{"id":22171,"date":"2014-08-16T08:34:26","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T00:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=22171"},"modified":"2014-08-15T20:37:19","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T12:37:19","slug":"talent-agent-casts-against-type-in-filling-films-tv-shows-with-the-real-people-of-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/16\/talent-agent-casts-against-type-in-filling-films-tv-shows-with-the-real-people-of-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Talent agent casts against type in filling films, TV shows with the \u201creal people\u201d of Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One<\/a>
One of his breakout underdogs is the arm-wrestling champion and former juvenile hall guard Dot-Marie Jones. She\u2019s been nominated for three consecutive Emmys since landing the role of Coach Beiste on \u201cGlee.\u201d Photo from Mingle MediaTV \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.\u2014You couldn\u2019t miss Hollywood talent agent Sid Levin\u2019s office in the old days: It wasn\u2019t much bigger than a closet and it was sometimes filled with burglars, bank robbers and gang members, all trying to break into the movies.<\/p>\n

These days you\u2019ll find everyone from Gulf War veterans to a 15-time world arm-wrestling champion there, and Levin didn\u2019t bring them in for protection. They\u2019re looking to be movie stars, too.<\/p>\n

In a town where seemingly everyone wants to be a star, but few look like James Franco or Scarlett Johansson, Levin is the talent agent who represents the people who look like the rest of us. Some play tough guys because they once were. Or hard-core military types because they were that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am kind of the strange guy here in Hollywood,\u201d says Levin from behind the desk of his office, which is actually just down the road in adjacent Beverly Hills. \u201cI rep a lot of talented people, but people who are kind of the underdog. But that\u2019s OK. I\u2019m the underdog, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of his breakout underdogs is the arm-wrestling champion and former juvenile hall guard Dot-Marie Jones. She\u2019s been nominated for three consecutive Emmys since landing the role of Coach Beiste on \u201cGlee.\u201d Although she missed out on a nomination at this month\u2019s awards show, he says, he\u2019s confident she\u2019ll get one eventually\u2014because she\u2019s that good.<\/p>\n

On his desk, meanwhile, is an old-fashioned Rolodex with a list of more than 100 names, many of people you\u2019ve likely never heard of but realize you sort of recognize from somewhere.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s Abdoulaye N\u2019gom, for example. The Senegalese-born actor who came to LA 35 years ago with the unlikely dream of becoming a movie star, although he spoke little English and what he did came out in a thick accent reflecting the years he\u2019d spent in Senegal and France.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Sid said, \u2018There\u2019s just something about you. I know you\u2019re going to work,\u201d\u2018 recalled the actor who after years of small parts in films like \u201cGeorge of the Jungle\u201d recently played the kindly hotel manager in the Drew Barrymore-Adam Sandler comedy \u201cBlended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, when Levin saw the square-jawed, no-nonsense-looking Coast Guard Petty Officer Mike Dalager, he says, he knew just what roles to send him after. Dalager\u2019s been a cop, a soldier and a member of the crew of The Enterprise in \u201cStar Trek: Into Darkness.\u201d Not that he always plays the good guy. He was also a Taliban militiaman in \u201cEagle Eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a what-you-look-like industry,\u201d laughs Dalager, adding Levin seems to know that better than anyone.<\/p>\n

Levin, 56, himself looks like he could have walked out of a movie about an old-time agent in the mould of \u201cBroadway Danny Rose.\u201d He\u2019s short, paunchy and, on this day, dressed in slacks and a pull-over blue shirt with a gold medallion hanging around his neck.<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, the former stand-up comic and singing-telegram salesman put up a shingle in a tiny office at the fabled but then-faded intersection of Hollywood and Vine. \u201cPeople told me I had to move because nobody would go there after dark,\u201d he recalled of Hollywood\u2019s rougher days.<\/p>\n

Kids from the even rougher streets of South Los Angeles would, however, especially after Levin got seven of them roles in director John Singleton\u2019s breakthrough movie \u201cBoyz n the Hood\u201d in 1991. They had been sent to him by a Compton acting coach named Anthony Bean who was trying to get them away from street gangs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ask me why and how I found Sid. I don\u2019t even recall,\u201d laughs Bean, who has since returned to his native New Orleans to run an acting school for inner-city youth. But in a business that can be cut-throat, Bean said he just got a feeling the fast-talking agent wouldn\u2019t rip off naive street kids.<\/p>\n

The next break came when a tough looking Latino actor from one of LA\u2019s roughest barrios came through the door. When Danny Trejo started to work regularly, Levin recalls, he volunteered at prisoner workshops and began sending his students to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cEx-cons that were bank robbers and what have you started showing up, and that was kind of dicey,\u201d he recalls, chuckling.<\/p>\n

Still, he might have kept representing ex-cons, gang members and their associates if tragedy hadn\u2019t struck. Dedrik Gobert, one of the South LA kids he\u2019d gotten into \u201cBoys n the Hood,\u201d seemed headed for stardom. He was making money and spending it restoring old cars.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, he raced one day against a gang member, they argued afterward and he was shot to death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think about him a lot,\u201d Levin says softly. \u201cIt was just so senseless.\u201d<\/p>\n

As most of the kids from LA\u2019s mean streets drifted away from acting, and some like Trejo who became big stars moved on to other, more prominent representation, Levin began to focus more on military and law enforcement people.<\/p>\n

He figured they have as much right to dream of being movie and TV stars as anybody else. \u201cTalented is talented,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.\u2014You couldn\u2019t miss Hollywood talent agent Sid Levin\u2019s office in the old days: It wasn\u2019t much bigger than …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":22172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hollywood","mauthors-john-rogers","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}