Casting real people

I spent years in casting before I directed anything, and the lesson I took from it is that the right person will do more for a film than the right shot. On Twelve Rounds, our film for Veldt, the two people on screen are amateur boxers from a gym in Bermondsey. One trains before dawn and one after midnight, and they have never met. Neither had been in front of a film camera before. Here is how we found them, and what it takes to do it well.

Where to look

Street casting is mostly showing up. For Twelve Rounds our casting team and I spent two weeks in boxing gyms across south London, at the hours the film was about. We did not bring a camera for the first visits. We watched sessions, talked to coaches and put a plain notice on the board saying what the film was, what it paid and who to call.

Coaches are the best casting directors you will ever meet. They know who turns up every day, who is easy to be around and who will hate being watched. Both of our boxers came through their coaches, not through the notice.

The tape

When we did start filming, we did not ask anyone to perform. A casting tape for a non-actor should be a conversation and an activity. We asked about their week, their job, why they train at the hour they do, then filmed them doing a round on the bag. You learn more from how someone wraps their hands than from anything they say to a lens.

What we were looking for was not charisma. It was ease: people who forget the camera after a few minutes and go back to being themselves. Some of the most striking faces we met tightened up the moment the red light went on, and that is fine. It just means the film is not for them.

Being straight with people

Real people are not props, and the production has to treat them better than it would treat a professional, not worse. Everyone we cast was paid the same day rate as an actor, with a usage fee for the campaign, and had the contract explained in plain English before signing. Our producer, Imogen Pryce, walked each of them through where the film would run and for how long. We offered to pay for an independent read of the contract, and one of them took us up on it.

We also told them what we would not do. No scripted lines, no pretending to be someone else, and nothing filmed outside the gym without asking.

On the day

Non-actors fall apart when you give them actions and marks. So I gave them rounds. Three minutes on the bag, three on the pads, a minute of rest, the same as any training night. Tomasz Wierzbicki shot long takes handheld at chest height and moved with them rather than asking them to find the light.

The crew was kept small, phones stayed away, and nobody called "action" more loudly than a coach would. By the second night the sweat and the breathing were real because the training was real. That is the whole point of casting real people. If you then ask them to act, you have wasted the work.