Burbank’s Central Casting to celebrate 90 years of Hollywood dreams

If a film or television production is looking to cast Tracy Morgan’s taller, skinnier brother or alter-ego, Terrick McFadden Minor hopes they’ll cast him.

Standing in line at Central Casting in Burbank on Friday morning, the Rialto native said he’s got range, however, and he’s willing to play anything from gangster to business man, pimp to homeless man. Minor’s never officially acted in the movies or TV, but he’s got the homeless role down — he’s been living on the street in Pomona after falling on hard times.

Keri Bruner drove to Hollywood earlier this month from Delaware Beach, Fla., along with her mother, hoping to find work in television after opportunities in the Miami area “dried up,” she said. After getting settled, Central Casting was her first stop in the quest for work in the entertainment industry.

Bruner and Minor were just two of dozens of Hollywood hopefuls who lined up on the sidewalk in front of 220 S. Flower St., waiting since before dawn to get into the film industry institution that’s so well known that the company name is part of the popular lexicon for the perfectly cast extra or background actor.

For 90 years, the actors that help flesh out the realistic look and feel of a movie have come “straight out of Central Casting,” and next Friday the company will celebrate them with an open house, complete with a red carpet and events just for them.

In that long line of history, Central Casting hopefuls have included celebrities like Eva Longoria and Casey Affleck, said Jennifer Bender, executive vice president of Central Casting, which is a division of Entertainment Partners, a Burbank-based payroll and production services company.

In the run up to its 90th anniversary celebration, the company has been gathering old photos and documents. That includes not only its original business license from 1925, when the company was located in Los Angeles, but the original head shots of Longoria and Affleck in the Central Casting system.

Much like Bruner and Minor, who came to get head shots and fill out various employment paperwork last week, Affleck was entered into the Central Casting system back in 1993. That was just a few years before Bender started at the company, back when everybody on screen was young and pretty, she said.

But casting moves in cycles, and eventually television shows were looking for cops and lawyers, she said, and these days they’re seeking a “grittier” look. For that reasons, Bender said it’s good for background actors to have a variety of looks.

“We really want all types,” she said. “At some point there will be a show that wants you.”

About 75 to 100 people come through the office each Monday, Wednesday and Friday to get in-processed and oriented on show business and topics like how to behave on set.

Burbank resident Ben Cruz, a solar panel installer, was first in line waiting to get into Central Casting Friday after arriving at 4 a.m. He said he’d like to “break in” and get a role on Saturday Night Live, but he’d take “whatever they have.”

Aside from casting cycles, another element of the business that’s changed, Bender said, is that years ago, “everything was made here,” but now much of the film work is done outside of Los Angeles thanks to various state incentives.

The company has locations in New York, Louisiana and Atlanta to support the film industry in those states, too. It has held strong in the Los Angeles area, thanks in part to television productions made in the region, she said.

And it’s not just television and film work anymore, with the advent of digital platforms like YouTube and Vine, the social media platform for short, often comedic videos. Brittany Furlan, deemed one of Time magazine’s top 30 most influential people on the Internet earlier this year, came through Central Casting before she became a “top Vine star,” Bender said.

A photo of the company’s office from 1986 shows a staff of about eight, but Bender said it currently employs 60 people because “there’s just a whole lot more work.”

Minor said he’s hoping to get some of that work to help get him back on his feet and maybe get a career alongside some of his favorite comedians, like Morgan.

“I have nothing,” Minor said. “But I have faith and I have ambition.”

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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland