Directing, 4th Edition

C H A P T E T R 2 1

CASTING

Your audience, which doesn’t care much about screen techniques, knows immedi-ately whether the cast in your film is giving authentic and gripping performances. That’s why big-budget pictures pay astronomical salaries to “bankable” actors, and why casting is said to be 75 percent of any film’s success.

Beginning directors often cast poorly. Guilty over choosing between fellow aspirants, they settle gratefully for whoever seems right and available. On a BBC film I once edited, the director had cast his wife in the main part and remained touchingly blind to her limitations. The poor man lost his job because of it.

This is an anxious time: you need actors enthusiastic about the character they play, who will work ...