How ‘The Other Two’ Cameos Became New York’s Hottest Club
Editor’s Note: The following interview took place before HBO confirmed “The Other Two” would end with Season 3 and The Hollywood Reporter revealed that showrunners Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider were the subject of an HR investigation.
“The Other Two” may have definitively ended at HBO Max, but the series’ star-studded celebrity roster unique and untouchable. Season 3 included appearances from Simu Liu, Fin Argus, Ann Dowd, Edie Falco, Ben Platt, Dylan O’Brien, Lukas Gage, Kiernan Shipka, Lawrence O’Donnell, Spike Einbinder, Andrea Boehlke, and Dana Delany — some as themselves, others as hyperspecific characters.
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In their three seasons with the show, casting directors Allison Estrin and Henry Russell found the right balance in casting the very meta, very weird, but beloved cult series created by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider. In a joint Zoom interview with IndieWire, Estrin and Russell talked about the unique logistics of their roles, a balance between planning a perfect guest star or cameo in advance or taking a last minute chance.
“You do try to set them up in advance, but with some of the celeb cameos, at least one in every season, you would never have gotten as great a person if you had booked it as far out,” Russell said. “It just happens that they’re in New York at the right time.”
The duo work closely with Broadway Video to keep track of which actors are in New York for talk shows or other projects, ready to reach out if they have a schedule opening and happen to like the show. Russell said the last-minute strategy is sometimes as fruitful if not better than scheduling ahead. Below, he and Estrin discuss the specific qualities desired in an “Other Two” cameo, working with Kelly and Schneider, and a certain queen who binged the show.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
IndieWire; Most shows, you have your characters, but this is obviously kind of meta and about show business. How does that change your jobs?
The interesting thing about it is you may have this major guest star role and because the show dissects celebrity culture so much, you can’t put a real celebrity in a role just because it’s a big role. So you can cast really great actors, and the cameos are often just people playing themselves or a specific kind of character on a TV show or something because you can’t just put a celebrity in the big role. So that sort of change — I think in a good way for great actors — the way you can cast through guest stars. A lot of times other shows if you have a big guest or they’re like, “Well, who can we put in that’s sort of name-y to get someone to click on the tile?” or in the network days to get someone to tune in.
Are there conversations between you and Chris and Sarah before the season, or do you just get a bunch of scripts with very specific names like Marvel’s Simu Liu and it’s like, “All right, let’s try!”
AE: It’s a little bit of both actually, We do [have conversations] off-season… or sometimes it’ll be vice versa where Henry and I have been contacted by an agent just to say so-and-so’s a huge fan, if you have anything for them, so we’ll just, let Chris and Sarah know [for] when they’re writing if it turns out that they have [something.]
HR: Chris’s DMs light up and then they’ll have an idea based on that. I will say they’re very religious about it being right for the story. We have some celebrities that reached out, their agents call us as Allison said, and they love that idea, but if they’re not germane to whatever the arc, the story they’re writing that season is, they’re not going to plug them in just to have — they’re not celebrity whores in that way. But if we find the right place for a Housewife, that’s a different thing.
There’s so many this season — what was the hardest or most exciting to pull off?
AE: Lukas Gage was incredibly hard to pull off. He wanted to do it, they absolutely wrote it with him in mind; that’s why the other character was named Lucas because we needed that combination. But as we all know, Lukas Gage is probably one of the busiest people in Hollywood these days, and is on so many shows, so trying to work out his schedule for the exact time that we have the Broadway theater and everything else, that was very difficult.
HR: Even though we knew from the very beginning of the season that he was in and his team was on board. He was shooting one show in the states, one show in Canada, and then had carved out this time for us which all worked out. In some seasons, you’ll go out to people very early on who want to do it because they’re excited about the show, they love the show, but then as the schedule takes shape, especially in a COVID world where stuff pushes for whatever reason… all these pieces have to come together.
You have this celebrity who’s all excited to do it, and then the schedule changes last minute and you’re like “Shit.” Simu was on board — that came from a list we did — and then our schedule changed because things flipped around and his team was like, “Wait, actually, he’s not going to be around for the new day.” We were devastated. That was the one I was most excited to pull off… then it was a whole team effort of the ADs, our producers got on the phone with Simu’s reps to be like, “How do we make this work?” and this flight to that thing to make sure all that he’s already obligated to, he’s able to do.
Yes, I’m actually curious about that. Are there examples where it was kind of that last minute serendipitous thing?
AR: Dana Delanyy ended up that way, actually. She was always on the list, as someone that we really wanted for this because it was such a very specific thing for “Emily Overruled” that we wanted an actress who had done that type of series, a procedural long-running show that way. But she isn’t normally in New York, and as we were getting closer and closer, we just talked to her agent and he said, “Well let’s try this. She would absolutely love this, she’s here,” and she just immediately jumped on board. She read it, talked to Chris and Sarah, and was so game. I think she’s hilarious on this episode.
HR: There was also, for the role that Miles G Jackson played, the young lawyer — I’m not gonna say who because it feels inappropriate, but there was a celebrity name that had been in touch with them that they were okay with. They’re very — as they should be, and as we are — specific about which roles can have celebrities in. There was going to be another actor in Miles’s role of name, that wanted to do the role from the get go and if the schedule had worked out would have done it, but then his schedule didn’t work out because he was committed to another project. So sometimes you do think “Oh, there is room for a cameo here,” but then the schedule doesn’t work out so you have to have reads happen quickly. In some ways that feels like a really wonderful thing because Miles is so great.
