08-05-2025
‘Only Murders in the Building,' ‘Paradise,' ‘Doctor Odyssey' casting director on ‘stressful scheduling' and the audition that ‘blew everyone away'
There's a high chance you've watched more shows cast by Tiffany Little Canfield in the past year than anyone else. The six-time Emmy nominee is the casting director on Only Murders in the Building, Paradise, and Doctor Odyssey, among others.
Little Canfield has been with Only Murders since the beginning, which means she's been there for every season finale murder that sets up the following season's mystery. "Usually, like way before we really, really start with the concept of it, that is a conversation that we start brainstorming ideas," she tells Gold Derby at our Meet the Experts: Casting Directors panel. "I'll get a call like, 'OK, we're doing like this. I think it was literally like, 'We need to do the famous actor, like who's gonna play our three in the movie version?' And so that is where it sort of started. And there was lots of fun decisions to be played around with there, which then led to obviously our dream cast that we got."
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Only Murders went Hollywood in Season 4, with a film adaptation of the podcast by Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez). Their onscreen counterparts were played by Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria, respectively. Since the show is a comedy, Little Canfield could have more fun with the casting because it didn't have to be realistic. At one point, there were discussions about having a child play Mabel before they landed on Longoria, a mogul and multi-hyphenate in real life.
"Which is kind of ironic with the role of Mabel, who's sort of having a failure to launch moment," Little Canfield notes. "She was especially in Season 4. She's really feeling like, 'What's my next step? What what am I going to do?' And then you have playing her someone who is literally a brand ambassador. She's a producer. That's where some of the like internal fun for us was — the irony there. And then it was hard with Steve and Marty. You have icons and so you're just trying to think about it. And I'll be honest, I didn't even think about like Between Two Ferns and Jiminy Glick connection with Marty and Zach until later. And then I was like, 'My goodness, duh!'"
The star-studded fourth season also featured Melissa McCarthy, Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani, cameos from Scott Bakula, John McEnroe, and Ron Howard, and the returns of Amy Ryan, Meryl Streep, and Paul Rudd. As the show goes on, more and more people want to come on and play. "Only Murders is such a gift for everyone. I think everyone can kind of feel the energy of that. And everyone who comes on seems to want to come back, which is fantastic," Little Canfield says. "And they do. So the logistics part of it is the real challenge. It's a real challenge for production, for writers, and for me, and the agents and managers, and for the talent because they really want to do it. And so, and a lot of them, especially the bigger name you get, the more projects they're attached to, let alone their actual lives and families and etc., so we really try to be as conscious of what we're asking for and make it as seamless as we possibly can."
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Little Canfield had worked on This Is Us, so Paradise was a reunion for her, creator Dan Fogelman, and star Sterling K. Brown. Fogelman had wanted James Marsden and Julianne Nicholson for the two key supporting parts, and Little Canfield is "so, so excited that it worked out with Julianne and James." The role she loved casting was Agent Billy Pace, played by Jon Beavers, whom she met "many, many years ago." Beavers "blew everyone away" with his audition, and after a competitive callback, during which "Jon just took the part," Fogelman asked if the actor could cold read a scene.
"I'm like, 'It will be ice cold.' So I was ready to prepare, like this guy's getting this part, if it doesn't go well for the cold read, I'm gonna insist we see him again with time to prepare. Because this is a huge scene," Little Canfield recalls. "And he almost memorized it in, I think, three minutes. And we came in and read it, and it was like we were just blown away, like truly blown away. And I was like, this is a perfect example of the right actor meeting the right material where something magic happens."
Little Canfield also already had history with Ryan Murphy when she joined Doctor Odyssey. She had cast Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and Grotesquerie. Joshua Jackson also been cast in the lead role before she boarded (no pun intended) the cruise ship medical drama, and Little Canfield focused on filling the other two parts of the love triangle with with Hamilton star Philippa Soo and British actor Sean Teale. "I felt like casting a British actor in that part gives us more of a global luxury vibe," she says. "At first, he was really preparing with an American accent and then Ryan and I spoke, and we were like, 'Actually, isn't it kind of a step?' Like it just feels global and luxury to me to have a global cast."
To play the captain of The Odyssey, Little Canfield felt Don Johnson would be the perfect fit for a frothy, high-seas drama. "He, to me, is a giant network television star in the like greater picture of television. And he's just got glamour. And I think glamour was one of the number one things we wanted to have for the audience."
Even more so than Only Murders, Doctor Odyssey is overflowing with guest stars as it is a case-of-the-week procedural. Some who have stopped by include Shania Twain, Margo Martindale, Jaclyn Smith, John Stamos, Rachel Dratch, and Amy Sedaris.
"It's stressful because of scheduling. That's always the stressful part of our jobs, but it's really fun to get the theme of the week and think about what kind of guest stars and celebrity guest stars, especially that come from which world," Little Canfield says, pointing to the third episode, "Plastic Surgery Week," which featured Justin Jedlica, aka Human Ken. "[We] worked on reaching out to him, pitching him the idea, because there was a lot of vulnerability actually in that role for someone like him, what his business and his brand is based on. That was really kind of fun because for plastic surgery fanatics and fans of shows, he is really as big as it gets, right? He is really famous in that world and the nicest guy. And it was so exciting to get him."
This article and video are sponsored content by Disney and Hulu.
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