IN THE ROOM WITH

Spotlighting the people and projects you need to know

In the Room With

Nina Gold and Martin Ware

The casting visionaries behind time-traveling horror film “Last Night in Soho” reveal all

By Jack Smart

EACH CASTING JOB COMES WITH UNIQUE CHALLENGES, AND

in the case of Edgar Wright’s buzzy horror flick “Last Night in Soho,” Nina Gold and Martin Ware found themselves in uncharted territory. The story, about a London fashion student who time-travels to the 1960s and inhabits a nightclub singer’s body, required two distinct yet similar actors whose looks felt specific to each time period. After Thomasin McKenzie as present-day Eloise and Anya Taylor-Joy as bygone-era Sandie fell into place, Gold and Martin understood that the same aesthetic was necessary to populate both Londons. The U.K.-based casting directors behind “Patrick Melrose,” “Annihilation,” “Chernobyl,” “The Power of the Dog,” and multiple “Star Wars” properties share insights into their casting process, plus their advice for actors.

What went into casting “Last Night in Soho”? Where did the process begin? Nina

Gold: I guess we started with Thomasin’s character and Anya’s character, as they have to kind of complement each other. You had to feel like they could sort of slide into each other somehow. Martin Ware: Yes, we had to try and cast those two parts alongside each other…but not look too similar, because it just becomes a bit [muddled]. It’s quite good that they’ve got some differences, but both their frame and size is fairly similar.

Since one character is grounded in the present day and another is in the 1960s, did you search for actors whose looks fit into certain time

periods? NG: Yeah, there was definitely a feeling that there is—it’s quite hard to quantify— but a feeling of people looking right in a certain period or not…. You do hear yourself saying or thinking, not that infrequently, “Yeah, they’re really great. But do they feel a bit modern?” It’s a thought that crosses your mind quite frequently, isn’t it? MW: Yeah. And to a lesser extent, “People seem old-fashioned.” NG: For [McKenzie’s present-day character,] we just wanted her to look timeless somehow. She was sort of out of place in her own world, also.

How important are chemistry reads for those kinds of character relationships?

NG: Chemistry reads are pretty good, although, personally, I think we both find that they’re not that great on Zoom. But that’s the new world, which didn’t exist when we cast this! MW: Yeah, we did chemistry reads with Thomasin and Michael [Ajao, as Eloise’s friend John,] in real life, and that was pretty important to see those two getting into a vibe together.

How have your jobs changed in the last year and a half? Is the industry getting back to nor-

mal? NG: We’re getting more back to normal in England than they are in America, from the casting point of view. We’ve started to meet actors in the real world a lot more than we were. But much more now, you start with Zooms or self-tapes. In 2019, we would have started with meeting people, whereas now, you kind of take the first step with self-tapes or Zooms, which is good and bad, because it definitely allows you to see more people. But it also [makes the process] a little bit harder to adapt [to]. MW: Exactly, because they’re not in the room getting immediate feedback. They’ll send their video in, and they might be great actors, but they just slightly got the wrong end of the stick. And quite often, we ask people to tape again. But if that was in the room, you would have done that in five minutes rather than having to wait a couple of days for them to have time to do their retake. NG: There is definitely no substitute for actually meeting in person and feeling the real thing.

Want more?

Read the full interview at backstage.com/magazine