Posted by | Ray Cornelius
It’s very rare that a film director will take a chance on casting a movie with non-experienced actors. But that is exactly what “Beasts of the Southern Wild” director Behn Zeitlin decided to do when looking for his father/daughter leads.
Zeitlin recently talked to The Huffington Post about his award-winning film and why he opted to use unknown versus well-known actors.
“I mean, they were the best people we saw. For her part, we didn’t have any thought of trying to cast an actor. We wanted a six-year-old. If you’ve acted, you’ve been in like a TV commercial. I mean, who has their kid acting before she is six years old? That just wasn’t the girl that we’re looking for. For her, we looked at 4,000 kids trying to find that part. And she just kind of emerged. So, for both her and Dwight, they were just meant to play these roles and no one else could have done it. For him, he was working in the bakery across the street from our casting office. So, it happens in all kinds of ways, but it was never a principle that we wanted to work with non-actors and that will be our schtick.”
Dwight Henry, who plays the father [Wink] in the film, had this to say about why he was perfect for the role.
“I brought a passion that an outsider couldn’t bring to that film. You know, if they would have gone outside of New Orleans and got Denzel Washington, or somebody to do it who has never been in a flood. Never seen a hurricane and just went in and did the part. I brought passion because i went through these things and it brought back memories to me.”
‘Beasts’ is a tale about Wink, a dying father and his daughter Hushpuppy played by Quvenzhane Wallis, who live in a flooded Delta community called “The Bathtub.” Hushpuppy, like most six year-old children, views her topsy turvy world through ‘supernatural’ eyes and make believe.
Check out the trailer…
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