This week on Tea Time with Mikayla, Mikayla sits down with Peter Van Dam, Partner and Casting Director at The TRC Company, formerly Tara Rubin Casting, for a candid, thoughtful, and deeply illuminating conversation about the human side of casting.

Peter pulls back the curtain on what casting directors actually do, how actors are considered, remembered, and brought into rooms, and what happens long before a performer receives an audition appointment or self-tape request. Together, he and Mikayla talk about the casting process from the inside out: breakdowns, callbacks, creative teams, producers, agents, self-tapes, EPA rooms, and the delicate art of matching the right artist to the right project at the right time.

They also get into Peter’s own path from performer to casting director, what it means to help lead The TRC Company into its next chapter, and how casting functions as one of the industry’s most essential bridges between actors, creatives, producers, and audiences.

For actors, this episode is full of the kind of tea you wish someone had poured sooner: what casting teams are really looking for, what matters more than you think, what matters less than you fear, and why one imperfect audition is rarely the end of the story.