If you are one of those who sees ‘Casting’ as your dream career, nothing better than some advise from the man himself, Casting Director Mukesh Chhabra.

It’s actually very simple –

  1. You should have a good understanding of a script.
  2. You need to understand the Director’s vision. As a Casting Director, you need to stop your mind and get into Vikas Bahl’s mind or Anurag Kashyap’s mind. Once you have figured out what they want, then you use your expertise to help them achieve their vision.
  3. You should know how to present the actor. One actor can give us so many different results. Our job is to tell the Director what fits into his requirement. I do all A-lister films. How can I say one actor is good or bad or better than the other. It is all about who fits the role best.
  4. You should also know how to extract performance from an artist and take a good audition.
  5. You must understand the craft of acting. How will you brief the actors if you yourself don’t know what is to be done?
  6. You need to have a lot of patience. You may have to audition the same actor many times or many actors for the same role.
  7. You should have very good memory. You need to remember every character you have seen, met or come across to make sure you’re exploiting your full potential. You may have seen an actor years ago but you may just need him today.
  8. Your networking skills matter a lot. You need to meet people, know a lot of people and let them know you exist.
  9. You have to be extremely honest. You cannot give preference to anyone. The camera reflects everything.
  10. Last but not the least, you need to know how to shoot. You should know what you need from the actor and how to present him well. When you present a costume, you do it in a grand way. Similarly, an audition should be presentable. You have to shoot it well.

I always tell people to give this job the respect it demands. There are smaller things like, be professional, follow working hours, do not audition girls after 8 pm etc.

READ: 5 MUST DO’S TO CRACK AN ACTING AUDITION