Casting director Tess Sanchez was blindsided when she lost her job. So she turned the page

“We’ve decided to spell successful a antithetic direction” was the modular enactment Hollywood casting manager Tess Sanchez delivered for much than 20 years. Post-auditions, the operation served arsenic a gentle letdown for actors. Then, successful 2020, Sanchez recovered herself connected the receiving extremity of rejection aft losing her beloved job. Rather than taxable to defeat, Sanchez turned vocation lemons into literate lemonade and began to papers her galore funny, outrageous, absurd and poignant experiences; a feat that has resulted successful her caller publication of essays, “We’ve Decided to Go successful a Different Direction.”

Sanchez says penning her archetypal publication successful the aftermath of occupation nonaccomplishment was “very therapeutic. I had a batch of worldly to enactment out, and though erstwhile I finished I felt similar it was a implicit story, I did not consciousness similar I was acceptable to commencement a caller chapter. I’m inactive trying to fig worldly out. It’s not similar I was putting a play astatine the extremity of the condemnation and saying ‘I’m fixed!’ ”

For those hoping for Hollywood gossip oregon the naming of names, they won’t find it successful Sanchez’s memoir. Rather than existent names, she often applies her casting manager oculus to who that idiosyncratic would beryllium portrayed by successful a movie to let readers to ideate the script similar a movie scene: she describes a dead-end fellow arsenic looking similar Topher Grace truthful helium becomes “Topher.” And astatine 1 point, Sanchez depicts herself arsenic Jennifer Lopez portion her friends lucifer Jessica Biel and Selena Gomez.

She tells The Times, “My content is that erstwhile a casting director, ever a casting director. I thin to bash it successful my backstage beingness excessively due to the fact that that’s conscionable the mode my encephalon works. … I emotion to beryllium a matchmaker, and I deliberation of it arsenic benignant of casting somebody’s person oregon boyfriend. I emotion mounting radical up.”

Tess Sanchez’s husband, histrion Max Greenfield, wrote the instauration of her caller book, which is dedicated to him.

(Amy Sussman / Getty Images)

Her ain emotion communicative wasn’t a set-up, however. Her matrimony to “New Girl” and “The Neighborhood” histrion Max Greenfield successful 2008 and the births of their girl Lilly and lad Ozzie attracted media attention, but that’s comparatively uncommon for the duo. Both Greenfield and Sanchez person managed to enactment mostly retired of the spotlight. The genuine adoration betwixt the 2 is simply a cardinal portion of the book. Greenfield wrote the instauration and the publication is dedicated to him. Like a prime-time rom-com, their gathering successful a barroom and the consequent on-again, off-again romance is lovingly elaborate aboriginal successful the memoir, including their breakup, reunion, Greenfield’s rehab stint for addiction — a crippled changer for some — and eventual marriage.

Indeed, her husband, her parents and her vocation are the foundations of galore stories, but “the existent jumping-off spot of the publication is wherever I was fto spell from my job,” she explains. This seismic lawsuit took spot astatine her home, portion Greenfield pottered astir successful the kitchen. Sanchez was successful beforehand of her laptop wherever she’d been expecting a modular check-in meeting. Instead, she was fired.

“It has a benignant of ripple effect connected astir each of the relationships successful my life, including my hubby and my kids.”

As the vice president of endowment and casting astatine the WB from 2000 to 2007, Sanchez was cardinal successful casting for “Felicity,” “Dawson’s Creek,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Smallville” and “Supernatural.” She writes astir her aboriginal days arsenic a temp, watching her boss, the casting director, accurately foretell that emerging talents Shia LaBeouf, Channing Tatum, Jessica Chastain and Amy Adams would beryllium stars 1 day. Sanchez past worked astatine Fox from 2009 to 2020, serving arsenic enforcement vice president of casting during the extremity of her clip with the network. From “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” to “The Mindy Project,” she was instrumental successful casting household favorites for much than a decade.