Have there been cases with the celebrity cameos where you reach out to someone who does not know the show, and then you get to have the task of being like, “Well, let me tell you…”
HR: Definitely a thing for Season 1 and 2 and to some extent still for Season 3, although a lot of people know the show. Olivia Colman did a thing once where they were interviewing her while she was going downstairs, and they said “What are you binging right now?” and she was like, “The Other Two!” and we died. We would have to send the link in any email about a cameo. We would say like, “Hey, not sure your client is familiar with the show, but Olivia Colman was bingeing it!” That was something that we always included in the offer emails for the cameos, because once that happened, we’re like, “Yes, we’re gonna shop with that.” Also Chris and Sarah were head writers of “SNL” and Molly Shannon’s on the show. Those are people that we led with.
AE: And Ken Marino is friends with just about everyone, it seems.
What happens if you can’t get someone originally listed again, specifically for celebrity cameos. Has that happened? Does it change the narrative?
HR: This season, the Dylan O’Brien character was an actor auditioning for Wes Anderson. There were some names that they had in mind, but it rarely happens that like the prototype is actually available. For that role and the Simu role, we’re almost always doing lists. It’s very specific, but they’re very specific and that’s why the show is so amazing. The joke is funny for a reason, and the joke would still be funny, but if we zero in on this specific aspect of celebrity to this heightened degree, a certain level of celebrity, that the joke is even funnier, which I think is one of the reasons why the show is so perfect always. It’s so specific.
When we cast Jordana Brewster last season, there’s lots of celebrity women who could have dated the fake gay guy that that Drew (Tarver) was going out on dates with, but they wanted an actress that had come from a specific period of time and been on a certain kind of show because that made the joke funnier. And it does, and you may not even know it as the viewer, but they’re casting the show as if it’s happening in our world in this time period. That’s why they’re so prescient too, like Globby and the non binary character — because they are very conscious of like,”Okay, we’re shooting in this and this time.” We don’t cast this person as a love interest because they are famously in this current relationship. They’re very aware of that and we have to work a little harder sometimes, but it’s so worth it because the end result.
AE: We have to be very up on current celebrity gossip, for sure.
When it’s not a cameo, what do you focus on as a casting director when you are going for this very specific tone, like with Dana? How do you even put in a casting call and talk that through with someone?
AE: For “Emily Overruled,” it really was needing to make sure that it was an actress who had been on a long-running series. We did actually do auditions for it as well, in case we weren’t able to get cameo we always have backups. I think the way that it was explained is quite frankly, every every actor in New York has been on a “Law & Order,” a “Blacklist,” etc. So everyone was walking into that episode with a shared knowledge of what it’s like to be on those types of TV shows.
Everybody understood the tone or what it is to do a “Law & Order,” but we needed to then explain the tone of “Pleasantville.” I hope that a new generation of actors have now watched “Pleasantville” because I’ve always loved that movie.
HR: We made a list of that role of those women that are on or have ever been on long-running procedural-type shows. We look at that list and we say, “Well, this person probably can’t handle the comedy, so let’s take them out,” or the team will look at the list that we made and say, “I don’t know if they’re quite right because of this,” and then it shortens the list even more, and then they’re like, “These are our favorite people,” and then you go after them and see.
AE: I think people have to be willing to have fun with their persona. That’s really the the biggest thing. Simu was so incredibly game, which was so exciting, and Dylan was as well. We just are always wanting to be so careful to make sure that no one is insulted, that they really see the joke and think it’s really fun. Ben Platt was another great example; we knew that he was familiar with the show, and we wanted to be cognizant that we were doing something that was really fun for him. Not all actors want to play themselves, not all actors are at the point where they’re like, “Yeah, I’m okay with poking fun at this side of my life.” So it’s really about finding the actors that just are gonna have fun with that and really roll with that.
It’s very much an industry with a lot of fragile egos.
AE: Well, you said that, not us.
HR: Sometimes their initial ideas for certain roles, they’ll come to us and we’ll be like — well, Allison will be, I have to give her credit — “They will never want to make fun of themselves, but we can go to their agent,” and we do, and we ask. We never don’t try if they want someone, we’re gonna fight for them because we love them and we love the show. But there is a certain kind of actor and actress that won’t make fun of themselves, and that’s their right. It’s your right to take yourself as seriously as you want.
Has it gotten to the point where you’re asking any of these people ever or are they getting cut from the first round of the list?
AE: Sometimes we do ask them. I was casting “Bupkis” at the same time, which is also extremely cameo-heavy, so we were able to do a little double duty sometimes in finding out who was into that sort of thing and just simply who wasn’t.
HR: We have relationships with the agents — knock on wood — and you call them you’re like, “Is this something they’re ever going to be game for?” Rather than necessarily wasting the time for a full offer, we can suss it out with the agent who’s more willing to engage in this kind of thing versus who isn’t.
AE: What’s great is that it is a show that is so beloved by the industry. We got so many calls from agents just saying that this was their favorite show. That actually really helped us so much to be able to have those conversations, that they wanted to get their actors to do it because they are such fans of the show.
All three seasons of “The Other Two” are now streaming on HBO Max.
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