The film is based on the Broadway musical of the same name, and was directed by Adam Shankman (“A Walk to Remember,” “Hairspray”; also a choreographer, he was a judge on FOX’s “So You Think You Can Dance”), who is clearly a stickler for fine detail. The transformation was enough to impress even longtime entertainment veterans like Ellen Jacoby, president and founder of Miami-based Ellen Jacoby Casting International, who’s worked with Hollywood’s biggest stars on countless movies, including “Rock of Ages.” She was captivated
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by everything from the hundreds of local actors, dancers, and musicians hired to appear in the film, to the building of the sets and the total transformation of the Sunshine State into the Golden State. “You just can’t believe it’s Miami or even anywhere in Florida,” says Jacoby, who oversaw casting for the film. “By the time we were finished, I felt like it had become part of my life. We’d shoot ’til midnight, get up at 3 a.m. and do it all over again.” In the movie, Tom Cruise plays aging rocker Stacee Jaxx and his movie band, Arsenal, includes a South Florida musician. “It was fabulous to see so many talented local people,” says Jacoby, who admits that her casting challenge was finding people who looked like they were from
T H E B O C A R AT O N O B S E R V E R
Ellen Jacoby
Jeff John
the 1980s. “Back then everyone had long hair and now everyone has shaved heads,” she says. “There were a lot of wigs on set.”
TOP: Russell Brand as Lonny Barnett, Julianne Hough as Sherrie Christian, Diego Boneta as Drew Boley, and Alec Baldwin as Dennis Dupree
Another striking aspect for Jacoby was the script readthrough with the cast. And what a cast! In addition to Cruise as a rocker, Hough portrays a down-on-herluck exotic dancer; Baldwin plays an over-the-hill rock star and club owner; Blige is the owner of a gentlemen’s club in jeopardy; ZetaJones is the mayor’s prudent wife, who wants to snuff out rock ’n’ roll; and Brand is a rock venue owner and the film’s narrator.
“I’ve sat in on hundreds of script read-throughs, but never one like this,” says Jacoby, who explains that a typical read–through involves the cast sitting down together and reading the script from start to finish. For “Rock of Ages,” however, the read-through also featured singing and dancing. “If Tom Cruise got to a part of the script where he was supposed to perform a song, he’d get up and sing and then sit back down and continue reading. If Julianne Hough got to a part of the script where she is supposed to be doing a stripper dance, she’d get up and do the dance, then sit back down. Just the script