{"id":80427,"date":"2025-02-10T19:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T19:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/acting\/casting-director-reuben-cannon-on-casting-john-travolta-and-bruce-willis-in-their-first-roles\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T19:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T19:24:18","slug":"casting-director-reuben-cannon-on-casting-john-travolta-and-bruce-willis-in-their-first-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=80427","title":{"rendered":"Casting Director Reuben Cannon on Casting John Travolta and Bruce Willis in Their First Roles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-ast-blocks-layout=\"true\" itemprop=\"text\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=%22http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg%22%20width=%22600%22%20height=%22338%22%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Actors Bruce Willis and John Travolta in their first acting roles\" class=\"ezlazyload wp-image-188166\" data-ezsrcset=\"https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bruce-willis-john-travolta-first-roles-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bruce-willis-john-travolta-first-roles-356x200.jpg 356w, https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bruce-willis-john-travolta-first-roles-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bruce-willis-john-travolta-first-roles.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" data-ezsrc=\"https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bruce-willis-john-travolta-first-roles-600x338.jpg\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sup>Bruce Willis and John Travolta in one of their first roles as actors<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In his multi-decade career, casting director <strong>Ruben Cannon<\/strong> cast over 100 film and television productions, including projects that won Oscars and Emmy Awards. In a recent interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/08\/20\/1194935838\/the-art-of-casting-in-hollywood\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NPR,<\/a> Cannon spoke about the most important lesson he learned about casting and how that led him to cast Bruce Willis in his breakthrough television role \u2014 at the risk of his own job!<\/p>\n<p>Cannon shares the most essential piece of advice he ever received about casting: \u201cRalph Winters was the head of casting for Universal Television. And Ralph Winters gave me the mantra that I\u2019ve used, which is that \u2013 Reuben, always hire actors that are superior to the role they have to play [\u2026] meaning that if you\u2019re casting an actor to play Cop No. 1, he should be capable of doing the lead because everyone starts somewhere. You know, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/tag\/denzel-washington\"><strong>Denzel [Washington]<\/strong> was doing small role<\/a>s before he became, you know, a star. Everyone starts \u2013 so the casting director job is to identify your casting for \u2013 you know, for the future. So they, you know, give the first job to that actor. Years ago, I hired <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/tag\/john-travolta\">John Travolta<\/a><\/strong> for a role in a TV show I was casting called <em>Emergency!<\/em> He had two lines \u2013 an actor who had taken a fall and sprained his ankle [\u2026] once again, he was far superior to the \u2013 what the role required.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For that example, Cannon points out the importance of having an actor in the role as opposed to an untrained individual, noting, \u201cHe\u2019s not just there as a background atmospheric player. He\u2019s there, at present, as an actor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another example that Cannon shares is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyactor.com\/tag\/bruce-willis\">Bruce Willis<\/a><\/strong>, whom Cannon hired for his breakout television series,<em> Moonlighting<\/em>. Cannon reveals he was actually fired from the series for continuing to push Willis for the lead role. He recalls, \u201cI had heard that role read so many times. But then all of a sudden, Bruce comes in and gives it a whole new spin because he was not the network\u2019s definition of a leading man. In fact, they \u2013 I was fired because I kept bringing him back to the studio as the lead. And they said, Reuben, obviously you don\u2019t know what a leading man is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, <em>Moonlighting<\/em> went on to be one of the biggest network television of the 1980s \u2014 and helped make Willis into a box office attraction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Willis and John Travolta in one of their first roles as actors In his multi-decade career, casting director Ruben Cannon cast over 100 film and television productions, including projects that won Oscars and Emmy Awards. In a recent interview with NPR, Cannon spoke about the most important lesson he learned about casting and how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12021],"tags":[23994,40387,32708,39947,40388,6034,4731,3201,40389,40391,15192,40390,40392,13238],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-80427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acting","tag-bruce","tag-bruce-willis","tag-cannon","tag-casting","tag-casting-director-advice","tag-director","tag-featured","tag-john","tag-john-travolta","tag-reuben","tag-roles","tag-ruben-cannon","tag-travolta","tag-willis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Casting Director Reuben Cannon on Casting John Travolta and Bruce Willis in Their First Roles - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=80427\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Casting Director Reuben Cannon on Casting John Travolta and Bruce Willis in Their First Roles - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bruce Willis and John Travolta in one of their first roles as actors In his multi-decade career, casting director Ruben Cannon cast over 100 film and television productions, including projects that won Oscars and Emmy Awards. 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