Marlon Brando

(April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an Academy Award-winning American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He is widely considered one of the greatest actors of all time, and was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.

As a young sex symbol, he is best known for his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. In middle age, his well-known roles include his Academy Award-winning performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Colonel Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, both directed by Francis Ford Coppola, an Academy Award-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris, and as Jor-El, the Kryptonian father of Superman in Superman, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, and (posthumously) Superman Returns.

Brando was an activist, lending his presence to many issues, including the American Civil Rights and American Indian Movements.

Casting process

It sometimes involves a series of auditions before a casting panel, composed of individuals such as the producer, director and/or choreographer. In the early stages of the process, candidate performers often may present prepared audition pieces such as monologues or songs. Later stages may involve groups of candidates attempting material from the work under consideration in various combinations; the casting panel considers both the talent of the individual actors and the chemistry of their combination.

There are exceptions to this. When a Casting director is working on a Print Advertising or TV Commercial casting project, then the talent comes in and is photographed or put on video with no one else in the casting session. The day's work of all the talent is then viewed on an audition website by the clients. A choice can occur that day or the next day with the production being only days away. There is more of this type of casting (commercial/print) going on than any other type.

Depending on the prestige of the role, casting calls may go out to the public at large (typical for community theatre), to professional and semi-professional local actors (for supporting roles in theatre and film) or to specifically selected actors (for leading roles, especially in films).