High Potential and Laid are two fundamentally different shows, but they both share two key elements that have proven critical to their respective creative and critical success: casting directors Anya Colloff and Michael Nicolo.
For over 20 years, Colloff and Nicolo have helped execute and service the stories of such shows as Party Down and Fresh Off the Boat by bringing to life showrunners' and writers' imagined characters. Dozens to hundreds of self-taped auditions are vetted in hopes of finding the ideal actor to take on a role that audiences can invest in for the long haul. Like other aspects of the creative process, casting is one that comes with peaks and valleys. It is also one that, for Colloff and Nicolo, comes with an emotional, character-driven investment in the material.
"We look at the story or the script and work with [our collaborators] to ensure that, 'Hey, we know you want the story to land a certain way, emotionally,'" explains Nicolo. "'Here are the faces and actors that we think can help with that.'"
In the case of ABC's new hit crime procedural, High Potential, lead actor Kaitlin Olson of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame was not attached to the project when the casting team was brought onboard by former showrunner Rob Thomas. (High Potential's current showrunner is Todd Harthan). Colloff and Nicolo have worked with Thomas for over 15 years, starting with Party Down, followed by iZombie and Hulu's 2019 Veronica Mars reboot. The duo also had a previous relationship working with Potential executive producer Drew Goddard on his feature film directorial debut, Cabin in the Woods. "Kaitlin was very collaborative and just perfect in the part," Colloff says. "She really helped set the tone."
For Peacock’s rom-com-slash-murder-mystery-adjacent dramedy Laid, Stephanie Hsu took a meeting with executive producers Sally Bradford and Nahnatchka Khan (Colloff and Nicolo’s Fresh Off the Boat colleague) after Hsu received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nom for 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once.
"Having Stephanie onboard early in the process, someone who couldn’t be more collaborative and talented, it only helps everyone get on the same page in terms of tone and chemistry," explains Colloff.
Whether it is a show with a lead actor attachment for streaming, or an ensemble that needs fleshing out for a network procedural, Colloff and Nicolo have literally done it all. Below, the duo takes us through their process on both High Potential and Laid, sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes while revealing some of the more challenging — and rewarding — aspects of their work.
Television Academy: Both Laid and High Potential thrive in large part due to the chemistry and dynamic of their respective ensemble casts. How do you work with showrunners and producers to help ensure the casting ideas in their heads end up manifested as close as possible on-screen?
Michael Nicolo: That's a really good question. We've worked with Nahnatchka for over 10 years now.
Anya Colloff: And a lot of the writers that she has worked with.
Nicolo: And Jen Carreras, who's runs the TV side of [Khan’s] production company, we've known her for a really long time, because she was at ABC and 20th Century [Fox Television], so we have a really good shorthand with them, and we just kind of "get" each other. We know how "Natch" works, and the writers, and what they like. So I think we're really lucky for that.
Colloff: And Sally we hadn't worked with before, and she is incredible and so funny. So it was nice to have her voice in the casting process, too. So you have this mix of people we've worked with for a really long time — and then a new incredible writer and coshowrunner — and that's where the magic starts.
Is there something about your jobs that maybe the average audience doesn't know about but should, or something the industry at large might take for granted?
Nicolo: [Laughs] There's so much I want to say. I know that everybody's always like, "Don't read the comments" on stories about the shows we work on, or the casting announcements, but I can't help it sometimes. So when my eye goes to the comment section and [the general gist] of the comments is "They didn’t have to do anything for this," or "This must have been an easy call to make," that drives me a little nuts when I see it.
Why? Because it’s all based on assumption?
Nicolo: To a degree, yes. Also, a lot of actors meet on projects like Laid. Even Stephanie had a meeting on this. She was obviously coming off an Oscar nomination, and there was an offer made, but she still participated in creative conversations with Sally and Natch, and it is a process. It's not as simple or without effort as commenters think.
Colloff: And we were definitely involved [in those creative conversations] from the get-go, which was really nice. Because sometimes we come onto a project, and there's one person attached or two people attached — but not all the time. But [Laid] was really fun and collaborative for us, because we were involved from the very beginning.
Nicolo: Getting Stephanie for the lead role, everybody wanted her from the beginning, by the way. [Laughs] Let's be clear.
Colloff: Having Stephanie onboard early in the process, someone who couldn’t be more collaborative and talented, it only helps everyone get on the same page in terms of tone and chemistry.
So Stephanie was not attached prior to the two of you getting the call to come onboard?
