Get to Know the Casting Director: Kevin Reher

For this installment of Get to Know the Casting Director, we’re featuring someone who has been responsible for casting Pixar films since 2013’s Monsters University. The impressive titles on Kevin Reher’s résumé range from Inside Out to Coco to Soul. And thanks to his casting work on last year’s Lightyear and Turning Red, he also is twice-nominated for this year’s Artios Awards. When we virtually sat down with Reher, he shared a window into casting the latter, which just so happens to be up for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, as well. But it wasn’t just business talk and awards show buzz when we caught up with Reher. In line with the get-to-know-you nature of the series, our questions for the casting director also covered which actor would best voice Reher in a hypothetical animated feature about his life and which alternative career he’d choose if casting weren’t an option. Keep reading for those insights — and more — into the person behind all the casting credits.

It is great to virtually meet you, Kevin, and I would love to kick things off right at the beginning. When was the moment you knew that casting was the job for you?

Well, I have actually had a variety of different jobs. I was the development producer at Pixar back in the day, and after it was bought by Disney, we created our own entities within the company. It was Darla Anderson who first asked if I could help with finding some actors and samples of their work for casting a Pixar feature, which was Monsters, Inc. Since then, my various roles have also included casting, and nobody has asked me to stop doing it yet! [Laughs] I have additionally produced three short films and co-produced A Bug’s Life. Then there’s Cars 3, which I produced, and I was one of the executive producers on Cars on the Road. As far as upcoming projects, we are already casting all the way out to 2027 at this point.

Wow. That is some impressive lead time for your next projects! And congrats are in order for some of your recent work, including Turning Red, which is currently up for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards and also garnered you an Artios nom. We were able to previously catch up with Natalie Lyon and also wanted to hear what you can tell us about the process of assembling the cast for the film.

First, I will say that a lot of the casting process in animation is dictated by what is needed for each step of the way. So, starting with the lead of Turning Red, we were looking for a young actress who would be right for the part. We did a large outreach to talent agencies that specialize in representing child actors. And we wanted to stay true to the heritage of all the characters in the film, including the lead role of Mei. Rosalie Chiang was a local actress we had originally brought in for temporary vocals and ended up playing the role in the final version of the film. It is always the coolest thing in that situation when you get to tell the person doing temporary vocals that they have actually booked the part.

I bet!

And casting the feature, in general, was a very collaborative process with the director/writer Domee Shi, the producer Lindsey Collins, and associate producer Sabine O’Sullivan, along with writer Julia Cho. Everybody would weigh in, and in this world of Covid, we had a lot of actors submit self-recordings. Plus, there is also another arm of casting, which Jody Weinberg leads for us. It is basically the “business side of the business.” That includes, for example, the handling of contract logistics for actors who are abroad. There can be a lot of hoops to jump through with visas and such when it comes to hiring them and having them record while they are out of country. So, my joke is that I am part of the front-of-the-house crew who works with the filmmakers to find the right actors, and then we kick it over to business affairs to handle the deals on the back end of things. We really are lucky to have somebody like attorney Jody Weinberg on that side of casting.

Thanks for sharing that insight into the process. Now, it is time for my favorite question. If someone made an animated feature about your life story, which actor would you cast to voice the role of Kevin Reher?

There is a wonderful actor named Tony Hale who has been in some of our movies, and he is incredibly funny. Plus, Tony has great Hollywood stories and is just a nice person. I would count myself very lucky to have him be the voice actor for such a role.

That is a fantastic choice! And before we wrap, I have one last get-to-know-you question. If in some hypothetical situation you had to pick a career outside of casting, what profession would you choose?

I mean, back in the day, I used to be an accountant for projects like Nightmare Before Christmas. But for my actual answer, I am going to reference Peter Allen. He used to make the joke that one song he wrote changed him from being a struggling songwriter to a struggling songwriter with a swell house on the beach. I have always had an interest in architecture and studied urban planning at Cal Poly. I’ve been very lucky with working for Pixar and Disney — animation has been good to me — and have now gotten to design four houses. So, for this hypothetical different career, it would be something in architecture or design.

From Reher’s first intro into the role of casting director to how he still uses his outside-the-industry degree, this has been a window into the person behind all the credits. Those interested in learning more about the stacked list of titles on his casting résumé can find them listed on IMDb.

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This interview has been edited and condensed.

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