Shakyra Dowling On Her Double Artios Award Nominations, Getting Started in Casting

January 13, 2025 | Neil Turitz
Photo by Yellowbelly, courtesy of Shakyra Dowling.

Shakyra Dowling is that rare casting director who has only ever worked for herself. Like lots of others in the field, she “fell into it.” However, through unique happenstance, Dowling has built for herself a career that has earned her enormous respect from her peers as she continues to build a name for herself with other filmmakers.

Dowling has been nominated by her fellow casting directors for Artios Awards for three consecutive years — including two this year — for Outstanding Achievement in Casting: Short Film (By Any Other Name), and International Feature (The Buckingham Murders). In a delightful conversation from her home office in London, she talked about her origins, being recognized by her peers, and why she won’t be voting for herself, among plenty of other topics.


Insights: Lessons from Shakyra Dowling

  • Approach auditions with confidence, not apologies. Keep a positive mindset.
  • Build and maintain good industry relationships for future opportunities.
  • Consistently work on your acting skills to impress in auditions.

Congratulations on your two nominations.

Two is pretty fun. Two is great, especially in the International category, which is a new category.

All your previous ones have come for short films, so it must be nice for you to get a feature nomination as well.

Yeah, that’s hard, because internationally, there are a lot of features being made that don’t get viewed by the members who are mainly in America or North America, which makes it harder to get nominated, I think, in those categories.

I talked to fellow International Feature nominee Cassandra Han about that. She said, “well, I mean, we’re up against Emilia Pérez.”

That’s exactly what I said! (Laughs)  I mean, Emilia Pérez looks just insane. I’ve got it on my list of things to watch.

Oh, it’s terrific, but you know what? You’re in the conversation, and that’s what matters. Being recognized by your peers must be just this incredible thrill.

It is, and it’s fun going to the awards. Last year I went to the London one, and it was so lovely. Because it’s all your peers, a real community feeling.

I have talked to over 100 casting directors over the last year and a half, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you all support each other. There is something inherently social about being a casting director that I don’t think you see in any other department or craft in entertainment.

We have to be quite social people, because we have to remember the faces and work that people have done. Our job is to retain the vibe of the actors, our producers and what they like. It’s knowing that you’re gonna get that right, that chemistry. I think in terms of the type of person who goes into casting, in general, we’re quite friendly people. We want everyone to feel at home and feel relaxed in the room and not feel nervous.

How did you get into casting in the first place?

I trained as an actor, and when I left drama school, I started a theater production company. We were the first all-female theater company to develop new female writers with an all-female cast. At the time, there was a bit more funding for theater, especially in the UK, so we had quite a lot of support. I’d been casting my shows and doing everything.

If you’re a small production company, you’re wearing all the hats all at once. I came back to London from quite a big show that I produced in Edinburgh for six months, camping on people’s floors until I found somewhere. It was that time when you’re in your 20s and making it work. A friend of a friend was working for a big West End producer who was looking for someone to organize their casting.

And since you’d done it before on a smaller scale …

It was literally like, “oh, you’ve done this before. Look through all those CVs and pick out who you think might be right.” I kind of fell into it without even trying. I went off and had a couple of children, as you do, and went to a really bad casting for a series regular in a very well-established show here in the UK.

I felt mistreated as an actor, and I was so upset, because I was like, “bloody hell, I left an eight-week-old daughter with a random stranger, paid them more money than I’ve been earning all the year because I’ve been on maternity leave, and then I got there and the casting director didn’t even look at me.” I was saying this to a friend, literally in the park with our babies, and she was like, “you know, you could do that job so easily.” A friend of mine was making a short film, and he was like, “do you want to cast this?” It just organically happened.

Just like that?

Well, yes. A friend of a friend, who’s quite a big Hungarian director, needed someone to do casting in the UK, and that was the film that was put forward for an Oscar from Hungary that year.

