“The Crown,” “Slow Horses,” “Game of Thrones,” “Baby Reindeer,” “Hamnet,” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” all have one thing in common: casting director Nina Gold.
She received her first Oscar nomination for “Hamnet” after the Academy introduced a best casting category last month. For years, Gold worked behind the scenes, unseen but responsible for bringing celebrities to film and television. Here she details five casting stories.
“Hamnet”
Jacobi Jupe had been attracting the attention of Gold. She had met him before and was impressed. The role was from “The Roses,” but he was too young to play the role.
Finding Hamnet, the title character of the Chloe Zhao film, was not an easy task. Spoiler alert: Hamnet plays William Shakespeare’s young son, who died and inspired the Bard’s play Hamlet. “Hamnet has to go through so much,” Gold says. Her challenge was to find a child who could do everything she needed to do “in an incredibly natural, simple, non-child-acting way.”
The initial idea was that twins should be found to play the young Shakespeare brothers, but it never happened because it was too difficult. So Gold called Jupe. However, the audition process was not an easy one. It took five auditions. When Jupe finally met Zhao, he recalls, “Chloe was the most amazing person ever. I walked into the room and I saw this woman sitting in a chair. Just her presence in the room was so strong.”
Gold described Jupe as “very talented and amazing.” “I’ve met a lot of great young actors, but for Jacobi to be in the right place at the right time at the right age was an incredible stroke of luck…I mean, a blessing.”
“conclave”
Sergio Castellitto plays Cardinal Tedesco
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Gold knew little about the actual conclave experience. Large ensembles and multinational casts are required to reflect accuracy. Ralph Fiennes, who plays Cardinal Laurence, set a “standard of brilliance.” John Lithgow, Lucien Msamati and Stanley Tucci also participated. “Everyone had to match Ralph at that level of talent.”
Casting Isabella Rossellini to play Sister Agnes proved difficult. “She was able to appear in the film despite the many problems that arose regarding her availability.” Gold and Rossellini’s agents were determined to get her in it “whatever it takes.” Similarly, she had wanted to cast Sergio Castellitto for “years”. “He’s incredibly busy and hard to come by, but somehow we managed to juggle it together. He’s a really great guy.”
“Baby Reindeer”
Netflix
After looking at several actresses, Jessica Gunning was hired. Gold knew from the beginning that she was “amazing.” Gunning proved Gold right. She didn’t just take on the role. “She was smart and brave.” Throughout the series, Gunning was able to play a character that Gold felt was “kind and the audience could feel a lot of affection and love, but at the same time push you away.” Gunning achieved that complexity.
“Chernobyl”
Provided by HBO
Everyone needed to be able to use a British accent within a certain range, rather than a Russian accent. The casting process was a collaborative effort between showrunner Craig Mazin and the producers. “We spent every day in the casting room meeting people and talking about it. We were hooked.”
The cast included Jared Harris, Hamnet star Jessie Buckley, and Barry Keoghan. Gold had previously worked with Buckley, casting her in the BBC drama series Taboo alongside Tom Hardy. “I watched her long before she went to drama school. She did a play, then went to drama school, and did another play, and another play. I had my eye on Jesse Buckley for a long time.”
Regarding Keoghan’s character Pavel, Gold explains that the character was forced into a PTSD-like condition. “His approach to the character was so natural and simple and transparent, but he was also able to play this kind of numbness.”
On assembling the cast, she said: “It was a great performance of the highest order, but it was also about people being able to join a big group, and no one was trying to dominate it.”
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
Provided by Disney
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy called Gold “a legend in her own right.” “This was all a dream come true for me,” Gold says. “I’ve never done science fiction before, and I’m generally not very good at anything that has a big mythology, but in the case of Star Wars, it was about my childhood and I was incredibly excited about it.
Regarding casting for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Gold says, “Starting from scratch was tough.” They had Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. ”
“We brought in a whole new cast, and that was a big deal.” Finding a new cast to bring into “Legends” meant “casting people that weren’t really well known. So we had to be bold and choose people that just felt right. It was good. It was really fun. And it took a long time.”
“From the first little read she did in my little casting room, I just had a feeling,” Gold says, recalling her audition for Daisy Ridley. “Then we went to about nine million people and you couldn’t get her out of your mind. She was really good. She was very smart to go into the first audition where little Princess Leia had a pimple on the side of her head.”
As for Adam Driver, Gold had seen him in Girls and said, “He was a phenomenal actor in that. That was hard to resist. How great.”
