The Business Online: Q&A with CODA Casting Directors Deborah Aquila and Lisa Zagoria

A Q&A with the casting team of CODA, Siân Heder’s remarkable film about a seventeen-year-old who is the sole hearing member of a deaf family – a CODA, child of deaf adults. The panel features casting directors Deborah Aquila and Lisa Zagoria and moderated by Rochelle Rose, National Director of Performer’s Programs of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

Interpreted by Jonathan Gleicher.

PANELIST BIOS:

Deborah Aquila – Casting Director

After graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and The Stella Adler Conservatory, Deborah Aquila worked on the first two seasons of Miami Vice and several feature films including Michael Mann’s Man Hunter and The Pope of Greenwich Village, as an associate. Her independent casting director career began with Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape and Uli Edel’s The Last Exit To Brooklyn. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1993 to cast Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption, Deborah had completed over 18 independent films in New York.

In 1993, she was named Senior Vice-President of Features Casting for Paramount Pictures. During her nine-year tenure at the Studio, Deborah cast such notable films as Primal Fear, Mission Impossible II, Double Jeopardy, Varsity Blues, The Brady Bunch, Kiss The Girls, Mother, and What Women Want. In March of 2020, Deborah returned to Paramount as Executive Vice President of PTVS Casting.

Most recent film credits: CODA, Cherry, The Tomorrow War, La La Land, Wonder, Stronger, Deep Water Horizon, and Woman In Gold. Television credits include the critically acclaimed Showtime series Dexter, FX’s The Shield and TNT’s Mob City.

Deborah is a proud member of the CSA and has been nominated sixteen times by the Casting Society of America, for the Artios Award, winning for the features Red, My Week With Marilyn, and La La Land. In 2003, Deborah was recognized by the Hollywood community with the Hollywood Film Festival Career Achievement Award. In 2020, Deborah was recognized with the CSA’S Hoyt Boyers’ Award for Career Achievement.

Deborah has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1994.

Lisa Zagoria – Casting Director

Lisa Zagoria started her casting career at Aquila Wood Casting where she worked alongside her mentors, Deborah Aquila, Tricia Wood and Jen Smith for 13 years. During her time at Aquila Wood, she worked on such films as CODA, starring Oscar winning actress Marlee Matlin, International film star Eugenio Derbez, and breakout find Emilia Jones, which swept the top awards at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and the Academy Award winning La La Land. In late 2019, she opened her own office, Lisa Zagoria Casting. Her recent credits include Brothers, starring Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage and Glenn Close and the Showtime pilot, Rita, starring Lena Headey. In addition to film and TV, she also cast the music videos “Magic” and “True Love” for Grammy award winning rock band Coldplay, as well as the plays, A Song at Twilight, Stop Kiss and Native Gardens at the Pasadena Playhouse. Lisa is a graduate of the Florida State University School of Theatre and a proud member of the Casting Society of America.

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