FEATURE INTERVIEW - August, 2018

Keep Dreaming ~ DreamWorks Animation

FastForward Interviews Ania O’Hare, head of Casting & Talent

 

WRITERS/REPORTERS: Kylie Sebastian, Zadie Winthrop and Jackie Chin (Freshmen at San Domenico, Urban High of San Francisco and Convent Sacred Heart Preparatory schools)

‘Inspired, passionate, and family-oriented’

That’s how Ania O’Hare, head of television casting & talent relations for DreamWorks Television Animation, describes the workplace environment at her successful and forward-thinking company. A three-time Emmy® Award-winner, O’Hare has helped bring some of our favorite movie characters to life: the fierce yet adorable Puss in Boots, Poppy in Trolls: The Beat Goes On! and the roles of Boss Baby in The Boss Baby: Back in Business.

Managing the casting decisions of more than a dozen up-and-coming DreamWorks television series is no easy task; it’s O’Hare’s job to influence who will be the voices in DreamWorks’ She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the next Blinky the troll in DreamWorks’ Tales of Arcadia: Trollhunters, and many other built-from-scratch characters. Matching a voice against the imaginations of millions isn’t in most job descriptions, and when O’Hare began her career, she had no idea she’d end up working in animation at all. Determined to venture into the unknown, she packed her bags and her accounting know-how and headed for Los Angeles, across the continent from the Boston where she grew up and half a world away from her native Poland.

“I was a competitive ice skater at school,” she says. “When I was stuck in an office putting numbers together, I missed that creativeness of being on the ice and bringing joy to people and bringing smiles. While I love numbers and have always worked with numbers, I just felt like something was missing.”

O’Hare attributes much of her early success to her business degree, her self-discipline, and her risk-taking on the ice. Fate led her to her first job at a major casting company, where she dipped her toe into the world of television production. This helped her land a job at Steven Spielberg’s production company, now known as Amblin Entertainment, for casting his live-action movies and TV shows. After working on several animated features for Jeffrey Katzenberg (two of the three co-founders of DreamWorks alongside Spielberg), O’Hare went off on her own and became an independent casting director.

By hopping from one production to another, O’Hare gained experience in commercial, print, animated, and live-action casting, but her methods weren’t always orthodox. She recalls how she cast some of her print jobs not in a studio but out in the real world, where you have to think on your feet. “I was going to Harley-Davidson rallies looking for real motorcycle riders. I’m like, ‘You would be great in the catalog. Come on over here!’”

From all that entertainment-industry experience, O’Hare learned how to make things happen, and when DreamWorks started up their TV division, her hard work and business savvy landed her as the head of Casting & Talent Relations.

Today, she’s unstoppable, thriving in her leadership position when she’s not participating in office-wide Nerf gun fights! From what we saw during our visit to DreamWorks, O’Hare’s three workplace-description adjectives are absolutely true, with one addendum: the key into the world of DreamWorks is tapping into your inner kid.

In this environment, creativity trumps all. Movie posters are displayed next to life-size trolls, animators’ desks are covered with Shrek, Puss in Boots, and Kung Fu Panda merchandise, and friendly staff show off their models and works in progress as well as their colorful office decorations. We could understand why O’Hare feels so comfortable in this workplace.

Trade secret: When you’re hired at DreamWorks you’re given a pair of goggles to protect your eyes from the aforementioned Nerf bullets, which are fired quite regularly. “There’s a very strong emphasis on work/life balance here which I think is imperative to everyone’s well-being,” says O’Hare. “Everyone’s doing a great job at what they do, but everyone’s also having fun. It’s a very fun environment to be in and a very creative one, which is also the wonderful thing about animation. I think that a lot of people involved in animation loved this as a child, and a lot of that personality—child-like personality—sticks with them and they love this.”

The child-like energy O’Hare and her team channel so effectively is what won her three Emmy® Awards—for All Hail King Julien (2014), The Adventures of Puss in Boots (2015), and DreamWorks’ Trollhunters (2016))—all in the category of Outstanding Casting for an Animated Series or Special. What did winning those awards mean to her?

“It’s so interesting because I think I’m still processing this question and the answer to this because I think it’s still shocking to me,” she says. “It was so incredibly meaningful, not just to me and my career. [It meant] stepping up there and being recognized for what I have done: bringing voices together that really affect everyone out there. And there’s a lot that goes into that. There’s teams of people who are making those decisions. So I think it just gave me the satisfaction of [knowing that] I’m doing the right thing when I’m getting in those rooms, helping guide everyone to make those decisions. [I’m] pushing for talent that maybe everyone is not totally into just yet. That satisfaction was kind of all wrapped into specifically that first [Emmy®] for me, because I never thought I’d be standing up there.”

Although the film industry on the whole is as male-dominated as any other, DreamWorks Animation is unique in that it’s one of the most female-forward companies in the business. The president of the DreamWorks Television division is female, the head of current series is female, O’Hare runs the talent department—the music department is headed by a female—as is the publicity department and human resources. That’s just one of the reasons O’Hare is so proud of her company.

So how does someone go from being an auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers to heading the casting department at DreamWorks Animation Television? By listening, absorbing, and being “a sponge.”

“The importance of learning from the people around you is so imperative,” says O’Hare. “Learn from your teachers, and learn from other students that you admire. Instead of taking moments and talking, just step back and listen.” That attitude helped O’Hare attain her position as both a leader in the casting industry and a strong female role model.

“I moved very quickly into leadership positions, and I think that’s because I took that time to step back and watch situations happen, bad or good,” she says. “Whether I agreed with how someone was handling something or not, I took something out of every single situation to better myself.” In other words, mistakes have the power to set dreams in motion.