"When I write stuff and I help cast it, I turn away good people all the time. I may turn them down because this one's too tall and that one doesn't have a high enough voice or this one looks to old to match up with that one - there's a billion reasons not to hire somebody"
About this Quote
Casting is where art and bruised egos meet, and Fierstein doesn’t pretend otherwise. He’s blunt about the ugly arithmetic behind a process that gets moralized into “merit” after the fact. The shock in his list - too tall, voice not high enough, looks too old - is the point: these are petty-sounding reasons until you remember that performance is a visual and sonic medium, built on chemistry and illusion. He’s pulling the curtain back on how quickly a “good” actor can become the wrong ingredient.
The intent is defensive, but not self-pitying. As someone who writes and casts, Fierstein is answering an unspoken accusation: if you reject people, you must be judging their worth. His subtext argues the opposite. Rejection is often logistical, relational, almost architectural. A cast is a system; one choice forces another. The phrase “match up” is doing heavy lifting, hinting that actors aren’t evaluated in isolation but in pairs, ensembles, and story rhythms.
Context matters: Fierstein came up in theater worlds (including queer theater) that constantly negotiate type, voice, and body as both expressive tools and political battlegrounds. He’s not absolving casting of bias; he’s acknowledging how easy it is for bias to hide inside “a billion reasons.” By saying he turns away “good people,” he tries to separate human value from employability in a specific production, a distinction the industry routinely fails to make - and that performers pay for psychologically.
The intent is defensive, but not self-pitying. As someone who writes and casts, Fierstein is answering an unspoken accusation: if you reject people, you must be judging their worth. His subtext argues the opposite. Rejection is often logistical, relational, almost architectural. A cast is a system; one choice forces another. The phrase “match up” is doing heavy lifting, hinting that actors aren’t evaluated in isolation but in pairs, ensembles, and story rhythms.
Context matters: Fierstein came up in theater worlds (including queer theater) that constantly negotiate type, voice, and body as both expressive tools and political battlegrounds. He’s not absolving casting of bias; he’s acknowledging how easy it is for bias to hide inside “a billion reasons.” By saying he turns away “good people,” he tries to separate human value from employability in a specific production, a distinction the industry routinely fails to make - and that performers pay for psychologically.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
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