Kahleen Crawford has a kind of good, soothing Scottish accents that make you loosen up as quickly as you hear it. That turns out to be useful if you’re coping with nervous actors, who typically have to be disarmed after they come into her audition room. It additionally works on journalists interviewing her.
Over time, a childhood curiosity in observing folks and their habits has grown right into a thriving profession as a casting director, one which has led her to forged such Oscar-nominated movies as Residing and The Misplaced Daughter. Most lately, she labored on the Apple TV adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, all episodes of which at the moment are streaming, and the acclaimed movie All of Us Strangers, starring Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. She spoke with us from her workplace in London.
How did you get into casting?
I graduated from Glasgow College, I did movie and tv and theater research collectively and I used to be a runner for some time in London. I completely hated it [and was] handled horribly. I got here house in a match of pique and, since I knew that I favored watching folks, I considered how I may apply that to my profession. I utilized for a job as an agent and had a protracted dialog with the agent who stated, “I don’t suppose you need to be an agent, I feel you need to be a casting director.” She gave me a cellphone quantity.
Gillian Berrie is a producer. She has an organization referred to as Sigma Movies, however she had arrange this casting firm in Glasgow referred to as Massive Fish. After I went in to satisfy her, she stated to me, “I let you know what, you’ll be able to both work within the casting firm, or you’ll be able to study to be a producer and be my assistant.” She was on the lookout for two folks. I didn’t have any clue, however I very a lot was dedicated to the casting thought, although I didn’t know what it was. I simply form of felt, there’s one thing about this people-watching factor that works right here.
It’s fascinating that you just selected a profession primarily based on that curiosity.
I spend a lot time watching folks and doing a model of studying vitality or watching mannerisms or listening to their voice and making an attempt to know why they converse the way in which they converse, when it comes to the place they’re from, perhaps influences of locations they’ve lived. I research physique language a lot. I’ll look throughout the room at a celebration as an alternative of getting a dialog with somebody instantly subsequent to me. I’m simply nosy.
I assumed, “How can I work with folks and performers?” That’s the rationale that I utilized for that job. I don’t suppose I had any clue what I used to be doing. In any respect. I simply didn’t have any clue what the choices had been. I didn’t perceive what casting was. My movie research had been all about, you realize, psychoanalysis and feminist concept, white steadiness on a digicam, and what an editor’s job seems like.
I’ve at all times discovered it fascinating that movie colleges don’t deal with casting in any respect, ever.
I went to an outdated college. The Nationwide may be very tutorial, and no, definitely no one taught us about casting. Apparently, I went to the Harry Potter studios on Sunday, and so they additionally don’t discuss casting. There’s all these indicators up for manufacturing design, and also you hear from the plasters and also you hear from all of that, and there isn’t a little bit part for casting.
Do you suppose your fascination with watching folks has helped you in your profession?
I feel the curiosity might be extra within the nonverbal stuff. By way of the way you apply that to casting, what story do I feel individuals are telling me with the issues that they’re saying and the issues that they aren’t saying? And the way do you match these issues up?
I suppose typically these issues are conflicting, and that’s when you realize, individuals are both hiding issues or mendacity. You get to a stage the place that may be helpful, most likely, as a result of it additionally then tells you whether or not you imagine the efficiency. As a result of it isn’t simply in regards to the issues that the particular person is saying. It’s about all of the issues they aren’t saying, which might be why a variety of administrators lower to folks after they’re listening, not after they’re talking.
Would you say that your innate sense of learning folks, and the ability you’ve honed through the years, has modified the way in which that you just run a room?
If you’re making an attempt to do this, you don’t at all times get it proper, however the purpose is to permit somebody to have their greatest 15 or 20 minutes, and the way can I do my greatest to let this particular person get the job? I feel plenty of the casting administrators that you just converse to say this. We would like you to get the job. I feel it additionally signifies that it’s important to be simply as attentive to the one that you don’t suppose is as doubtless they’re gonna get this half as a result of they’ll fully subvert your expectations for the higher and in addition typically for the more serious.
That segues proper into my final query, which is what recommendation or piece of knowledge would you give to anyone coming in to audition for you?
An thought to contemplate is that that is the beginning of a relationship. There are actors of their mid to late 20s coming in, and I’ve identified a few of them since they had been solely eight years outdated.
Additionally, even if you suppose you’re not proper for the half. If you happen to’re an orange, and even for those who suppose that we’d like a banana, are available in and be the perfect orange. As a result of one, we might select to vary it, and two, perhaps some place else that’s what we’d like. So are available in and do the perfect model of what it’s important to provide. Oh, and one different factor. If you happen to’re an overthinker or you have got a adverse voice in your head, you battle to manage your ideas if you’re underneath stress, you solely should survive a ten to 30-minute audition. Flip it off. Do all of the shit speak to your self after, if that’s the way in which that you just function in life, or you’ll be able to’t cease your self. However only for that audition, flip it off.
This text initially appeared on Casting Networks.
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Written by Neil Turitz
