Casting Announcement... Meet TARA TOSTEN...our Kari K!

While I have no interest in ever becoming a casting director, I do believe it is important for the director to be directly involved with the process. For that reason alone, I would have found this whole process of casting the lead actors for "The END of FUN" to be invaluable. However, the absolute most wonderful thing to emerge from constant contact with some of the most talented up and coming talent in the acting world has been building a network of gifted people that I feel confident about working with not just on this project, but on future work as well.

TARA TOSTEN exemplifies EVERY POSITIVE quality you could look for in a collaborator, and our movie "The END of FUN" became better the very second she agreed to take on the role of "Kari K". After running ads and notifications for our casting call for about 6 weeks, Tara nailed the role in her audition and made Kari K all her own in a way that no one else came close to with this character. Additionally, the raw energy and enthusiasm that just bubbles off her in waves instills confidence in me as a writer, her director, and as her co-star and collaborator. Audiences will walk away feeling impressed and rewarded from everything this actor puts on the screen.

Tara Tosten is extremely talented and has every other quality you could hope for in a collaborator from versatility and dynamism to a very extreme sense of focus. She is funny, intense, punctual, friendly, attentive and very open to offering her own amazing ideas to make the project better!

As with most of the collaborators on this project, Tara is very multi-faceted and skilled in a number of areas, which was simply one more thing that pushed over the edge and compelled me to offer her the role very quickly. After Tara submitted for and explained her interest in the role of Kari K and I awaited her audition tape, I watched her reels at Backstage.

Probably the most unexpected and simply jawdropping ability she showed was a fierce toughness in a reel dedicated to physical work and fighting, which caused me to go back and look at her resume one more time. I wanted someone who was cute, but tough; someone who could portray a Kari K as dynamic as I had written. Tara brought all that to this character and in bigger ways than I could have ever hoped.

Yesterday, I actually got to meet Tara for the first time in person (along with Julia Rosette-- who was cast recently as "Jade Silver" CLICK HERE). Within minutes of talking to her, I immediately began thinking aloud about the extremely wide variety of ways she could be put on the screen: cute neighbor next door, cop, bad guy, beauty queen-- this girl has A LOT inside her and it is NOT LOCKED UP. Her talent is like a wild animal that you would never trust anyone else to control!

Tara and Julia met for the first time in yesterday and immediately began discussing their approaches to the characters of Kari K and Jade Silver. It was an exhausting, but incredibly productive day that will be focus of the next post!


ANY Director, Writer, Actor, or collaborator of any type who has the opportunity to work with Tara should jump on it quickly. She is a rising star who I KNOW YOU WILL SEE EVERYWHERE SOON! I certainly look forward to it, and will be thrilled anytime her presence fills the screen for something I have written, directed, or am starring in.

THANK YOU, TARA TOSTEN! Please say "Hi" to Tara in the comments section below and make her feel welcome!

#TEOFCast #TEOFKariK