[This story contains mild spoilers from The Studio season finale.]
You’re watching The Studio, and every minute pretty much seems to bring another A-lister who either makes a two-minute appearance or has a multiple-episode arc. It starts out with Bryan Cranston, who stars as Continental Studios CEO Griffin Mill – and throughout the first season, stars like Zoë Kravitz, Dave Franco, Olivia Wilde, Adam Scott, Charlize Theron, Ron Howard, Zac Efron, Steve Buscemi, Quinta Brunson, Greta Lee, Anthony Mackie, Ted Sarandos… the list goes on and on (here’s a full list of guest stars).
While the star caliber is massive, there was one clear “white whale” that co-creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were going for — and actually got.
“I feel like they got their white whale, which was Martin Scorsese,” casting director Melissa Kostenbauder tells THR. “I know what big fans they are, and truly everyone is of Marty, and once they got him and Ron Howard, it really started to show people the kind of level they were looking for.”
In The Studio, which released its season finale early on Tuesday, Rogen stars as Matt Remick, a newly appointed (fictional) head of the embattled Continental Studios who finds himself forever fighting and debating with his fellow creatives and demanding actors over whether art and commerce can coexist in Hollywood. Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O’Hara and Chase Sui Wonders also star.
Kostenbauder, whose credits include Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and Tokyo Vice, says Apple TV, a frequent distributor of Scorsese’s projects like recent Killers of the Flower Moon and home to a first-look deal with his Sikelia Productions banner, was a big aid in scoring the legendary filmmaker.
Kostenbauder recalls a very “unusual casting process” in that they wouldn’t send scripts when initially sending the offer out to the talent. “We would offer up a meeting with Seth and Evan, and they were so good about making time to talk to all those people to help woo them and explain the character and answer any questions and make them comfortable, because it was never their intention to lampoon anyone.”
Once the meeting was over, scripts were sent to the talent for full transparency: “It was a matter of getting everybody on the same page and communicating ahead of time.”
“Some were game, and some weren’t,” Kostenbauder says of some of the characters’ story arcs. “And some really did want to lean more into – I don’t know if it was Olivia Wilde or Dave Franco – kind of poking fun at themselves.”
The idea to have Cranston play Griffin Mill came from Rogen and Goldberg, says Kostenbauder. “Bryan had been vocal during the [2023 actors’ and writers’] strikes and with the studios and when we talked to his agent — I’ve known her for a long time — we just talked it out and gaged interest, and then he met with the guys and luckily, he was game, because he’s so, so good.”
After news that Scorsese and Howard were participating in The Studio, more and more people signed on, she explains. “We really approached a lot of them simultaneously because we filmed all the episodes closely together,” says Kostenbauder. “We’re talking about actors who are in high demand, so a lot of them were interested but weren’t available.”
The process of casting all the guest actors started before Kostenbauer actually joined the project. At first, Francine Maisler was the casting director on the project and had started the pilot before the strikes. When the actors and writers strikes happened in 2023, production had to pause and months later when they were set to return to set, Maisler became unavailable.
“I jumped on to finish the pilot and do the rest of the series. It was clear from the jump, though, the world they were creating and the world they were living in. There are a lot of celebrities in there, and they actually wrote a lot of them into the script, so when you’re reading the script, it has so and so’s name in this situation,” says Kostenbauder. “It was pretty clear the level of people they would need to get in order for this type of thing to work.”
The continuous tracking shots, or “oners,” that have now become synonymous with The Studio was also baked into the script and played heavily into the casting aspect as well.
“We always put care into who we’re casting and making sure that they feel comfortable on set, but with this one, it really was a bit heavy-handed in terms of, you’re going to be in this one shot for one hour with some of these really high-level people who are at the top of their game,” says the casting director. “We were really mindful about making sure that they could handle it and were up for it and able to do it. It was just finding the ones who fit best.”
For Kostenbauder, having this caliber and this amount of guest stars was crucial to the success of the show.
“I think for it to be believable, it did really depend on having these really high-level actors and directors and writers participating,” she says.
The Studio, which has been renewed for a second season, is now streaming all episodes on Apple TV+. Read THR‘s full season chat with co-creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