Colloff: No, she was not attached. We got to be involved from the very beginning, before any actors were attached to it. But Natch, Jen and Sally were like, "Stephanie. We want Stephanie."
Nicolo: We were really lucky that Stephanie was literally the first person to read the script. Sometimes, though, there is a project that we get a call about and it's like, "Hey, we have this project, so-and-so is attached." But for Laid, Natch, Jen and Sally reached out to us; they kind of gave us the pitch for the show and sent us the pitch deck and everything that they went into Peacock and Universal Television with. And so we kind of went from there.
What was your collaboration like with her once she officially signed on?
Nicolo: She was so collaborative and had a huge part within the casting as well, because she did chemistry reads with everybody. And that's why the chemistry [among the cast] is such a standout on this show. It’s so important to make sure the chemistry is there.
Colloff: Some actors did multiple reads and did the scenes a couple of times.
How did Zosia Mamet, who plays the best friend of Stephanie’s character, get involved with the show?
Colloff: Zosia and Stephanie had a meeting, and they loved each other, which I think shows in their characters’ dynamic on the show. Zosia wasn't in L.A. at the time, so it was over Zoom, but they just hit it off immediately. She was the first person considered for that role, and obviously it was pretty hard to beat that. She's lightning in a bottle.
And how did Oscar-winner and actor-songwriter Finneas O’Connell [brother of Billie Eilish] get cast? Had you worked with him before?
Colloff: We worked with Finneas when he was a teenager. He was in [the movie] Bad Teacher that we worked on. I mean, he's amazing. He's getting back into acting when he has free time. So it was kind of like all these phone calls around "How do we make this happen?" At the time, he was composing [Apple TV’s] Disclaimer, he was on tour with his sister and writing music with her. But he’s really talented as an actor, and everyone wanted to work with him.
Nicolo: He was the only person for that role, and it was just him and Stephanie. They did a little bit of a chemistry read, but it was very informal. We were all there. I think we were off to the side, kind of doing our thing. And Natch and Sally and Jen were there, but it wasn't on tape or anything; it wasn’t a casting session. It was more like, "Come in, have fun, meet Stephanie and just talk about the scene and see what happens." And he was great.
In your experience, how helpful is it for the project at large for the number one on the call sheet to do these chemistry reads? Because, when you watch the show, you really buy that they have been best friends long before the first episode begins.
Nicolo: I think that you picked up on that is a testament to their work and their relationship, and how [the creative team] locked in on that relationship.
Colloff: The more time you have to do reads like that, I think the more people want to do it. Back in the day, when there was a pilot season and there were, like, dozens of pilots casting at the same time, it was really hard to do that. So if you got that kind of chemistry read, it was very rare. But nowadays, I feel like we're given a little bit more time in the process, and it makes everyone more excited — not only the actors, but the producers, the writers and the casting directors. It's a really fun part of the process.
Nicolo: Stephanie is also an executive producer [on Laid]. So she was obviously invested in the casting as well. And, on High Potential, Kaitlin was very involved in those chemistry reads, too. You’ll find that people working on these shows, they want to do those, because it's so important to them that the chemistry is there, especially being producers on the shows.
Speaking of High Potential, how do you approach casting for a network procedural like that, with a story engine designed to go on for multiple seasons? When you’re casting the pilot or the “prototype,” the assumption is that these are the series leads who will be around for the lifespan of the series and that audiences are going to want to latch onto.
Colloff: We approach it like we do every show, you know? The hope of every show that you work on is that it's going to go for multiple years, unless it is intended to be a legit limited series. So you have to consider, "Is this person going to carry a show, or is this person going to be a co-lead to the person carrying the show? Is this role going to be a love interest in four years, but not right now?" You ask yourself these kinds of questions so it’s addressed right off the bat.
Nicolo: We also gather as much information about the project and story as possible. Obviously, story needs change as the show goes on, and obviously the creators have an idea in their heads anyway about where they would like to see [characters] go. So they give us all the information they have so we can make sure that's all being applied to our thought process.
Colloff: [On High Potential], Kaitlin was very collaborative and very fortuitous casting. She really helped set the tone and was the ideal person to have in that role and see the ensemble take shape around her character.
Nicolo: Right. So wherever a show is going to air, we look at the story or the script and work with [our collaborators] to ensure that, "Hey, we know you want the story to land a certain way, emotionally. Here are the faces and actors that we think can help with that."
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Laid is streaming now on Peacock. High Potential is streaming now on Hulu.
