Casting “Hamnet”: Oscar Nominee Nina Gold on Finding the Heart of Chloé Zhao’s Grief‑Struck Masterpiece
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet brings Maggie O’Farrell’s award‑winning novel to the screen with a cast assembled through intuition, legwork, and what casting director Nina Gold calls “a little bit of magic.” Gold — now among the Oscars’ first-ever nominees for achievement in casting — opens up about finding Jessie Buckley’s searing Agnes, discovering the young pair who could hold the emotional weight of the film as the twins, and why the Globe Theatre’s background artists needed to feel as emotionally alive as the stars onstage.
Four Acting Nominations. One Casting Director. How Cassandra Kulukundis Unlocked PTA’s “One Battle After Another”
The Oscars’ first new category in 25 years — achievement in casting — finally shines a long‑overdue spotlight on the artists who shape films from the inside out. Among the inaugural nominees is Cassandra Kulukundis, Paul Thomas Anderson’s longtime casting collaborator, whose work on "One Battle After Another" helped deliver two breakout performances (Teyana Taylor and Chase Infinit) and one of the year’s most electrifying ensembles. For Kulukundis, who has cast every PTA film since Magnolia, finding the right actors isn’t just a job — it’s world‑building. “There’s a right role for everyone,” she says. “I just have to figure out what that is.”
Oscar-Nominee Gabriel Domingues on Casting the Standout Ensemble Around Wagner Moura in “The Secret Agent”
Casting director Gabriel Domingues has just made Oscars history. With "The Secret Agent" earning a nomination in the Academy’s first-ever best achievement in casting category, Domingues finds himself fielding the same question again and again — “But what does casting mean?” — while helping redefine how the craft is understood on the world stage.
Oscar-Nominated Casting Director Nina Gold Knew Jessie Buckley Was the One for “Hamnet”
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet brings Maggie O’Farrell’s award‑winning novel to the screen with a cast assembled through intuition, legwork, and what casting director Nina Gold calls “a little bit of magic.” Gold — now among the Oscars’ first-ever nominees for achievement in casting — opens up about finding Jessie Buckley’s searing Agnes, discovering the young pair who could hold the emotional weight of the film as the twins, and why the Globe Theatre’s background artists needed to feel as emotionally alive as the stars onstage.
Oscar Nominee Cassandra Kulukundis on the Art, Science, and Heart of Casting PTA’s “One Battle After Another”
The Oscars’ first new category in 25 years — achievement in casting — finally shines a long‑overdue spotlight on the artists who shape films from the inside out. Among the inaugural nominees is Cassandra Kulukundis, Paul Thomas Anderson’s longtime casting collaborator, whose work on "One Battle After Another" helped deliver two breakout performances (Teyana Taylor and Chase Infinit) and one of the year’s most electrifying ensembles. For Kulukundis, who has cast every PTA film since Magnolia, finding the right actors isn’t just a job — it’s world‑building. “There’s a right role for everyone,” she says. “I just have to figure out what that is.”
Emmy Nominees Cathy Sandrich Gelfond & Erica Berger on Casting the Scrappy Young Doctors of “The Pitt”
When The Pitt started streaming on HBO Max in January, the influx of intense young actors just kept coming. ER star Noah Wyle anchors the medical drama as the cracked tower of strength, Doctor Michael “Robby” Rabinovitch; nearly all the other characters on his fractious emergency room team are portrayed by relatively unknown talents delivering performances that are, by turns, wrenching and highly technical.
The Pitt,
One-Shot Wonders: How Casting Director Shaheen Baig Assembled the Perfect Cast for “Adolescence”
Co-created by and co-starring Stephen Graham, Netflix’s four-part series Adolescence has been a widely viewed hit for the streaming site. Nothing about casting the show, about an otherwise ordinary boy, Jamie (Owen Cooper), who has been influenced to such a malign degree by his online life that he becomes capable of murdering a classmate, Katie (Emilia Holliday), was standard operating procedure. Each episode is a single take, and finding an actor young enough to play the difficult role of thirteen year old Jamie and do so while shooting repeat one-shots was no small feat.
“Casting Director Jennifer Venditti’s Intuitive Touch in “The Sympathizer”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti had one of Hollywood’s great chameleons to work with when she was putting together the pieces for HBO’s limited series The Sympathizer. Robert Downey Jr. plays a quartet of characters in Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as the Oscar-winning performer is in a constant swirl of dramatic action among performers less well-known but all of them entirely game.
Best of 2023: “Barbie” Casting Directors Allison Jones And Lucy Bevan on Populating Barbie Land
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year.
Since its release last month, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been hailed as a marvel of a balancing act between sincerity and hilarity. On top of the nuanced script, Barbieland is populated by a Barbie and Ken of every stripe, for every type, despite dozens of characters who share a mere two first names (plus the singular Allan).
