‏Billy DaMota‏

Billy DaMota was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, where he began his career in the arts as a rock and roll guitar player. He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s only to find that disco would put a damper on his live music aspirations. After bouncing from one dead-end retail job to another, in 1985, he began his career in casting, starting as an assistant on such films as Predator, The Running Man and The Three Amigos. In 1988 he was hired as the casting associate on the gang epic, Colors, directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.

Billy became an independent casting director with Miracle Mile, starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. Next up was Steven Seagal's first film, Above the Law (with Sharon Stone). He went on to cast the legendary cult classic, Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town, casting the then unknown Billy Bob Thornton in his first co-starring role. One of Billy's favorite casting gigs was a family drama for the Miller Twins, Touching Home, starring Ed Harris, Robert Forster and Brad Dourif.

Billy has gone on to cast hundreds of films, TV shows, commercials, plays and music videos, casting actors at the start of their careers like James Franco, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt as well as casting Hollywood legends such as Faye Dunaway, Mickey Rooney, Glenn Ford, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Tony Curtis. Billy has worked with acclaimed director Alex Proyas as a casting consultant on The Crow as well as the Will Smith hit I, Robot.

In the TV world, along with his longtime casting partner Dea Vise, Billy cast the hit FOX TV show America's Most Wanted for 20 seasons, and for four seasons he cast the ABC drama, "In an Instant".

Billy has worked as a casting director on 35 films and 2 TV series for Pure Flix, the industry's #1 faith-family production company. Among the films he cast are Do You Believe? starring Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, Alexa PeñaVega and Cybill Shepherd and The Case for Christ, starring Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, Robert Forster and Faye Dunaway. God's Not Dead starring Shane Harper, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain and Willie Robertson remains one of the highest grossing faith-based films in history.

In the world of music videos, Billy has worked with artists such as Tori Amos, Big & Rich, The Basement Jaxx, Brooks and Dunne, Faith Hill, George Strait, Dave Navarro, Ministry, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Kanye West and The Ramones.

Billy joined the The Casting Society of America in 1992 and has been nominated four times for Best Casting. As a director and producer, Billy won several awards for Posey, a film starring Ray Wise and Oscar nominee Sally Kirkland.

Billy is a published poet, plays in a rock and roll band, and as an advocate for the rights of actors, founded DoNotPay.org in 2001 to help educate and inform new actors. He has been instrumental over the years in working on legislation to help protect the acting community and to promote and advocate ethical behavior in the casting industry. His latest book - An Actor Grovels - will be available in 2019.

In 2017, after a 25 year long membership, Billy resigned from the CSA in protest of the organization's failure to address its ethical and legal responsibility in the notorious casting director pay-to-play scandal in which it found itself embroiled. He is currently developing CASTING BUY, a documentary detailing the illegal payola debacle that recently found 18 casting directors, including 9 members of the Casting Society of America, prosecuted for charging actors for auditions.

Billy was fortunate to have studied with acting teacher Howard Fine, and credits him with helping to develop the skills necessary to find the best talent on the planet, and to better understanding the process actors utilize to do their work. Their relationship of nearly 3 decades has informed Billy's casting in a profound way.

In the fall of 2018, Billy opened an office in Southern Oregon called Rogue River Entertainment which will offer a full line of casting services as well as focus on producing, writing, directing, teaching, coaching, film composing...and fishing.

Billy is a current member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).