Ty Burrell, an acclaimed stage actor who recently co-starred in Nicole Holofcener’s FRIENDS WITH MONEY, was cast as Diane’s husband Allan Arbus. “The role of Allan is difficult,” Shainberg remarks. “It’s the least jazzy, the straightest. He’s a normal guy. And yet he’s very important because Diane is pulling away from him. So choosing the appropriate actor was key. Not only does Ty hold his own with Nicole and Robert, but he is so right for Allan.”

Burrell believes that FUR is a story about heroism. “I really see Diane Arbus as a hero, a strange kind of hero, but the sort that makes the sacrifices necessary in trying to become her true self. I also felt from the moment I read the script a kind of heroism in Allan Arbus, in terms of him wanting the best for his wife, and then following through on it. We all hope to want the best from the people we love, but we don’t always follow through on it, especially when we feel like we’re going to lose them in the process.”

Rounding out the key cast are acclaimed veteran actors Jane Alexander and Harris Yulin, who portray Diane’s parents, Gertrude and David Nemerov, wealthy furriers. Notes Shainberg, “Jane Alexander was head of the National Endowment for the Arts and worked with the White House for years. She knows the kind of person Gertrude Nemerov is, and there was no question that she could play it brilliantly. Harris Yulin is also a seasoned actor and when you talk to them about their characters for a half hour, they say `Yeah, of course.’ They know what they’re doing.”

Alexander knew the Arbuses. “I was a friend of Allan’s, particularly. At the time I knew Diane she had just stopped doing the fashion photography with Allan. I wasn’t privy to what she was doing, but I knew she was interested in being out on the street a lot and she always had a camera around her neck,” she recalls. But she emphasizes, “I don’t see FUR as imitating life as a biopic might. I think that’s all to the good because there is a fantastical quality about Diane’s work, and I think also about her in some ways, and all that is captured by the approach of the film. And if you’re going to talk about the creative spirit of somebody, what better way than to go into the realm of the fantastical, magical world of her mind.”

Yulin also admired FUR’s unorthodox style. “Its unusual because it uses certain elements from Diane Arbus’s biography --that is to say, her husband, father, mother, children and her situation --and posits a completely unique imaginary character to represent that whole other world that she’s drawn to and finally enters,” he remarks. He was delighted to learn he’d be acting opposite Alexander. “Jane and I have worked together a number of times, playing husband and wife four times; she’s a very dear friend and a great actress.”

The filmmakers held several open casting calls to assemble Lionel’s circle of friends and fellow travelers in the world of the unusual and extraordinary people. Shainberg sought to cast people who would not be familiar from other films or television programs, and he ruled out resorting to special effects. Perhaps the most challenging role to cast was that of Althea, Lionel’s armless friend. She is portrayed by an armless Irish woman named Mary Duffy. “She’d never been in a film, but she sent us a tape of herself that was just mind-blowing,” Shainberg recalls. “We brought her over and I met her and we talked about what it means to be in a movie. It was important that these people be real, that we not cast an actress and digitally remove her arms. I wanted Nicole and her character and the audience to know that those people in the movie are real, that there’s no fakery.”