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Streaming Stars, Then and Now

2023

Billy DaMota was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, where he began his career in the arts as a rock and roll guitar player. He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s only to find that disco would put a damper on his live music aspirations. After bouncing from one dead-end retail job to another, in 1985, he began his career in casting, starting as an assistant on such films as Predator, The Running Man and The Three Amigos. In 1988 he got a call from Dennis Hopper, asking him to come on board as the casting associate on the gang epic, Colors, directed by Hopper and starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.

Billy became an independent casting director with Miracle Mile, starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. Next up was Steven Seagal's first film, Above the Law (with Sharon Stone). He went on to cast the legendary cult classic, Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town, casting the then unknown Billy Bob Thornton in his first starring role. One of Billy's favorite casting gigs was a family drama for the Miller Twins, Touching Home, starring Ed Harris, Robert Forster and Brad Dourif.

Billy has gone on to cast hundreds of films, TV shows, commercials, plays and music videos, casting actors at the start of their careers - like James Franco, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt as well as casting Hollywood legends such as Faye Dunaway, Mickey Rooney, Glenn Ford, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Tony Curtis. Billy has worked with acclaimed director Alex Proyas as a casting consultant on The Crow as well as the Will Smith hit, I, Robot.

In the TV world, along with his longtime casting partner Dea Vise, Billy cast the hit FOX TV show America's Most Wanted for 20 seasons, and for four seasons he cast the ABC drama, "In an Instant".

Billy has worked as a casting director on 35 films and two TV series for Pure Flix, the industry's #1 faith-family production company. Among the films he cast are Do You Believe? starring Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, Alexa PeñaVega and Cybill Shepherd and The Case for Christ, starring Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, Robert Forster and Faye Dunaway. God's Not Dead starring Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain remains one of the highest grossing faith-based films in history.

In the world of music videos, Billy has worked with artists such as Tori Amos, Big & Rich, The Basement Jaxx, Brooks and Dunne, Faith Hill, George Strait, Dave Navarro, Ministry, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Kanye West...and The Ramones.

As a writer, director and producer, Billy produced the award winning indy crime drama, Reflections in the Dark with Billy Zane and Mimi Rogers, and has won several awards for Posey (2012), a film he wrote and directed starring Ray Wise and Oscar nominee Sally Kirkland. He even wrote and acted in (accidentally) two Italian films, where he got a chance to experience La Dolce Vita in person, as well as bring back dozens of legendary recipes.

Billy joined the The Casting Society of America in 1992 and has been nominated four times for an Artios for Best Casting.

Billy was fortunate to have studied with renowned acting teacher Howard Fine, and credits him with helping to develop the skills necessary to find the best talent on the planet, and to better understand the process actors utilize to do their work. Their relationship of nearly 3 decades has informed Billy's casting in a profound way.

Billy is a published poet, and his book Whispering Lunacies, was published in 2000. For 25 years, he has played guitar and written and recorded with the LA indy singer, Shelly O'Neill and the Big Way.

As an advocate for the rights of actors, Billy founded DoNotPay in 2001 to help educate and inform new actors. He has been instrumental over the years in working on legislation to help protect the acting community and to promote and advocate ethical behavior in the casting industry. He has been featured in hundreds of articles regarding scams in the entertainment industry, including the groundbreaking article by Gary Baum and The Hollywood Reporter, exposing the casting director pay-to-play scheme in Hollywood.

In 2017, after a 25 year long membership, Billy resigned from the CSA in protest of the organization's failure to address its ethical and legal responsibility in the notorious casting director pay-to-play scandal in which it found itself embroiled. He is writing his book, CASTING BUY, detailing the illegal payola debacle that found 18 casting directors, including 9 members of the Casting Society, prosecuted for charging actors for auditions. Despite the prosecutions and convictions, every one of these casting directors remains a member of the CSA. The book is due out sometime in the near future.

In the fall of 2018, Billy opened an office in Southern Oregon called Rogue River Entertainment and Lunch Wagon®, which places a primary focus on writing, playing and recording old-school, blues based rock and roll as well as baking award winning pies. Since Billy's move, he has mastered sugar-free Marionberry preserves, persimmon flan, seared jalapeño steelhead trout and All-American Apple Pie. He has nearly conquered the solos from both Voodoo Child and the original Black Magic Woman by the late Peter Green. Billy continues to work on the solos from Stairway to Heaven and Sweet Child of Mine. His original music can be found on Soundcloud. Just search for his band, One Red Guitar.

Billy remains a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Dea Vise, his casting partner of 2 decades continues to cast films in Los Angeles, and Billy serves as her expert listmaker and consultant.

Stop pay-to-play. Support Ukraine. Feed the world.

Paying a fee to audition for a casting assistant in order to &#39;demystify the casting process&#39; is like paying a hooker to become a better conversationalist.

Actors should not be paying a casting associate&#39;s rent - for meetings and readings - when they can barely pay their own.

It costs a lot of money to be a starving actor.

Take up revolution in the service of art.

Lift up your fellow actor and you will be lifted too.

Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.

Quotes

Billy DaMota

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