It was organic. There was no rhyme or reason. I never trained with anyone or assisted any other casting directors, and I certainly needed help on the legal side and the contracting side, because I had no experience or any sort of mentor or anything. I was calling casting directors who’d cast me as an actor, going, “I don’t know if you can help, but I’m looking for a deal memo template if that’s all right.”

It’s interesting. So many people say they “fell into” casting, but they all trained with others, whereas you immediately had your own shop and did your own thing.

The first few years, it was very bitty, but I was bringing up two children, and I’m a single parent, so it fell into my lifestyle. It was every single minute of every single day that I could spare as they got older.

[That said], work comes from work. As you probably know, this industry is all about recommendations. Recently, I cast a feature film where the producer was the production manager on the first film I ever cast! There’s quite a lot of that that happens, people grow up together in the industry, in a way.

Is that why you do so many short films? Are you developing new talent to work with?

I think that’s how it started, to be honest, because I was like, “well, why not? You’ve got the time, you’ve got the resources, you love the project.” Maybe the producer or the director came through someone I worked with before, or they’ve been a production manager, and now they’re producing.

I’m now passing all of that on to my associate, Bailey, but yes, if you are an up-and-coming casting director, that’s where you’re going to find your people.

You’ve started producing yourself, having done four short films.

I’m developing a couple of feature scripts now, too.

Fantastic. Do you find that producing has helped you as a casting director?

My agent would say that I’m the adult in the room on about half of the films that I work on, because a lot of the producers have done one or two films, or they’ve been the associate producer on a film, and this is their first feature.

I do find myself in a mentoring capacity, and you have to be very careful on how you navigate that. Often enough, I’m talking people through the process, and I already had that before I started producing. It’s all the same process.

So you’re saying there’s a cohesiveness between casting and producing.

I mean, yeah. If you’re doing reality TV, they call them “casting producers,” don’t they? And when you’re attaching cast for financing, I often think, “why don’t we get an associate producer credit?” Because without that cast, the film wouldn’t happen.

Is it as exciting hearing about an Artios Award the fourth and fifth time as it was the first time?

It’s always exciting. I mean, it’s just nice to be nominated, isn’t it? To know that your peers look at your work and think it’s good.

Sometimes when I’m voting, it’s really hard to make a choice, especially the final ones. Like with my category, there’s Kneecap, which is brilliant, and Emilia Pérez. You want to make two choices if you can.

Wait, what? You’re not voting for yourself?

You can’t vote for yourself!

Of course, you can!

I think that would just be mean. I don’t like that idea at all. I wouldn’t feel right. I think the best job casting is how difficult it is to cast and get it right.

In my opinion, whenever I look at the best casting things, I think, “how hard was that?” Yeah, it’s a great film. It’s got a great cast, but you’ve got a famous director, you’ve got a 30 million pound budget, and it’s a lovely story. It’s not going to be that hard, right? Whereas you’ve got a 2 million pound budget, an unknown director, like Kneecap, for example, it’s in a foreign language that not many people speak, that’s going to be hard to cast. And, they got Michael Fassbender in it, which is an achievement for a first-time director.

With all of the shorts and indies you cast, do you find that there are common mistakes that actors make when they audition?

The main mistake, or my bugbear, shall I say, is walking in and apologizing immediately. “I’m sorry. I’m late.” “I’m sorry I didn’t get time to learn the lines.” “I’m sorry this.” “I’m sorry that.” You’ve started on the wrong foot.

If you’re late, your agent just pings me a message. There’s always stuff happening. We all have lives. Just say, “I’m not off book. I’ll just have my script here if that’s okay. Is that out of shot? Great. Thanks.”

With that in mind, what piece of advice or wisdom would you give to someone coming in to audition for you?

Always stay positive from the off. Don’t give any negative because you’re also feeding your mindset. I’m not good enough because I didn’t learn my lines. I’m not good enough because I didn’t get here on time. Do you know what I mean? Give yourself the best chance.

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