In his multi-decade career, casting director Ruben Cannon cast over 100 film and television productions, including projects that won Oscars and Emmy Awards. In a recent interview with NPR, Cannon spoke about the most important lesson he learned about casting and how that led him to cast Bruce Willis in his breakthrough television role — at the risk of his own job!
Cannon shares the most essential piece of advice he ever received about casting: “Ralph Winters was the head of casting for Universal Television. And Ralph Winters gave me the mantra that I’ve used, which is that – Reuben, always hire actors that are superior to the role they have to play […] meaning that if you’re casting an actor to play Cop No. 1, he should be capable of doing the lead because everyone starts somewhere. You know, Denzel [Washington] was doing small roles before he became, you know, a star. Everyone starts – so the casting director job is to identify your casting for – you know, for the future. So they, you know, give the first job to that actor. Years ago, I hired John Travolta for a role in a TV show I was casting called Emergency! He had two lines – an actor who had taken a fall and sprained his ankle […] once again, he was far superior to the – what the role required.”
For that example, Cannon points out the importance of having an actor in the role as opposed to an untrained individual, noting, “He’s not just there as a background atmospheric player. He’s there, at present, as an actor.”
Another example that Cannon shares is Bruce Willis, whom Cannon hired for his breakout television series, Moonlighting. Cannon reveals he was actually fired from the series for continuing to push Willis for the lead role. He recalls, “I had heard that role read so many times. But then all of a sudden, Bruce comes in and gives it a whole new spin because he was not the network’s definition of a leading man. In fact, they – I was fired because I kept bringing him back to the studio as the lead. And they said, Reuben, obviously you don’t know what a leading man is.”
Of course, Moonlighting went on to be one of the biggest network television of the 1980s — and helped make Willis into a box office attraction.
