graduate MFA Acting Program. He is the co-author with Robert Cohen of ACTING PROFESSIONALLY: RAW FACTS ABOUT CAREERS IN ACTING published by Palgrave MacMillan, in it's eighth edition it is one of the leading books in the country for young actors. He also runs his studio www.calleristudio.com where he coaches and explores the craft with professional actors. He resides in New York City and Saugerties, New York.

Broadway theater credits include: Thoughts of a Colored Man and his office will cast the upcoming revival of For Colored Girls...this Spring. Other credits include Burn This starring Adam Driver and Keri Russell, Fool for Love starring Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell, and Hughie starring Forest Whitaker, The Visit starring Chita Rivera and Roger Rees, Renee Fleming in Living on Love, the Tony winning revival Hedwig & The Angry Inch starring Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall, the revival of The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper, Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola which traveled to London's West End as well and Of Mice and Men with James Franco, Chris O'Dowd and Leighton Meester.

Other Favorite Broadway credits include: Venus in Fur with Tony-winner Nina Arianda and Hugh Dancy, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda, A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Combs, Audra MacDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Chicago with Usher, and James Joyce's The Dead starring Christopher Walken.

Off-Broadway includes Ives Lives of Saints and his revival of All in the Timing, Buyer & Cellar, Murder for Two, The Hilltown Plays, Satchmo at the Waldorf, My Name is Asher Lev, the long-running Fuerza Bruta and The Revisionist with Vanessa Redgrave and Jesse Eisenberg.

Most proud of long terms collaborations with : Playwrights Horizons (10 seasons) including such premieres as Betty's Summer Vacation, Lobby Hero, Small Tragedy, Goodnight Children Everywhere, Violet to name a few. Over 10 years with Classic Stage Company- including A Month in the Country with Peter Dinklage & Taylor Schilling, Peter Sarsgaard as Hamlet, Passion, New Jerusalem, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya with Maggie Gyllenhaal & Peter Sarsgaard and The Seagull with Dianne Wiest & Alan Cumming.

Listen to the full episode below!

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