At the finale of her tally astatine Fox, Sanchez was the longest-tenured elder programming enforcement and the lone pistillate of colour successful a elder originative enforcement position. Losing the occupation that had defined her individuality for astir of her big beingness was, understandably, shattering.

It takes 7 chapters to pb up to the crushing event. Sanchez details the Zoom gathering successful which she was unceremoniously dropped, leaving her truthful stunned each she could repetition was, “So this is however my communicative ends.”

“It felt similar the eventual betrayal; I judge the word is ‘blindsided,’ ” Tess Sanchez says astir losing her occupation arsenic caput of casting astatine Fox Entertainment.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

She writes, “I can’t minimize the world of my feelings that time oregon my disproportionate response. It felt similar the eventual betrayal; I judge the word is ‘blindsided.’ I was invested successful my occupation — immoderate mightiness accidental overly invested — but I was conscionable arsenic profoundly invested successful the bonded relationships I had built there. I had worked truthful hard to get wherever I was, and I instrumentality afloat work for my deficiency of work-life boundaries, but my occupation fulfilled maine successful ways I can’t overstate. If I’m being honest, overmuch of my self-worth and individuality came from that presumption I treasured truthful much.”

Post-firing, she tells The Times, she was “a antithetic friend, a antithetic sister, a antithetic daughter.”

She adds, “The essence of the publication is truly astir my travel of trying to fig retired wherefore this peculiar occupation was truthful defining successful my life, and who americium I without that job? I had to look backmost astatine my vocation due to the fact that erstwhile it went away, I conscionable felt truthful bare and that enabled maine to spell backmost to the opening and truly excavation successful and reappraisal however I started successful the industry, which bosses were astonishing and however I got here. So that’s what I interruption down successful the book.”

Readers don’t request to person a ft successful the amusement manufacture to relate. Job loss, and large beingness events, are universal. Sanchez recalls the aggregate meetings she had with publishers to transportation her memoir 2 years agone successful the aftermath of wide post-pandemic occupation losses.

“Every azygous meeting, idiosyncratic determination would rise their manus and say, ‘That happened to my friend’ oregon ‘That happened to my husband.’ It’s astir the nonaccomplishment of a occupation that you truly place with and what it looks similar erstwhile you suffer thing similar that. It was truly amusive and meaningful to link to these women who recovered it truthful relatable. So galore women mislaid their jobs during the pandemic, and truthful galore companies downsized, and galore radical had to pivot and find a caller absorption to go. Some radical had a truly casual clip doing that, and different people, similar me, did not person an casual clip doing that.”

Sanchez says she remains unfastened to aboriginal opportunities successful the amusement industry, but she is besides eyeing a 2nd book, though she doesn’t disclose details. The relation of an writer isn’t specified a leap from that of a casting director: to convey a story, to research the dynamics betwixt characters and admit an elusive chemistry betwixt them.

“I deliberation the acquisition of being a casting manager is giving different quality being the abstraction to amusement you who they are, and to prime up connected each of those truly important quality aspects that alteration idiosyncratic to truly beryllium a bully storyteller,” she says. “A casting manager is hiring an histrion to beryllium the vas for this communicative and determination is thing amended than sitting crossed from idiosyncratic successful a country and truly getting a consciousness of who they are.”

The anecdotes and reflections successful her debut publication mightiness not connection a implicit representation of Sanchez, but they seizure a clip and spot erstwhile she was rising done the ranks of Hollywood, and moving with large budgets and stars was her mundane life. She laments that the “heyday” of Hollywood, similar her job, is simply a relic of the past.

She says, “Post pandemic, past the strike, past the horrible L.A. fires, the manufacture has truly taken a beating. Hollywood had its heyday, and I was a portion of that portion I was coming up, and determination was thing similar it. Having ever been down the scenes, doing promotion for this publication is simply a small uncomfortable, but I’m wholly unfastened and excited to spot what unfolds, whether it’s backmost successful casting oregon penning different book. Writing this was specified a earthy process for me.”