Aug 10: Casting future kid actors

Why would anyone want to be an actor? Franny and I kept repeating this question after our first ever casting session. It's insane. You have to pretend to be some strange character, everyone is looking at you while you do it, and then they judge you on things totally out of your control (eg. hair too curly for animators). Just like a job interview - but for your looks, voice & personality. Awful!

 

We're trying to cast two actors to play the main parts in our futuristic scenario - one girl (Eve) and one boy (Aidan). We happily taped our blue cloth (budget blue screen) up in the room we'd hired, and set up the camera but were completely out of our depth once the actors started arriving. Luckily we had old hands Gemma & Sam (Casting Directors) and Bruce (Drama Director) to run the show.

 

We saw about 9 actors, mostly boys, and some of whom were very good but I don't think we've found the girl to play the main part yet. We did have about 3 boys who could play the sarcastic boy though. What fun - discussing whether we should go for friendly young guy who understands the issues but hasn't got much experience or older more well-known guy who doesn't look the part?

 

Casting seemed like shopping for people. And in the same way you suddenly notice everyone's shoes when shoe shopping we couldn't stop spotting potential Eves and Aidans on the bus home.