CHRIS ROCK'S MISTY GREEN PUTS THE AUDITION ECONOMY ON SCREEN

Zahra Rock, Topher Grace, Amy Landecker, Daniel Kaluuya, Chris Rock, Rosalind Eleazar, Tracie Thoms, Matthew J.R. Bishop, and Anna Kendrick attend the premiere of “ Misty Green” at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 12, 2026. Credit:

Leon Bennett/EveryStory2026/WireImage

• Transparent actress Amy Landecker said she still has to audition for new roles despite leading the series from 2014-2019.
• “You have to tape at home and edit your own audition,” Landecker said. “It is insane and it makes me crazy.”
• Landecker made the reveal Saturday night at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere for Chris Rock’s new movie Misty Green.

Transparent star Amy Landecker is admittedly fed up with having to audition for new roles, over 12 years after she first led the popular Amazon streaming series that went on to win eight Emmys during its 2014-2019 run.

Speaking to the audience Saturday night at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of director-actor Chris Rock’s drama Misty Green, Landecker reacted to a question about how the film (about a struggling Emmy-winning actress trying to reclaim her status in Hollywood) accurately captured real-life experience in the entertainment industry.

“When you self-tape, which is what we all have to do unless you’re [Daniel \Kaluuya\],” Landecker said of her Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah costar, who sat next to her on stage alongside Rock and fellow stars Tracie Thoms, Topher Grace, and Rosalind Eleazar.

The film chronicles the titular character’s (Eleazar) painstaking process of auditioning for her next role, even after she won an Emmy 17 years prior. Landecker said those scenes highlighted the “humiliating” nature of auditioning, which she said she still has to do, too.

“You have to tape at home and edit your own audition and light your own audition and find a reader. It is insane and it makes me crazy and they make you slate,” Landecker said, explaining the process as: “Which is to say, ‘Hi, I’m Amy Landecker, i’m 5’7 and I live in L.A. You know what? F---ing Google it. Can we just get rid of the slate? That’s my speech!”

She continued, praising Rock’s film for communicating “how humiliating they can make you feel on any given day in this business.”

Cutting the tension, Grace, who plays a Hollywood agent in the movie, quipped, “We love casting directors!” before Rock shouted out the film’s casting director for her work on the project.

“It’s not their fault. It’s the chief producers who won’t pay for a space,” Landecker continued, which prompted Grace to again exclaim, “We love producers!”

Chuckling, Rock observed, “You see how Topher has lasted in the business so long!”

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Though it dramatizes painful realities of the film industry, Misty Green received a warm reception at TIFF, with the audience offering an enthusiastic ovation while the film’s credits rolled in Toronto.

Eleazar’s performance was particularly lauded by Rock, who found her during an intense audition process that involved many different actresses, though the 38-year-old Slow Horses star eventually landed the role.

Misty Green — also starring Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick, who weren’t present for the film’s Q&A after the premiere — releases Oct. 9. Watch the film’s trailer above.