The star maker’s long game: Why casting director Nina Gold is the film industry’s new standard

Casting directors have always shaped cinema yet their work is rarely acknowledged by the public. Nina Gold is one of the film industry’s most successful star makers, able to spot a future Oscar-winner at 50 paces. And, this year, she might be on course to win one of her own. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it would launch a prize for Best Casting, many felt that it was long overdue. 

For Gold, whose career spans Game of Thrones, The Crown, Wolf Hall and Hamnet – for which she has received an inaugural nomination – the recognition lands with quiet satisfaction. “It’s fantastic,” she says, smiling over a cup of tea at her London office. “Casting directors did a lot of lobbying for many years. It felt like the right moment.” Gold is a warm, nurturing figure who takes her responsibility for the wellbeing of up-and-coming child stars just as seriously as maintaining the career momentum of industry legends.

She is quick to laugh and has a penchant for witty self-deprecation. Her work in casting began “entirely accidentally”: as a student, a friend asked her to be an extra in a music video and she was intrigued by the machinery behind it. “I thought, ‘God, this looks fabulous,’” says Gold. “I wanted to be one of those people.” Soon she was learning on the job in an era when “the only requirement was being willing to work for 48 hours without sleep”.

Moving on to larger projects, Gold was hooked by the mysterious chemistry between what was on the page and the person who brought it to life. Slowly, through working on commercials, then television and film, she built a career defined by passion for the form and curiosity about its different approaches. A pivotal collaboration came with Mike Leigh, first on commercials and then on the musical period drama Topsy-Turvy. Leigh’s famously exploratory process – developing characters through months of improvisation – sounds like a casting director’s nightmare but Gold describes it as education. “He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of British actors and a particular angle on acting,” she says. “He has taught me so much.”

Gold is careful with the language of “discovery” but certain names recur: John Boyega, who she cast in Attack the Block for his debut role after a gruelling audition process; Eddie Redmayne, who she championed for The Theory of Everything; Claire Foy, who had long been at the edges of stardom before The Crown changed everything. 

What sustains Gold is her long-term outlook. “People come back,” she says. “Claire [Foy] is a perfect example. She was always wonderful but it took the right moment.” Auditioning, she acknowledges, is “hell”. Despite the amount of rejections a role requires, “You want every actor who walks into the room to do well.”

Technology has changed the mechanics of casting – emailed self-tapes have replaced VHS tapes sent by couriers – but not its essence. But the talent pool has grown dauntingly large with the opening up of the industry. “There are so many more actors than there are roles,” says Gold. “If you’re a brilliant 28-year-old actress, there might be 700 others just like you.” Drama school remains useful, she notes, but no longer definitive. While pathways into acting have become varied, sustaining a career is more precarious than ever.

The biggest stars have “offer-only” status, which means that they don’t have to audition. She shrugs at the hierarchy. When it comes to selecting actors from this echelon, Gold draws on her “bank of knowledge” about their suitability, developed through 35 years of experience. But there are exceptions. Oscar-nominated Irish actor Paul Mescal came in for a chemistry read opposite Jessie Buckley in Hamnet. “He’s an incredibly modest non-egomaniac who is just not an arsehole. A brilliant actor,” says Gold.

As for the Oscar nomination, Gold treats it as a collective milestone rather than a personal victory. Even at the top of her game, she admits to not having all the answers. The job is part experience, part instinct, part art and part commerce. But her openness to all those seems to be why she’s so good at what she does. Casting isn’t about certainty. It’s about empathy and having the courage to proceed with a single vision among a thousand possibilities.