Biography
Harley Kaplan was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to the United States as a child, where he grew up in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Communication Arts, he moved to New York City and began working as a production trainee for Fox Television. Odd-jobs, including a stint as a corporate floater for New Line Cinema, enabled Harley to study acting extensively; first as a student of Sandy Dennis, then with the New School/Actors Studio and Chicago City Limits. He then started appearing in the theater, making the leap from Off-off Broadway to Off-Broadway productions, before landing roles in film and television.
Harley is a co-founder and casting director with Powers/Kaplan Casting, a bi-coastal casting office that specializes in independent film. Current and upcoming projects include This is Not a War Story, The Last Time I Saw You Blessed, The Glass Cage, Empathy Inc, Buck Run, Benji The Dove, New Money, Noble Earth, Swing Away, One Penny, the web series All Hail Beth, and the television pilots, Bennie's, In Reality, and Couch Crashers. He started out in casting with the legendary office of Hopkins/Smith/Barden, where he worked as a casting assistant on movies such as Boys Don't Cry, The Cider House Rules, and Simply Irresistible, as well as HBO's television series Sex In The City. He later served as an associate with PalmStar and S2 Entertainment on an array of films, including Jack and Diane, For Ellen, Gun Hill Road, Union Square, Silver Tongues, and The Girl Is In Trouble. Since forming Powers/Kaplan in 2010, Harley has cast the award-winning Blue Ruin and The Comedy, as well as Mamarosh, The Sector, The Tell-Tale Heart, Google's The Review Review, and promotional campaigns for Sony, Random-House, PSE&G, AncestryDNA, Keio University, Yeshiva University, EF Language Schools, Carolina Herrera and Puristics. Harley has also written and produced short films and executive-produced the features Buck Run, Death4told, and Temptation.
