Casting ODIE, Part Three: Sixteen Actors and a City

A day player gets one day. No warm-up scene, no arc to hide inside, no second week to find the character. You arrive, you land it, you go home. Sixteen actors are doing that for ODIE, and every one of them is load-bearing.

Meet them. Kristen Prince is Trixie, the other half of the cart trade that reroutes Odie's whole day. Victoria Johnston is Shirley, whose broken cart wheel gives Odie's hands their first good deed. Becca Matimba is Whitney, whose small kindness on the sidewalk turns out to be a hinge in the story. Lou Chapman is Adam, source of a pair of red sunglasses that mean far more than a pair of red sunglasses should. J.J. Fernandez is A-Train, the day's most dangerous turn, a scene we will say nothing more about except bring your nerves.

At the clinic, where Odie's day collides with the paperwork maze, Dave Janjua is Dr. Thomas, Soji Brown is Dr. Wilson, and Janessa Marcarlin is the clinic receptionist, gatekeeper of the signed medical card the whole plot swings on. Vanessa Campos plays Maya. Vincent Marvelli is Tony. Mary Glade-Revelle is Mrs. Surtain. Vaibhav Gaddam is City Worker #1, the human face of the closed parking lot. ReAnna Brooks is Bobbi, Catherine Wilson is Becca, and Corey Knox is Donny, the voices of the world Odie moves through.

And the youngest member of our cast plays Odie's son, the Small Boy with the inner tube who lives in the film's dream world. He auditioned. He earned it. We are keeping his name off the internet for now, because he is a kid, but on set he gets a call sheet like everybody else.

Most of these actors are Texas-based. Every one of them auditioned for a role smaller than they are capable of, and every one said yes anyway. We were not looking for types. We were looking for faces with history behind them, and Austin turned out to be full of those.

Which brings us to the part of this casting process we are proudest of.

ODIE is a film about homelessness told from inside that world, and we decided early that the world on screen should include the people who actually know it. So this production is casting Austinites who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness as background artists in the film. Paid roles. On the call sheet, through the same production channels, fed at the same table, compensated for their time like every other artist on set. Not subjects. Not extras in their own story. Colleagues.

Their faces will fill the shelters, the sidewalks, and the waiting rooms of this movie, and the movie will be more honest for it. When people ask us what "a film about homelessness that is not a fundraiser with a movie attached" means, this is a big part of the answer. The work is the respect.

Cameras roll Monday. The whole ensemble, one day at a time, one city, all of it real.