Been in casting for 25+ years. Literally born on stage during intermission while mother was in “Pirates of Penzance.” Dori has been around the theatre most of her life, and studied at the American Conservatory Theatre young conservatory before going off to college.
After graduation from Cal State University of Northridge, she realized she didn’t have the “hunger” for an acting career and shifted attention to behind the camera. Worked at the William Morris Agency for a few years, then became a publicist in the mid-80s with then semi-known clients at the time including George Clooney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kelly Preston, Bill Paxton, Alfonso Ribiero and Andrew Dice Clay.
After a year, wanted to get closer to acting without actually being in front of the camera so she got into casting.
Today, she is about to go to back to second season casting the critically acclaimed FX series “Wilfred” starring Elijah Wood, Jason Gann, Fiona Gubelmann, and Dorian Brown.
Different collaborations included TV credits of the “Babylon 5” pilot, “The New WKRP in Cincinnati” series, “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” and “They Came from Outer Space” where a very green Halle Berry did one of her first guest star jobs. One of her personal favorites is “That’s My Bush!” on Comedy Central with Tim Bottoms as the President (which sparked the industry to cast him in that same role in 4 other different projects).
In 2000, she cast a pilot for VHI with Gene Simmons of KISS fame as producer, and put “Last Comic Standing” winner John Heffron in his first series. Her favorite film jobs include MTV’s “American Mall” with High Musical Producers, and starred Nina Dobrev (“Vampire Diaries,” “DeGrassi”) in her first American Production as well as Rob Mayes (upcoming Family Channel series “Jane by Design”), Autumn Reeser (Smokin Aces 2, “Entourage”), Bresha Webb (Love that Girl) and Neil Haskell (“So you Think you Can Dance” fame).
For Pretty Woman, she introduced Garry Marshall to funny man Larry Miller who he continues to use in all his films. “To Walk With Lions” with Richard Harris, “City of Industy” with Harvey Keitel and Famke Janssen, and “What’s Cooking” with Mercedes Ruehl, Alfre Woodward, Julianna Marguiles, Joan Chen, Dennis (“The Unit”) Haysbert, and Kyra (“The Closer”) Sedgwick.
Rex Sikes’ Movie Beat chats with casting director Dori Zuckerman.
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