Illinois State University's Alumni Magazine

Deborah Barylski, M.S. ’73, has found success in the tough job of Hollywood casting. She won an Emmy in 2004 for casting the pilot and first season of the highly acclaimed comedy Arrested Development. She also cast the successful sitcom Home Improvement.

Called to casting

Alumna’s Hollywood savvy results in sitcom blockbusters

BY Tom Nugent

When the moment of inspiration suddenly arrived, it was so powerful that it nearly knocked the veteran Hollywood casting director right out of her chair.

Will Arnett…he’d be absolutely perfect for GOB!

The sudden flash took place on a mild spring afternoon in 2003, just as Deborah Barylski, M.S. ’73, was getting ready to start ripping her hair out.

For more than three weeks, the stressed-out casting director had been struggling to find “the perfect actor” to play a quintessentially wacky character—George Oscar Bluth II, also known as “GOB”—in a newly created TV sitcom called Arrested Development.

Finding the right actor for the role of GOB—a quirky amateur magician whose absurdly complicated tricks often go comically awry—had been “a complete nightmare” for Barylski, who is one of Hollywood’s most successful casting directors.

Remarkably gifted as a spotter of showbiz talent, and with an uncanny knack for matching actors to roles that would later become smash-hits, Barylski had earned industry-wide kudos for casting ABC’s wildly successful Home Improvement TV sitcom during the 1990s. Cast of the show included William O’Leary ’80, who played the part of Tim Allen’s brother. David McFadzean, M.S. ’74, was executive producer.

Highly regarded among TV and movie execs alike for her savvy and ability to meet deadlines under even the tightest production schedules, Barylski was long accustomed to the high-adrenaline “race against time” that always takes place during the creation of a TV pilot.

 

Read more about Deborah's experience.