Lucy Liu knew the instant she watched Lawrence Shou's open-call audition video that the neophyte East Bay actor would be the perfect choice to portray her troubled cinematic son in the wrenching Rosemead, inspired by a real-life Southern California tragedy. The 23-year-old Shou, a lifelong Fremont resident, won out over hundreds of others eager to play 17-year-old Joe, a troubled San Gabriel Valley area high school student with schizophrenia whose distraught mom Irene (Liu, in a transformative performance) is dying of cancer.
The glitz and glam of Hollywood captures the attention of Americans starting from an early age. Beyond celebrities' Instagram Stories and red carpet poses, there are actors out there paying their dues and honing their craft in pursuit of a sustainable career or a fulfilling sideline. Submitting to casting calls is a big part of that journey. Whether you're a working actor or an aspiring one, you might be curious to know which movies and TV shows are casting roles near you.
Director Guillermo del Toro began publicly speaking about wanting to adapt Frankenstein in 2007 when he told Jo Blo that he "would kill to make" a "Miltonian tragedy" version of Mary Shelley's classic. In the intervening years, the film began to take shape. Confirmed for Universal in 2008 with Doug Jones as the monster, it was shelved for the Dark Universe, per Jones himself.