Casting - Feature Film - Stealing Cars
Stealing Cars
Co-directors, Marly Hernandez Cortes and Stephen Schuyler are currently casting their feature film set and filmed in Baltimore. This production is being made with the support of a Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Production Grant via Johns Hopkins.
Logline: After his mother’s unexpected death, a teenage car thief, Matías, is sent to live with the abusive father that they ran away from thirteen years earlier.
Labs: 2020 Saul Zaentz Screenplay Lab participant.
Awards/Grants: First Place - Feature Winner of the The Baltimore Film Office at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) 15th annual Baltimore Screenwriters Competition.
DILLY - SUPPORTING
Dilly (black/white/latino - age 35 through 50).
Dilly is the father figure, that the protagonist wishes he had. This character opens the film, and ends the film. Without the correct casting, this film falls apart.
Dilly has been on his own since he was 12. A bit of a junkyard rat, he stole a shopping cart and used it to help customers haul parts out of the pick-your-part lot, getting by mostly on tips. Before long, they offered him a little extra to run the lot and find the best parts. Though this didn’t last long until the lot owners caught on and put him on the payroll. They even let him sleep on a cot in the back office instead of hiding out in the stacks. He worked that lot the next 15 years, picking up Spanish and developing his own set of moral principles. Even when he could afford to get his own apartment, he still found himself sleeping on that cot in the back office. There’s just something about the comfort of home. Line of legality began to blur the more involved with the business Dilly became. Who was he to question where a scrap vehicle might have come from, or what makes one vin-number legal and another not. Junkyards have always had a “complicated” relationship with the law. Dilly just learned how to make it more efficient. When the owner decided to retire, Dilly bought his stake in the lot. Always scared of winding up on the streets, Dilly had a fierce financial wit. Now, Dilly runs a by the books, pick-your-part junkyard during the day. But at night, he’s a little more flexible with the expectations of his shop. For him, it’s about taking care of the shop family. And if someone in his family happens to come by a car that needs to have its vin-stamped parts stripped and swapped for one of the junker-vins on the lot, Dilly is more than happy to help. For a small fee, of course.
**Skills as a mechanic a plus.
**Some dialogue is in Spanish. Beginner-Intermediate Spanish skill level required.
Scheduled days: Approximately 2-3 shooting days. Production dates are June 19 through July 15.
Please email: Headshot, resume, reel, availability, and location your based, to casting.stealing.cars@gmail.com
Subject Line for email: DIlly
Union Status/Experience: Ultra Low-Budget SAG. Actor can be union or non-union.
**If you were referred to this casting by someone we know, please add that to your email.
CURTIS - SUPPORTING
Curtis (any ethnicity - age 30-65).
Anyone who comes across Curtis, will be terrified without a single word being uttered. The owner of a local Baltimore chop shop who has been around too long to be anything but skeptical of newcomers. He’s seen it all before, the big dreams, the threats, and the bad decisions, and he doesn’t have patience for any of it. But make no mistake, he’s no pushover. You cross him, and he’ll bury you in the stacks. He’s the kind of person that can go from welcoming you in with an all business smile, to terrifying you with a hard stare at the drop of a hat.
Actor can be union or non-union.
Scheduled days: Approximately 3 shooting days
Please email: Headshot, resume, availability, and reels to casting.stealing.cars@gmail.com
Subject Line for email: Curtis
Union Status/Experience: Ultra Low-Budget SAG. Actor can be union or non-union. For this role, we are open to actors or non-actors. If you feel like you can do this role but don’t have the experience, please still reach out.
**If you were referred to this casting by someone we know, please add that to your email.
BETH - SUPPORTING
Beth (any ethnicity - age 25-40).
Beth is 19 months clean and enrolled in nursing school at Essex Community College. She was big into meth, but dabbled a bit in pills. She’s never had a close circle of friends or a particularly strong relationship to her family, which if she’s being fully honest with herself, was probably for the best. She’s always been drawn to negative influence, something that has become more apparent with every meeting she attends. She met Danny in her second week of court-mandated NA/AA meetings. The rejection of romantic entanglements was something that she and Danny had in common. But as they began to lean on each other more and more for support, they found their sponsorship blossoming into a friendship and soon more. Now, they’ve been dating for about six months, and things are going about as well as either of them could hope. They help each other keep their more self-destructive urges at bay. Though, from time to time, she’ll catch a glimpse of darkness that he still tries to control, but it’s never gone beyond that, a small glint in the corner of his eye, or the way he jingles his keys when he’s angry. Anything more than that and she would have to leave; she knows him too well to stay.
Scheduled days: Approximately 3 shooting days
Please email: Headshot, resume, availability, and reels to casting.stealing.cars@gmail.com
Subject Line for email: Beth
Union Status/Experience: Ultra Low-Budget SAG. Actor can be union or non-union.
**If you were referred to this casting by someone we know, please add that to your email.