Shondaland Casting Guru Linda Lowy Forms Backyard Casting With Morgan Smith, Lily Trotter

EXCLUSIVE: Linda Lowy, the Emmy award-winning casting director of Grey’s Anatomy and Friday Night Lights, has launched Backyard Casting with longtime colleagues Morgan Smith and Lily Trotter. 

Lowy is the 2013 recipient of the Casting Society of America Hoyt Bowers achievement award and has nine Emmy nominations; she won three for Grey’s Anatomy, Friday Night Lights and Bastard Out of Carolina.

The Backyard Casting idea was hatched during the pandemic in Lowy’s backyard. Backyard casting is based in Los Angeles and will offer casting services for film and television.  

A veteran feature film casting director before venturing into television, Lowy cast shows for more than 17 years under the Shonda Rhimes banner, including Greys, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder and Inventing Anna, in addition to many projects outside of Shondaland.

Lowy also served as the casting consultant for TNT from 2014-2019.

From 2019-22, Lowy was Executive VP of Casting at the former HBO Max and the Turner nets. She was instrumental in casting Sarah Lancashire in Julia, and Jean Smart and Laurie Metcalf in Hacks. After seven years at Linda Lowy Casting, both Smith and Trotter joined Lowy at HBO Max and the Turner nets as executives.