Updated October 2026.
Seven casting calls. One production. Six days. That’s what landed on Project Casting’s board for Copperhead — the Miles Teller–led crime thriller filming right now in Oklahoma City — and it’s the kind of number that tells you more than any pep talk about “breaking in.” When a production posts bouncers, bartenders, cowboy bar patrons, pool players, cocktail waitresses, scrambling gamblers, and extras-with-older-cars in a single week, it isn’t browsing. It’s filling a set, fast, and it needs real people with real looks and real skills: western wear in your closet, a beater car in the driveway, a decent pool game.
This is a data-led breakdown of Copperhead: what the production is, who’s deciding, what the numbers say about your odds, and exactly how to get your submission in front of the right person before cameras stop on November 6.
Open casting calls — live on Project Casting right now
Copperhead is casting background extras through Oklahoma Movie Makers this week. These are the live calls:
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Extras with Older Cars (ages 21–70, $110/day + $25 vehicle bump)
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Cowboy Bar Patrons (ages 35–75, honky-tonk bar scene)
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Bouncers (beefy males 21–40)
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Bartenders (ages 22–50, bartending experience preferred)
By the numbers: the Copperhead casting picture
Let me lay out what the live board actually says, because it’s unusually legible for a production this size:
- 7 active Copperhead calls on Project Casting, all posted by Oklahoma Movie Makers within roughly a single week — the densest cluster of calls for one production on the board right now.
- $110/day for up to 10 hours of background work, with $15/hour overtime after 10 hours and an extra $25 for the day if your vehicle is used. Every call carries the identical rate card — no negotiation, no tiers, no surprises.
- Age bands covered: 21 to 75. The cowboy-bar-patron call runs 35–75; bouncers skew 21–40; the older-cars call takes 21–70; pool players 21–60. This is not a production casting one “type” — it’s staffing an ecosystem.
- Skill premiums beat pretty faces. The bartender call prefers real bartending experience. The pool-players call requires billiards experience — intermediate level acceptable, but it must be real. The scrambling-gamblers call wants people comfortable with energetic physical movement in an action scene. Demonstrable abilities are doing the selecting here, not headshots.
- Vehicles are a casting category. The older-cars call wants a beat-up older vehicle — “nothing new and nice,” per the listing — with photos of the car in the submission, and pays a $25/day bump. Your car can literally book you.
- The window is now through November 6, 2026. That’s the production’s scheduled wrap in Oklahoma, per the Oklahoma Film + Music Office slate. The bar-scene calls shot October 6; the older-cars call shot October 5. New waves will keep posting until wrap — productions this size don’t run seven calls and stop.
For context on what background pays across the current board: the same week Copperhead posted at $110/day, Universal’s 1980s feature Freefall (the Miami Vice ’85 production) was posting SAG-rate background at $241 for 8 hours, and a Warner Bros. feature was casting specialty gymnasts at role-dependent rates. The pattern is consistent — productions that need real-world types cast them fast, in bulk, through regional casting companies, with same-week deadlines. Being registered, local, and fast is what gets you those breakdowns before they fill. (The same dynamic is playing out on Universal’s Miami Vice ’85, which is casting background in New York and New Jersey right now — here’s that breakdown.)
The takeaway for Copperhead: this is bulk, type-driven background casting with same-week turnarounds. The people who book are findable in a database, local to the Oklahoma City area, and submit complete packets within hours — not days.
Copperhead at a glance
Copperhead is a West Texas–set crime thriller financed by Black Label Media and directed by John Swab — the Tulsa filmmaker behind King Ivory (which premiered at Venice in 2024, where Swab received the Smithers Foundation’s Ambassador of Hope Award) and Ida Red. Swab specializes in exactly this kind of drug-world crime story, and he frequently works with a recurring company of actors. The script is by Chad Feehan (Ray Donovan) and novelist J. Todd Scott.
The setup, per the trade announcements: when an undercover drug deal explodes into violence in West Texas, a veteran detective is forced to team with a young federal agent to unravel a conspiracy inside their own elite task force.
The cast is the headline. Miles Teller signed on to lead back in June, and the late-August ensemble announcement via Deadline added Jason Momoa, Kiefer Sutherland, Tenoch Huerta (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and Adria Arjona (Andor). Character details are still under wraps. Producing alongside Black Label are Teller’s own Lime Tree Productions and Swab’s Milk Boy banner. On the business side, Black Bear is launching international sales at TIFF’s newly created film market, while CAA Media Finance and WME Independent are co-repping domestic rights — which means no distributor and no release date have been set yet.
The production pre-qualified for the Oklahoma film incentive and is lensing in the Oklahoma City area from September through November 6, 2026. (You’ll see the film listed on casting sites as “Copper Head” — same production, same shoot.)
The casting director: Chris Freihofer
For background and extras — the only doors actually open to working actors on this production — the name that matters is Chris Freihofer. The Norman, Oklahoma–based casting director was named in the Oklahoman‘s October 2 casting coverage as the person putting out the call for the film’s honky-tonk bar scene, and the Project Casting listings run through Oklahoma Movie Makers as the posting office.
This is the regional-casting-company model that staffs nearly every location shoot: the production hires a local CD who knows the local talent pool, and that office fills hundreds of background slots in days, not months. Freihofer’s operation is your target — not a Los Angeles principal-casting office. The principal roles were filled through the trade-announcement casting process months ago; the background machine is what’s running right now, and it runs through Norman.
