Casting

The interview and audition process took place over a period of about 6 months in 1972 as casting director, Fred Roos pre-interviewed hundreds of actors between the ages of 12 and 25. Many young actors auditioned including Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), who never made it past the first meeting. Roos, who had recently cast THE GODFATHER (1972), proved extremely beneficial in casting Graffiti. In fact, he was friends with many young aspiring actors who were eventually cast in the film including Ron Howard, (whom he'd worked with on The Andy Griffith Show), Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams and Richard Dreyfuss. "I hung out with Richard in my circle," Roos recalls, "We called him 'Ricky' in those days. He was kind of a smart-ass...that was part of his charm."

The interviews and auditions took place in both the Los Angeles vicinity and the San Francisco, Bay Area.The performers who had potential, were called back to do a quick interview with George Lucas while he took notes on the ones he thought would work well together. Lucas was very particular about making sure the actors complemented each other. He wanted the young actors to exhibit an ease and natural chemistry with one another.

According to Lucas biographer, Dale Pollock, when the director met Dreyfuss he liked him immediately and offered him his choice of roles. Dreyfuss recalls Lucas gave him his choice to play either Curt or Steve. " I chose Curt, which I felt was a compliment - to me, [laughs]." In retrospect, its difficult to imagine Dreyfuss playing anyone but Curt.

(c.) 2004-2006, Kip Pullman.

Continued NextPage

Richard Dreyfuss improvising during his video test

Lucas was not only looking for actors that could portray characters that represented various developmental stages of his youth but also ones that worked well together. Richard Dreyfuss recalls the audition process for Graffiti being the most involved he�d ever been part of. He remembers reading for the part 6-8 times, always with different actors

After he had a select group of actors for each of the major roles Lucas had them run their lines as they were filmed on video tape. These actors were narrowed down and from there 16-millimeter screen tests were made with the final group. During the tryouts all potential cast members for Graffiti were asked to ad-lib their lines with other hopeful actors.