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 As the producers of daytime CBS soap "The Bold and the
Beautiful" were developing a transgender storyline this year,
they approached the advocacy group GLAAD for leads on casting.
Fueled partly by acclaim for TV series such as "Transparent" and
public fascination with the transition of former Olympic
champion Bruce Jenner to a new life as Caitlyn Jenner, Hollywood
is seeing a boom in movies, TV shows and reality series about
transgender topics.
To meet the demand, casting directors and producers are often
going through unorthodox channels to find transgender talent -
experienced or not.
"As a transgender man myself, I see a lot of show runners coming
to me and asking about any transgender actors I know of," said
Nick Adams, director of programs for transgender media at the
Los Angeles headquarters of GLAAD, which promotes lesbian, gay
and transgender issues in the media.
"That's how it's been - a loose network of transgender people
who have these databases of friends and acquaintances. Otherwise
the casting system is just not set up to search for them," Adams
said.
Laverne Cox, the transgender star of "Orange is the New Black,"
had acting training and professional credits before she was cast
in the award-winning Netflix series set in a women's prison. But
many of the new transgender faces in Hollywood are far less
experienced.
Scott Turner Schofield, 34, spent years as a speaker on
diversity issues and in regional theater before making his TV
acting debut in May on "The Bold and the Beautiful" as the first
transgender man in a major role on a U.S. daytime drama.
LADY LUCK
Both Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez are transgender women
who worked in the sex business and had never been on camera
until "Tangerine" director Baker hired them for his 2015 movie
about a prostitute looking for the pimp who broke her heart.
"We found Mya at the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender) center in Hollywood and she opened up that world to
us. For me to find the two of them like that was serendipity and
luck," Baker said.
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"I think the major talent agencies are finally stepping up (now)
because this has just reached the zeitgeist in the last year and a
half, and recently it's been a little bit easier to find people," he
added.
Ann Thomas, currently an extra in Hollywood, was so frustrated by
the lack of a one-stop shop for transgender talent that she decided
to set up one herself.
Thomas plans to team up with casting directors, actors, extras and
production staff when she opens her TransgenderTalent venture in Los
Angeles before the end of the year.
"As far as I know, it will be the first such agency at this time,"
said Thomas, who was a member of the 200-person transgender choir
that appeared on Fox television's "Glee" in February. The choir was
assembled through grassroots communities and social media.
"When I first got the job on 'Glee,' I looked very hard for an
agency that would represent transgender people but there wasn't a
single one," said Thomas, who also appears as an extra in the
upcoming second season of Amazon.com's "Transparent."
Although her venture has yet to launch formally, Thomas says she
already has helped fill two transgender roles for the producer of a
small feature film.
"I worked with another lady putting together a transgender weight
loss show who had been searching for weeks to find people. I was
able to come up with eight people in a week that were fully
qualified," she said.
GLAAD's Adams said the need for transgender talent is becoming so
pressing that he hopes to set up a workshop for Hollywood casting
directors in the fall.
"What I hear anecdotally is that casting directors don't understand
much about the transgender community. There are many transgender
actors out there, but casting directors just don't know where to
find them," he said.
(Editing by Patrick Enright and Matthew Lewis)
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