Casting Director Mali Finn died of melanoma on 28 November 2007. Born Mary Alice Mann on 8 March 1938 in Danville, Illinois, she won an Emmy in 2001 for casting 61*.
Her genre work includes the films Battle Angel (2009), 10,000 B.C. (2008), Dark Water (2005), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), Joy Ride (2001), The Green Mile (1999), The Matrix (1999), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Forever (1995), True Lies (1994), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Flatliners (1990), and Lady in White (1988).
She had been an English and drama teacher in Michigan when she and her husband, Donn, moved to Newport Beach, California, in 1981. Following the move, she recalled in a later interview, she said “I think I’ll get in show business.” She got her start by offering to work for free for Warner Bros. casting director Dodie McLean.
She formed her own company, Mali Finn Casting, in 1989, and from that point until he retirement (due to cancer) in 2006, she cast about 80 movies and television series.
In the Los Angeles Times obituary, director Curtis Hanson, who worked with Finn on four movies, said “The world of each was very specific, and Mali loved plunging into those worlds, trying to help make the movie as truthful a representation as possible. Mali’s M.O. was to go to the place, submerge herself, soak up as much of the people and their environment as possible.”
In the same piece, director James Cameron (for whom she worked on True Lies, Terminator 2, and the upcoming Battle Angel) said, “Mali was a genius at finding undiscovered treasure amongst the sea of new faces. Many of this generation of stars owe their starts to her. She was a great creative partner, and I will miss her deeply.”
In a 2006 interview with Back Stage West, Finn said of her method of working “I’ve never walked in and said, ‘This is somebody that’s got to do this’ role. I don’t work that way with directors. I want to get inside the director’s head, and it’s a creative process. I want to enter his or her world. It’s so much a collaboration.”
Finn is survived by her husband Donn and son David; her mother, Betty; her brother, John; her sister, Kitty; and two grandchildren.