Mira Nair’s Casting Guide: How to Cast Actors for Your Film

Born and raised in Rourkela, India, Mira began her career as a stage actor in India before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she transitioned to documentary films at 20 years old. Her narrative feature debut, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Camera d’Or and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

A resourceful and determined independent filmmaker who casts unknowns alongside acclaimed actors, Mira has directed films including Mississippi Masala (1991), Monsoon Wedding (2001), The Perez Family (1995), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Hysterical Blindness (2002), Vanity Fair (2004), The Namesake (2006), Amelia (2009), and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), and Queen of Katwe (2016).

If this is your first time crafting a casting notice, chances are the big-name actors you approach will say no. Don’t give up hope, though. As Mira herself found, the actors in your first film may be unknown—but you could be making them into stars. Mira's approach to casting can help your pre-production process:

1. 1. Find the right casting director. “Casting directors help a lot—so long as you share a sensibility with the casting director that you choose.” When Mira first started in film, she found actors through the grapevine. Only later in her career would she discover the value that a casting director can bring to the process, with their large Rolodex of contact information for commercial name actors and relationships with talent agencies. The best casting directors will bring to the table unexpected and creative choices—options that may end up transforming your own vision for a character or scene.
2. 2. Create an affectionate casting session. “Make your actors feel comfortable. Have them enter a room and not feel judged.” The best way to ensure that your casting process will result in discovering the perfect fit for a role is to make sure actors feel relaxed in the audition room. Actors who feel pressured and judged while auditioning will be less willing to take risks, and thus less likely to reveal something exciting. Your goal, then, should be to help them breathe easy by creating an affectionate and warm atmosphere where experimentation and play are welcome. Look for performances that bring something fresh and unexpected to the table, and then respond and encourage further exploration.
3. 3. Cast actors who are honest. “I love that combination of lack of vanity and intelligence in an actor.” Mira looks to cast actors who are honest, unassuming, and pure in their performance. The spirit that someone radiates is just as important as their acting skills. For The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mira spent a year searching for someone to play the film’s lead, Changez—a worldly young man who would be equally at home in Lahore and New York’s Wall Street. She finally discovered Riz Ahmed, a relatively unknown stage and television actor in London. Many other candidates had the right look and the right voice, but only Riz was able to instill the role with the proper intelligence and worldliness.
4. 4. Create alchemy between professional actors and non-actors. “The professional actor has tricks and skills of the game. The non-actor has never done it before, so they only know a lack of artifice and a kind of purity.” Starting out as a documentary filmmaker, Mira learned to gain the trust of people who'd never been on camera before. That experience informed her later narrative films when she worked with inexperienced actors who hadn’t yet learned the tricks of the trade. They often need nurturing to feel safe enough to play the fool. There is often a fascinating fusion that occurs when non-actors are paired with experienced actors. Non-actors are challenged to rise to professional standards, and professional actors are delighted and energized by the fresh, pure, and unprocessed performances of amateur talent. Children are the best examples of this, and a wonderful alchemy can often result from such mixed-ability casting.
5. 5. Test your non-actors. “The camera, the lights, the other actors—all of that; you've got to test how non-actors cope with that pressure.” Before casting for a non-actor to play an important role in your film, it is wise to test how well they cope with the pressures of production. When a camera, lights, crew, and other actors are added to the mix, can they still perform their lines well? Look for casualness, comic timing, and lack of self-consciousness—even when surrounded by all the distractions of a busy set. When a film includes numerous roles for children, as was the case in Salaam Bombay!, Mira will hold several weeks of workshops with candidates. She conducts acting games and exercises in the early weeks, and then brings in the cameras. Participants learn about continuity, watch rehearsal footage of their performances, and strive for consistency while also avoiding posturing and artificiality. By the end of those intensive workshops, it will become clear who can rise to the challenge.
6. 6. Earn the trust of your actors. “Actors look for the ability to trust the director, to place themselves in the hands of somebody whom they feel will never show them in anything other than their best light.” If you’re a first-time filmmaker, it’s going to be a challenge to convince big-name talent to do your indie film if they don't know what you're capable of as a director. In Mira's case, she made an experimental first film, Salaam Bombay!, that mostly featured children that she cast off the street along with some adults in smaller roles. In some ways, finding and molding new talent can be easier for a first-time director than attracting big-name talent. Salaam Bombay! was a success and became Mira’s calling card. Few things earn a professional actor’s trust more than being able to see concrete evidence that you know what you are doing. Having a successful first film under your belt can prove to actors that you will do right by them, and they can entrust their performance to you.

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