In Talks With Casting Director Kathryn Brink On New Mexico Productions and More – Casting Networks

Kathryn Brink is one of those rare people who has thrived in the entertainment business in spite of never living in either New York or Los Angeles. She’s spent her entire adult life in New Mexico, and has never found any reason to live anywhere else. Since incentives were introduced to expand production in the state, Brink’s career has exploded, rewarding her faith.

Don’t limit her, either. She’s no longer just acting as the local casting director for productions, she’s now the lead for more and more films, including The Absence of Eden, starring Zoe Saldana and Garrett Hedlund, currently in theaters. There is something reassuring, maybe even a little thrilling, about someone succeeding in Hollywood without living there, or compromising what’s important to them in the process.

That’s Brink in a nutshell, a professional who stays true to herself. She spoke to us from her home office in the Land of Enchantment.

How did you get into casting in the first place?

I actually graduated from college with a directing degree, and went almost immediately into television production stuff that was mostly centered around commercials and big interactive video games. That was what was going on in the industry at the time in New Mexico. I was doing mostly line producing and things of that sort. I was also constantly doing casting for a lot of my directors.

They’d be like, Well, you know what I want, why don’t you just do the casting on this commercial? I loved working with the actors, so it felt like a natural fit. Then, when the industry really started to change in New Mexico, we got all the incentives and the industry really started to pop, I thought, you know, I’d much rather be in the casting end of things. I’m not enough type A to be a producer forever. (Laughs) So yeah, it was a natural shift.

It’s amazing to me how often I talk to casting directors who say they kind of fell into it, or they started out as an actor or as a director, and then got into casting that way, because it was a chance to work with actors, without acting yourself, or from a directing perspective without having to deal with all the other stuff that not everybody wants to deal with.

(Laughs) Very true. I think it’s great because I had a huge amount of experience, being intertwined with other departments and understanding their concerns and priorities. I think that really helped a lot in terms of giving me the perspective and the confidence to work with people that are in all those different areas of production, and how I have to be part of a team.

Can you tell me about working specifically for productions set in New Mexico?

It has evolved. That is one 100% for sure, when I first started doing casting here, there wasn’t a single director that would would look at anyone for being anything other than a day player with two lines. They just didn’t trust that we had the talent pool here. That has absolutely changed drastically. COVID really seemed to move things in a whole different direction, because the the directors and producers knew that we couldn’t be in person anymore, they really had to take our word that these are the people that you want to see.

I think it gave casting directors that are in a local market a little more freedom to really be able to help make decisions about roles, and to start incorporating and bringing people in that would be reoccurring roles, costar roles, even starring roles. A lot of the movies that I’m working on now, I’m doing all the casting, not just local casting. Granted, they are more in the independent vein, but it’s really exciting to be able to see these New Mexico actors get elevated in their profession and be able to absolutely be able to compete and be cast in the larger roles.

I would have thought that something like Breaking Bad would be a line of demarcation for New Mexico, but it sounds to me like the equanimity of the pandemic really opened up everything for everybody.

I think it did. I just think it blew away some of the illusions that we had that you can’t be a casting director in New Mexico and be casting in LA, or an East Coast casting director can’t do west coast casting, and so forth. I feel like the directors and producers have had more of an open mind since then.

What about the decision to stay in New Mexico, rather than moving to one of the coasts?

I think that when I really came into my own with casting, I had also gone through some fairly significant like changes. So I wasn’t 22 years old or 25, which is maybe a time when I would’ve said, I’ve got to go to LA and I have to be part of that market. I made decisions based on what I thought was going to be a very well rounded lifestyle for me, where my work was extremely important, but also who I surrounded myself.

The environment here was also equally as important for my child to be here. I just felt very strongly that things were going to change here. I could already see it coming. When the incentives started and things really started to pop, I think that was enough to keep us here. Now, there are casting directors in New Mexico who really have that strong connection to Los Angeles, who are equally as much there as here, and that works for them. But for me, I felt like my life style choices were just as important as my career choices, and I chose to stay here,

That’s surprisingly healthy talk for somebody in the entertainment industry.

(Laughs) And there have been moments when I’ve kicked myself and said, Well, why the heck didn’t I? Or I’ve lost a job to somebody else, and it’s like, gosh, if I had just been in LA, I would have attached myself to that project. But I guess I have a fairly humane, esoteric kind of view of life.

What piece of advice or wisdom would you give to an actor coming into audition for you?

I think just to try to relax. Because if you’re not relaxed, you’re not going to be yourself. There’s so many actors that are not used to auditioning in person anymore. Even actors who are very experienced, lately I had a callback session and I had an actor say to me, I am so nervous, and this is somebody I’ve cast like four or five times. So I’d say to those people, just take a breath and relax. We love you. You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t crazy about you and your work.

So that’s number one. Breathe, relax, enjoy the process. Because if you can’t do that, then we can’t see you. Just be able to open up and show us who you are, and potentially where we could take you.

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