Want to be a casting director? Alison Telford says: ‘be tenacious’

As ABC TV's former Casting Director, who has worked with HBO, Netflix and others, Alison Telford knows how to fit people to roles.

Hi Alison, can you tell us a bit about what a casting director does and how you got into this line of work?

We all meet and decide on who to offer the role to, or if we’ll go to call-backs. We may do the offer or negotiations with the actor or agent directly or that may happen via the studio or producer.

You need to be tenacious and passionate and sometimes sell your project or role to an agent who has a client you are desperate to have read for it.

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Paul Dalgarno is author of the novels A Country of Eternal Light (2023) and Poly (2020); the memoir And You May Find Yourself (2015); and the creative non-fiction book Prudish Nation (2023). He is Head of Content at ArtsHub & ScreenHub. Insta: @dalgarnowrites