Skip to content
Who's in the Video
Bonnie Timmerman
Bonnie Timmerman is one of Hollywood's most successful, and reportedly highest-paid, casting directors. She began her career with Manhattan's Phoenix Repertory Company in the 1970s, casting then up-and-comers, Glenn Close,[…]
Go to Profile
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

For casting director Bonnie Timmermann Los Angeles is vacation, New York is home.

Bonnie Timmerman: I am from New York. I have . . . I’ve never left New York. Where a lot of us go out to Hollywood to work because that’s the business I’m in – show business – I think that staying in New York has made me just a little bit different. I think the fact that you could walk to theaters, movies, museums; walk to the opera, the ballet; I think that helps me to understand talent; to understand all the new people that are coming in. So I think living in New York is tougher. I do . . . I love to go out to Los Angeles because it’s so beautiful; and there are so many flowers; and everybody eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner out; and it’s fantastic – it’s like a vacation. But in New York it’s tougher, edgier. And I think that the kind of work that I’m doing is a little tougher, a little edgier. I think it’s become like a zoo actually. I think . . . I don’t even see buses stop for lights . . . for people to cross the street, I think. It’s a different . . . It’s very different. It’s a little . . . Everyone is so crazy, and everyone smokes on the street. So there’s always people smoking on the street, where they never used to smoke on the street because they could smoke indoors or in restaurants. And so . . . So I see a lot of that, and I see a lot of aggression . . . a lot of aggression, and it’s disappointing. I like those . . . You know the bicycles that . . . I think those are just wonderful and I wish there were more of them. And that cars would park somewhere else and we could just either walk, or ride bicycles, or be driven by bicycle. I think . . . Or horse and buggy, I don’t know. I think it . . . I mean I . . . The horse and buggy time, that was way before my time. But I think that there is a sort of romance to New York even through its grittiness and its intensity. But I think a lot of that is gone because people are in such a hurry. And you know and they smoke a lot of cigarettes on the street. (Chuckles)

Recorded On: 12/21/07

Up Next
Related