Casting director attachments are starting to trickle out for the networks' early pilot orders.
Backstage has learned that CBS comedy pilot "Mom" will be cast by Nikki Valko and Ken Miller. "Mom" has already cast Anna Faris in its lead role as a single mother, newly sober, who struggles to stay on the straight and narrow. The pilot hails from Warner Bros. Television and Chuck Lorre Productions. Valko/Miller currents casts all three of Chuck Lorre's CBS series — "Mike & Molly," "Two and a Half Men," and "The Big Bang Theory." The series is set in California's Napa Valley, but at this time a shoot location — as well as a production start date — is still to be determined.
Lesli Gelles-Raymond and Greg Orson of GO Casting, who cast the CW's hit drama "The Vampire Diaries," will also cast the possible spinoff "The Originals." The backdoor pilot, which is set to air on the network April 25, follows the scion of the original family of vampires, Klaus, as he returns to New Orleans and finds the city quite different from the last time he was there — when it was still a French colony. The pilot will star Joseph Morgan, who portrays Klaus on "Vampire Diaries," as well as co-star Phoebe Tonkin, who portrays the werewolf Hayley. Shooting will get under way in March in Atlanta — where "Vampire Diaries" is currently in production — as well as New Orleans.