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Casting Directors Ellen Lewis and Rene Haynes on Their Historic Oklahoma Casting Call
With its prodigiously detailed and complex production, long running time, and sprawling cast, Killers of the Flower Moon (in theaters now) cut no corners in telling the true story about members of Oklahoma’s oil-rich Osage Nation who were systematically murdered in the 1920s by white men eager to inherit “head rights” worth millions of dollars through marriage and trickery. To surround Leo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro’s duplicitous usurpers with authentic Native American talent,
Best of Summer 2023: Emmy-Nominated Casting Director Theo Park on Fielding the Perfect Squad for “Ted Lasso”
*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA Creator Award Recipient and filmmaker extraordinaire Gina Prince-Bythewood and more.
There isn’t an Oscars category for casting directors (yet),
Beyond the Craft With Emmy Nominees From “The Last of Us,” “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” & More
A ruined world, decimated by a fungi-borne plague and teeming with zombified hordes and hardened survivors who can be just as dangerous. A biopic about one of the all-time greatest musical tricksters who created an astonishingly successful career parodying hit songs. A reality show where contestants move into a palatial castle and need to cohere as a team to complete a series of increasingly difficult missions to earn big money, with some in the group committed to thwarting their ambitions from within.
Best of Summer 2023: “Barbie” Casting Directors Allison Jones And Lucy Bevan on Populating Barbie Land
*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA Creator Award Recipient and filmmaker extraordinaire Gina Prince-Bythewood and more.
Since its release last month, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been hailed as a marvel of a balancing act between sincerity and hilarity.
“Barbie” Casting Directors Allison Jones And Lucy Bevan on Populating Barbie Land
Since its release last month, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been hailed as a marvel of a balancing act between sincerity and hilarity. On top of the nuanced script, Barbieland is populated by a Barbie and Ken of every stripe, for every type, despite dozens of characters who share a mere two first names (plus the singular Allan). Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and her dependent Ken (Ryan Gosling) were early commitments to the Warner Bros.
Emmy-Nominated Casting Director Theo Park on Fielding the Perfect Squad for “Ted Lasso”
There isn’t an Oscars category for casting directors (yet), but the Emmys have recognized the foundational importance of the people who find actors with the talent and the chemistry to create magic on screen. Without casting directors, a lot of your favorite moments onscreen would likely never have happened.
In an interview with The Credits, two-time Emmy winner and current nominee Theo Park, nominated for her stellar work on Ted Lasso,
Marvel Studios Casting Director Sarah Finn on Finding the Heroes & Villains of the MCU
As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season.
She’s arguably the most powerful casting director in Hollywood, working alongside Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and his team along with numerous directors to populate 28 superhero movies that have so far earned more than $25 billion at the box office.
“Thor: Love and Thunder” Casting Director Sarah Finn on Picking Stars for the Marvel Cinematic Universe
She’s arguably the most powerful casting director in Hollywood, working alongside Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and his team along with numerous directors to populate 28 superhero movies that have so far earned more than $25 billion at the box office. Her name is Sarah Finn. She majored in Theater Studies at Yale, moved to Los Angeles and cast the Oscar-winning Crash. Then, in 2006, Finn got a call to meet with Feige about a little thing called Iron Man.
“Stranger Things” Casting Director Carmen Cuba on Finding Season 4’s New Faces
*There are spoilers for season 4 below, so proceed with caution if you’re not caught up!
With every new season of Stranger Things comes a new crop of teens to replace those ill-fated in prior seasons to the predations of the Upside Down that lurks under Hawkins. In addition, in Season 4, the show’s beloved original members are scattered across the globe, leaving room for new cast members to take on feature roles in Hawkins’ latest rescue.
Best of 2021: “King Richard” Casting Director Rich Delia on Finding Venus & Serena
This interview is part of our highly subjective, decidedly non-comprehensive “Best of 2021” year-end list. It was originally published on November 19.
The new film King Richard (Warner Bros.) halted shooting in March 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Although his work was done, Rich Delia, one of the project’s casting directors, was “sitting at home freaking out” over one thing:
“What if one of the girls goes through a growth spurt?”
The girls are,
“King Richard” Casting Director Rich Delia on Finding Venus & Serena
The new film King Richard (Warner Bros.) halted shooting in March 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Although his work was done, Rich Delia, one of the project’s casting directors, was “sitting at home freaking out” over one thing:
“What if one of the girls goes through a growth spurt?”
The girls are, of course, Venus and Serena Williams. King Richard tells the astonishing story of how Richard Williams struggled and then succeeded in transforming his daughters into two of the greatest tennis players of all time.
