page_title: Veronica Mars
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: Veronica Mars / Production / Casting
caption_attribution_description: Teddy Dunn at Comic-Con in 2005.
context_page_description: Veronica Mars is an American teen noir mystery drama television series created by screenwriter Rob Thomas. The series is set in the fictional town of Neptune, California and stars Kristen Bell as the eponymous character. The series premiered on September 22, 2004, during television network UPN's final two years, and ended on May 22, 2007, after a season on UPN's successor, The CW, airing for three seasons total. Veronica Mars was produced by Warner Bros. Television, Silver Pictures Television, Stu Segall Productions, and Rob Thomas Productions. Joel Silver and Thomas were executive producers for the entire run of the series, while Diane Ruggiero was promoted in the third season.
  The character Veronica Mars is a student who progresses from high school to college while moonlighting as a private investigator under the tutelage of her detective father. In each episode, Veronica solves a different stand-alone case while working to solve a more complex mystery. The first two seasons of the series each had a season-long mystery arc, introduced in the first episode of the season and solved in the season finale.
context_section_description: Kristen Bell was chosen to play Veronica Mars from more than 500 women who auditioned for the role. Bell felt that it was "just luck" that Rob Thomas saw that "I have some sass to me, and that's exactly what he wanted". Bell thought that it was her cheerleader looks and an outsider's attitude that set her apart from the other women who auditioned.
  Jason Dohring, who played Logan, originally auditioned for the role of Duncan. Teddy Dunn originally auditioned for Logan, but ended up portraying Duncan. Dohring felt that his audition for Duncan "was a little dark", and he was told by the producers that it was "not really right". The producers asked Dohring to read for the role of Logan. Dohring acted one scene from the pilot, in which he shattered the headlights of a car with a crowbar. During the final auditions, Dohring read twice with Bell and met with the studio and the network. When reading with Bell, Dohring acted the whole scene as if he had raped her, and tried to give the character an evil and fun feel. At the time of Dohring's audition for Logan, the character was only going to be a guest star in the pilot.
  Percy Daggs III auditioned for the role of Wallace Fennel twice and took three tests with studio and network executives. During his first audition, Daggs read four scenes from the pilot. Just before his studio test, Daggs read with Bell and had "a great conversation". He said that she "made me feel comfortable about auditioning" and was a big reason why he became more comfortable playing Wallace as the season went on.
  Thomas described Amanda Seyfried, who portrayed the murdered Lilly Kane, as "the biggest surprise of the year". When casting a series regular, he was able to see all the best actors in town, mainly because they all wanted to be a series regular. When casting Lilly Kane, who would only appear from time-to-time as "the dead girl", Thomas did not receive the same level of actors. Thomas said that he had "never had a more cut and dried audition" than he did with Seyfried. He said that she was "about 100 times better than anyone else that we saw, she was just spectacular". He continued by saying that she ended up being so good in the series that he used her three or four more times than he initially planned.
caption: Teddy Dunn, who portrayed Duncan Kane, originally auditioned for the role of Logan Echolls.
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