Why this matters for your odds: regional CDs remember reliable people. A bar-patron day that goes smoothly — on time, in the right wardrobe, no drama — puts you on the shortlist for the next wave of calls. Background casting is a repeat-purchase business, and the buyers are a small circle of regional offices. Every smooth day is a deposit.
What they’re casting — and your realistic entry points
Principal roles are locked; that Deadline ensemble announcement was the casting. What’s open — and what will keep opening through November 6 — is background, and the seven live calls map the production’s needs with unusual precision:
1. The honky-tonk bar ecosystem. This was the October 6 shoot and it’s the clearest picture of what the film needs: cowboy bar patrons (35–75), bouncers (beefy males 21–40), bartenders (22–50, experience preferred), cocktail waitresses (21–40), and pool players (21–60, must actually play). A full-ecosystem location day. If you fit any of these types and you’re Oklahoma-based, more bar, restaurant, and nightlife location days are the likeliest repeat bookings.
2. Vehicle owners. Older, beat-up cars for daytime scenes — the call is explicit that nothing new and nice will do — with photos of the car required in the submission and a $25/day bump when your vehicle is used. If you own a period-plausible beater, lead with it in every submission. Productions pay for production value they don’t have to rent.
3. Action background. The scrambling-gamblers call (30–60) is for a casino scene with simulated danger — it wants people comfortable with energetic, physical background movement and reacting to staged chaos. If you have stunt-adjacent comfort or just genuinely move well, this is a smaller, less competitive pool.
4. Specialty skills, stated outright. Bartending and billiards aren’t “nice to haves” on these calls — they’re preferences and requirements printed in the breakdowns. Real skills, stated on the call, beat a polished headshot every time in this lane.
What this tells you about the entry point: you are not auditioning for Copperhead. You are submitting a type plus a packet. The realistic goal is paid background days on a major feature at $110/day — and, just as valuable, a working relationship with the regional office that will book the next Oklahoma production too.
Who should not submit: anyone who can’t be in the Oklahoma City area on short notice. Every call is local-hire by nature — same-week dates, no travel paid. Submitting from out of state for a Tuesday bar scene burns the contact.
How to apply, step by step
This is the exact packet the live Copperhead calls ask for. Regional offices triage hundreds of emails per call; incomplete packets get skipped without a second look. Follow it to the letter:
1. Build the two-photo set. Every call asks for two recent photos: a close-up (head and shoulders) and a full-body shot. Current, unfiltered, well-lit. If you’re submitting for the older-cars call, add clear photos of the vehicle — year, make, and model visible or noted.
2. Write the email with every field. The calls ask for your name, address, phone number, and city/state of residence in the submission — plus vehicle year, make, and model where applicable. Put it all in the body of the email. Don’t make a busy casting office open attachments to find your phone number.
3. Submit for the call you actually fit. The bouncer call wants a beefy build. The pool call requires real billiards experience. The bartender call prefers actual bartending experience. The bar-patron call skews 35–75. Casting directors can spot a stretch submission instantly, and a stretched submission burns a contact you might need for the next production.
4. Own your wardrobe — and say so. The bar-scene casting asked participants to arrive in their own Western wear, and the coverage noted couples and friends were welcome. If you have the wardrobe, mention it in the submission. Wardrobe-ready extras get booked faster because they’re one less problem for the department.
5. Register at copperheadfilm.com. Freihofer’s team directed prospective extras to register at the production’s own site for the bar scene. Do this in addition to — not instead of — submitting to the specific live calls. It’s a separate list, and being on both doubles your surface area.
6. Create your Project Casting profile and check the board daily. These calls post and fill on same-week timelines — the October 5 and 6 dates were cast within days of posting. Pickup casting goes to the first qualified, complete submissions. Being findable in the database is what gets you the breakdown before it closes.
Myth vs. reality
Myth: You need an agent to get on a Momoa/Teller movie.
Reality: All seven live calls are direct email submissions to a regional casting office. No agent, no pay-to-play portal, no gatekeeper beyond a complete packet and the right type. The agent lane and the background lane are different businesses.
Myth: Background work is a lottery.
Reality: It’s a logistics operation. The CD needs forty bar patrons who own western wear and can be in Oklahoma City on a Tuesday afternoon. The “lottery winners” are the people whose packets were complete, on-type, and early. The numbers at the top of this article are the whole game — there is no hidden step.
Myth: One day of background is the ceiling.
Reality: Regional offices rehire relentlessly. A smooth bar-patron day makes you a known quantity for the next Oklahoma shoot, and Oklahoma is running a deep production slate. Treat day one as an audition for day two, not as the prize itself.
Myth: You should wait for a bigger role before submitting.
Reality: These calls close in days, and the production wraps November 6. The October 5 and 6 dates are already shot. Waiting for a “better” opportunity is how you miss the only window that exists.
Myth: Extras casting is all about how you look.
Reality: On these calls, it’s about what you have and what you can do — a beater car, a pool game, bartending experience, western wear in your closet. Inventory beats vanity.
If big-ensemble productions are your lane, the same playbook applies to television: How to Get Cast in House of the Dragon Season 4 breaks down how that show’s casting director actually finds people.
Open casting calls — more Copperhead waves are coming
The October 5–6 dates are shot, but Copperhead films through November 6 and new background waves will keep posting. Watch these listings and the jobs board:
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Pool Players ($110/day, billiards experience required)
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Bartenders (ages 22–50, experience preferred)
- Copper Head — Casting Call for Cowboy Bar Patrons (ages 35–75)
Browse all live casting calls on Project Casting — new Copperhead waves post with same-week turnarounds, and the first complete submissions get the first look.
