Kahleen Crawford Reveals the Casting Insights Behind ‘House of Guinness’

Kahleen Crawford has a habit of working on excellent material. Quality movies, like All of Us Strangers, which earned her a BAFTA nomination, Living, which earned Bill Nighy an Oscar nod, and The Lost Daughter, which earned her an Artios nom, as well as lauded indies like The Outrun, Outlaw King, and I, Daniel Blake, plus TV shows like His Dark Materials, The Woman in the Wall, The Buccaneers and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

The last of those connected her with Steven Knight, the writer-creator of shows like Peaky Blinders, and the brand-new Netflix smash hit House of Guinness.

Knight and the production company behind the show, Kudos, hired Crawford to cast the new show. Starring James Norton, Anthony Boyle, Louis Partridge, Emily Fairn, Niamh McCormack, Fionn O’Shea, Danielle Galligan and Jack Gleeson, it follows the four children of legendary brewer Sir Benjamin Guinness after his death in 1868. Any fan of Peaky Blinders will love it.

The eight-episode first season dropped on the streaming service on September 26. Crawford spoke to us about it from her London office.

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How did you get on the show? This is the second time you’ve worked with Steven Knight, right?

The original producer of SAS: Rogue Heroes had liked some of the stuff that I had cast, and he just phoned and said, “I’m doing a show with Kudos. Steven Knight has written it, and we’d love to send it to you.”

I thought there’d been a massive mistake, because it’s not the kind of show we did. We do more straight drama, sometimes police dramas, but not really soldier stuff. I thought, “Are you sure you’ve got the right number?” But I read it and it was so brilliant, and just nothing like anything we’d done before. So I went in and met with all of Kudos, and Steven was there as well, and he’s really great to be in the meeting with.

We had a bit of fun, and it was clear he was very collaborative and really interested in what [my] thoughts were, and they hired me.

So when he came back around with House of Guinness, you obviously jumped at it.

Yeah, 100%. From the first phone call, it was, “We’ve got this show. It’s about the Guinness family, the death of Benjamin Guinness, and then the kids taking over the company.” I said, “Just send it.” And loved it. Absolutely loved it.

Let’s talk about the cast. One of the things that stunned me was James Norton as Guinness tough guy foreman and fixer Sean Rafferty. It’s not the kind of role I’d seen him play before.

The show Happy Valley was his big breakthrough role, and, plot spoiler — he plays a rapist. So we knew that he had this darker side to him. But what was really interesting when we were putting together lists, you come up with certain actors, and obviously, this show has a high budget, so there’s a good degree of pressure on us.

You’ve got “created by Steven Knight,” which is a huge help, but there’s still a lot of pressure on us to deliver names. You’ve got four young leads, and we knew we might be coming up with some really fresh faces; we knew we had talented up-and-comers, but none of them are going to necessarily bring in as much of an audience as you need for that kind of budget level. So when we [were looking to cast]

Rafferty, that felt like somewhere you could put someone who audiences really enjoy watching. The exciting thing about James is that we knew that he had this darker side and that he could bring that with him. But we also knew he wasn’t so obvious for it.

Since you mentioned fresh faces, Niamh McCormack is the definition of the fresh-faced Irish lass, but she’s also surrounded by a lot of other actors who have worked, but not a ton, and are far from famous. I’m curious about the politics of putting lesser-known Irish actors into these roles.

Anthony Boyle is someone we’ve known for 10, 11 years, and we knew he was going to do really well. I think he is incredible in House of Guinness, but that wasn’t a gamble. The gamble was that there are lots of different ways you can say Steve’s words, and we can all have a different vision for how that could be realized.

It was like a blank slate, with lots of different ways to skin these cats. It was more about putting together an ensemble of four characters who would feel like a band. Then they have to match their potential love matches, and everything’s this massive puzzle that we were putting together.

Sure, but there’s also the complication of casting a huge show with people nobody knows.

The politics of it were, “Trust us. These kids have got it.” The producers then see it all, and everybody says, “Okay, we’re just going to take the leap of faith.”

Also, if you don’t give people big breaks, if you don’t give them big roles, you’re never going to have anybody else in the future who’s getting more experience. You can’t cast the same people again and again, you know? So casting unknowns or newer talents, or up-and-coming talents, doesn’t faze us.

Specifically, though, Louis Partridge, Emily Fairn, Fionn O’Shea, Danielle Galligan and Niamh — none are remotely household names. It’s a gamble. It paid off, but it’s still a gamble.

I think it’s so much in the writing, and in the way [director] Tom Shankland works with actors and the trust that’s created, and the passion and enthusiasm of our producers. So you’ve got all these amazing words that Steven Knight writes, which are a gift, and not every actor can handle his material.

I think it’s a combination of Steven’s writing, of Tom working with actors and creating such a lovely atmosphere, and hopefully we do, too, in the casting room, but then translating that onto set, and then hopefully all the actors seem to get on like a house on fire. It’s just a bit of alchemy.

Let’s talk about Jack Gleeson, who most people know from Game of Thrones, and he brings a much more fun kind of malevolence to this role.

Jack was on a list, and the thing to think about somebody who’s played such an iconic role, but you don’t have a relationship with them, is that sometimes starting that relationship can be asking, “Do we reach out and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come in and read?’”

We had a lot of really established young actors coming in, as well as older established actors coming in and happily reading, because the material was so strong, and we gave them access to some scripts so that they could really make their own judgment.

Jack had been in theater so much and doing other things, but I know his agent really well, and his agent was like, “He’s going to come in and read. If he likes the material, it won’t be a problem.” It was as simple as that. A normal process. There was something when Jack came in that was like, “Okay, yeah, that works.” That was special; he really created the character.

When you finish a project like this, the producers are happy. Steven’s happy, people are watching, you clearly hit a home run. Do you allow yourself to enjoy it? Do you give yourself credit? Or do you just say, “Okay, did it, on to the next?”

You’d need to ask my therapist. (Laughs) It’s hard. I had a conversation with one of the execs from Netflix at the premiere party, and a similar thing happened. She told me, “Stop deflecting.” I think we’re really happy with the casting of Guinness.

There’s always going to be moments when you know you really fought for someone and you really stuck your neck out, and you just hope that they bring it home. I think on this show, they all did. Some of them we stuck our necks out for more than others, and sometimes you forget that you really stuck your neck out for them because the idea was met with such interest. We’re incredibly proud of the cast, but that’s still not the answer to your question, is it?

Not really, no.

(Laughs) Okay, I think we can give ourselves a moment to say we’re really, really happy with the casting and with the cast, yes. I think maybe casting attracts a certain type of personality.

We’re there to facilitate a number of people doing our best work, and maybe their best work. And maybe while we are managing to facilitate them all doing their best work, we’re doing our best work quietly.

The thing is, so often, in film announcements on Deadline or other [news platforms], casting directors aren’t even mentioned. Like, are we chopped liver? There’s still a lot of work to do.