Jennifer Graziano Speaks on Casting Mob Wives Chicago

Jennifer speaks on the Casting process to New York Post.

“I talked to a couple of family friends I had in Chicago and asked for some introductions. It turns out I did know a couple of the girls,” Graziano says. Like Nora Schweihs, whose father was in the same prison as Graziano’s. “We used to see [Nora] on visits. When my sister, Renee — she knows Nora well — and I used to visit she’d be there and my dad and her dad were friendly. We used to go to the [prison] yard with my father and wave and we didn’t realize we were also waving to Nora’s dad until this [casting] process. She said, ‘Don’t you remember me?’ It was really cool to realize that.” From there, the cast took shape through connections of Nora’s and beyond. Graziano explains that there’s a difficulty casting a show like this though. “This is definitely not the kind of show you can put a casting call out for. It’s a very quiet and selective process. It’s really based on relationships, and no one is going to trust a casting director walking into a city and saying, ‘Hey, we’re casting a mob show.’”