6 Feb 2014

The unsung heroes of film: casting directors

At the Berlinale, the four days of events celebrating this year's Shooting Stars will see the spotlight fall quite properly on the ten young actors selected by the jury, on which I was proud to serve. Much more behind the scenes, important work will be occurring with the creative enablers who are so crucial to the careers of all actors: casting directors. Launched at the Berlinale in 2004 the International Casting Directors Network will once again see its members meet with the ten actors, with a view to future castings. The EFP¹s own research confirms that these sessions are fruitful and vital: 70% of past Shooting Stars went on to achieve an international film role via casting directors they met through this process at the Berlinale.

A big cheerleader for the ICDN is founder member and current chairman Debbie McWilliams, a London based casting director who is best known for her work on all of the Bond films since For Your Eyes Only in 1981. Understandably, she's a big supporter of Shooting Stars. "It's a fantastic for them to meet us and for us to meet them," she says. "It gives them a great platform that will prove fruitful, if not instantaneously, then over the years."
While casting directors continue to bristle at the limitations imposed by the dreaded sales agents' lists ­ those actor names that financiers believe will guarantee an audience for a film ­ McWilliams is lucky to be working on a franchise that's strong enough not to need them. "Doing the Bond films, I have the world to choose from. I'm not so dictated to from the commercial angle because we don't need it. The films stand on their own, and it's whoever is right for the part."

Encouragingly, at the current blockbuster end of film production, most would agree that  casting has become less star-powered, since these days the film brands themselves ­ Marvel Avengers, Spider-Man, Twilight, Hunger Games, Tolkien, Harry Potter, Planet Of The Apes, X-Men and all the numerous upcoming Young Adult literary franchises ­ are bigger than the star names they present to audiences. We have moved on from the days when studios were focusing more on developing films likely to snag the interest of the A-list stars that formed the $20m-per-movie salary club. This gives casting directors more of a vital creative input in these blockbuster films.

On the other hand, at the lower budgetary scale, the challenges of independent film financing make producers more lustful of star names than ever before ­ even for films with modest budgets that formerly might not have aspired towards them. Says McWilliam, "Everybody's chasing the same
names all the time. It's the same list who help get a film made. That to me is rather detrimental to how the film ends up: you could end up with somebody who's not appropriate at all. That's always the battle: trying to match up the suitability of the person versus their commercial worth, and we do the best we can. Everybody has to start somewhere and you wonder sometimes how anybody ever does break through."
McWilliams points to Alicia Vikander ­ a Shooting Star in 2011 ­ as an example of an actor who has broken through, and now appears on approved lists as a bankable name. She adds, "I think it's because of people like us going to things like Shooting Stars that we are able to find new people and
try to set them on their way."

Another positive, agrees McWilliams, is that casting is overall becoming more international: "Very much. Absolutely. Just on something like Game Of Thrones, they've got people from all over the place: Russia, France, Norway. They have really gone international. I've always tried to be as inclusive of other countries as much as I can, it just lends a bit more... it just makes it feel a richer blend. In the Bond films, I've cast lots of people who I've seen on trips abroad or watching foreign films. Like (Casino Royale's) Mads Mikkelsen, for instance."
While casting directors still struggle to have their role recognised ­ there is no Oscar or BAFTA for casting, for example ­ there are encouraging signs that they are finally emerging into more visibility. In the UK, for example, at the 2013 British Independent Film Awards, casting directors for the first time appeared as nominees in the Technical Achievement category, alongside other crafts such as music, sound design and editing. Two casting directors were nominated, Shaheen Baig for Starred Up and Amy Hubbard for The Selfish Giant, with the latter winning the award. Comments McWilliams on that small victory, "It's fantastic: somebody somewhere is saying, 'You know what, that did make a difference.' People take it so much for granted. It's a mystery to me why it has been so under-appreciated all these years. It's perhaps not entirely unremarkable that it is a very much female-dominated world, and I think we don't fight hard enough for ourselves."

Casting Directors events at this year’s Berlinale:

- Casting Breakfast: Individual Interviews with EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS 2014
- Screening of Tom Donahue's documentary 'Casting By', followed by a Q & A.
- Annual meeting and information exchange of ICDN members

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