University of Virginia Library

Casting Techniques

Question: The entire cast was so
extraordinary, how did you go
about casting it, and how was that
rapport between actors established?

Altman: We first agreed that we
didn't want movie stars. Then we
agreed on Sutherland. Then we
went to New York and saw a lot of
unknown people and then to San
Francisco and ACT. We picked up
people from down here. The guys
who are involved with me, we really
work very closely as a whole unit.
We use these offices as a think tank.
Somebody would say, "Hey I know
a guy who's really good and he can
never get a job" and I'd say send
him 'round and we put together a
really good group of actors that
way. We did exactly what we set
out to do. We know the results we
wanted and without being intellectual
about it we knew where we
wanted to go. We knew this picture
wasn't going to accommodate any
movie stars. We wanted the personality
of the whole group rather
than having one star involved. Our
one statement was that when
"M*A*S*H" was finished and the
Academy Awards came around, the
entire cast of "M*A*S*H" would
be nominated for the best Supporting
Actor.

The film did begin to have a life
of its own. Some times I felt like I
was running down the hill behind it
with my arms out. Everybody
really got involved with it. There
was such unity. The actors never
upstaged each other. The technique
that we used, the actors didn't
know who was on camera and most
of them had never been in films
before. We would set up these big
panoramic set-ups and everybody
would be doing their thing and they
didn't have any idea who the
camera was on. They entered into
very real relationships. And I never
said you have to have this character.
I took the position that if I were
captain of a camp. I wouldn't be
able to determine that I wanted this
guy or that guy to come in, I'd just
have to take what I got. So once I
had the actors together, I took that
attitude. Many of them weren't
written, weren't even in the script.
Eight of them were just hired, just
given names. They really came in
with personalities, and I accepted
that the same way I would have in a
real camp.

We tried to work out of sense
memory for this film. We tried to
think what were those old war
movies like. We tried to do all those
things. We were really satirizing
ourselves, satirizing ourselves, satirizing
ourselves. Like with the loud
speaker that became a character
and after having destroyed every
taboo in sight, finally turns on itself
and takes its own life.