Like many casting directors, Emily Schweber fell into it, but unlike most, it was because of a guy. It’s a classic story, but in this case, it worked out pretty well. The choice turned into a career and the guy turned into her husband (former producer Ben Myron, whose films included One False Move, Cheaper by the Dozen and Showgirls).
For several decades, Schweber has built a solid career for herself, mostly in independent film and also, more recently, in video games. Hit games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle are both hers. This led to Schweber winning the 2024 Heller Award — presented to distinguished individuals for excellence in the talent industry, managers, talent agents, and casting directors — for Casting Director of the Year.
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, she has also been nominated for an Artios Award in the Low Budget or Micro-Budget Feature category for the last three years. In 2025, it’s for Tokyo Cowboy. She spoke to us from her home in Los Angeles.
Insights: Lessons from Emily Schweber
- Network effectively, as industry relationships can lead to casting opportunities.
- Research and understand your audition material deeply to deliver a compelling performance.
- Always ask questions to clarify character motivations and scene context before auditions.
How did you get into casting?
I had a great job. I loved working for a silk screen T-shirt company. I went to art school, and it was a really fun young company. We did a lot of T-shirts for rock bands and wineries. The company was in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco.
I fell in love with a guy who wanted to be a movie producer and moved to Los Angeles, and I thought, “well, I want to do something in the movie business, too.” But I didn’t have any connections. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t even know what to do.
I just started asking around, and a wonderful publicist named Lynn Hale suggested casting to me. I was reading books about how to be an editor and a costume designer and all these different things, and casting sounded interesting. I started calling around, and I found out about this woman Nancy Hayes, who was just about to go out on her own. She said, “I can’t hire you, but do you want to help me move into my new office and help set it up?” I did that, and then she hired me anyway.
She taught me how to cast background extras in movies and shows that were coming to the Bay Area. I learned a lot about production and how it all worked on a movie. Then, when it was time to move to L.A., I got my first job working as an assistant to the casting director who was casting my boyfriend’s first movie. Everything happens through relationships.
What was so appealing about casting?
I didn’t want to do anything where I had to go back to school because I was already over 30 when I got into casting. It was just somehow a great fit.
I always approached it as this is my new art form. It’s really creative, and I love the process of it. I still think of it like that. It’s building something. It’s working with other people who are also artists, taking a great piece of writing and then helping to mold it into something else.
I think it’s something that all casting directors enjoy and want to go through again and again, because we get the attention of the director and the producers early on in the process. It’s so important and you go through so many ups and downs, it’s like having this real relationship. You go through every emotion with them, and I think that’s a great creative part of it.
You’re one of several casting directors I’ve talked to who worked for the legendary Mali Finn. What did you learn from her?
She was at heart a teacher. She loved sharing, and she loved talking about casting, of living and breathing it. I was next to her for like, 10 years, and for most of it, just the two of us. Later on, as her business grew, there were more people in the office, interns and assistants, and I got to see the whole process.
One of the things that I find so interesting about your career is how much work you do in video games. It’s a tough racket to crack, and I’m curious how you found your way into it.
I happened to sit next to a parent at my daughter’s new school. They had a get-together for all the new kids and the new parents entering and that’s how I met
Tom Keegan, who got me into casting video games. He did all his casting, but then, after a couple of years of my saying, “well, if you ever need anything, I’m here,” he called and said, “I think we need to have lunch.”
He was working on a game where they were asking him to find someone who was on Boardwalk Empire and someone who was on Homeland, and they were asking him to make a list or find actors that were similar to Tilda Swinton. He said, “can you do that?” I said, “of course. That’s literally what I do.”
I became his casting director, and I learned a lot from him in the sessions about that process and what games were like. I still work with him. He’s fantastic.
What are some of the differences between casting video games and casting film?
I think that video games are a combination of film and theater. It’s similar to theater in that the actors are on a stage and they’re being captured full body with their movement and their voices, their expressions.
It’s not a close-up and then a medium shot and a long shot, and then the cameras turn around on one person and the others are off camera. Everyone’s seen and captured all at once, so it requires a lot of skill and the scenes are longer. If there’s a mistake made, it has to be started from the beginning again. The casting process is not that different. I think the performance aspect of it is a little different.
Do you find that you try to cast more people with theatrical experience rather than film or TV experience?
I think it really helps.
Tell me about Tokyo Cowboy. What was it that drew you to it?
Well, the script is always first, because that’s what we do. We read the script and then decide if we want to be involved with it. It was such a good story, and then meeting the filmmakers, I wanted to work with them.
It’s a very non-Hollywood movie, a small, quirky story. It came out very well. It had its theater run, but it’s not going to be streaming until March.
Is that what appeals to you about indie films? Doing the quirkier stuff?
I love those kinds of movies, and working on an independent film. I can be very involved. There are usually not any other decision makers than who we are in the room, so I’m a big part of the process.
Do you find, doing the kind of casting you do, that there are common mistakes that people make in auditions?
I always like to talk about the more positive aspects of it, instead of criticizing actors, because I think the whole audition process is so hard. If there were an easier way to do it, we would do it, but this is what works.
I think that understanding the scene and spending as much time as possible exploring what that scene is about is the most helpful thing an actor can do, because, with the majority of the auditions, you’re hearing it the same way. This is where actors do miss out a little bit because we’re not in the room as much and explaining what’s going on with those characters, but trying to figure out what’s going on in the scene and underneath the scene, and the subtext, I think, is the most helpful thing.
With that in mind, what piece of advice or wisdom would you give to an actor coming in to audition for you?
Ask questions. Even when you get a request for a self tape audition, you can still reach out and ask questions.
Self tapes are fantastic for casting directors. We can see so many more actors than we used to and we can do it without taking up the huge amount of time that it used to take up.
We’re not able to give adjustments in the room, but we can still give them by talking to people on the phone on Zoom or through email. Asking questions like, “what is the relationship between these two characters? What just happened before this scene? Why is my character reacting this way?” All those kinds of questions can be really useful.
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