Discover how casting director Kahleen Crawford brought the iconic ‘House of Guinness’ to life with her expert eye for authentic talent.
House of Guinness, the highly-anticipated historical drama from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, is set to premiere on Netflix soon, and we couldn’t be more excited! The series delves into the powerful and often scandalous lives of the Guinness family in 19th-century Dublin, and features some incredible performances from talented actors, including Spotlight members Anthony Boyle, Louis Partridge, Emily Fairn, Fionn O’Shea, Niamh McCormack, Dervla Kirwan and Jack Gleeson.
Key to bringing this epic story to life is the work of casting director Kahleen Crawford (CDG, CSA). Known for her work on some of Britain’s most acclaimed film and television productions, including the heartbreaking Ken Loach drama I, Daniel Blake, the fantastical HBO series His Dark Materials, and the hauntingly beautiful Andrew Haigh film All of Us Strangers, Kahleen has established herself as a leading casting director with a keen eye for talent.
We had the chance to ask Kahleen about her experience working on this exciting new series, as well as how she got started in the world of casting, the importance of authenticity, and the nuances of working with major streamers like Netflix.
Here’s what she shared:
What you’ll get from this article:
- Gain an inside look at the casting process behind House of Guinness.
- Learn about Kahleen Crawford’s career journey and casting approach.
- Insight into the authenticity and inclusivity in selecting actors for a high-profile period drama.
Hi, Kahleen! How did you first get started in casting?
I first got started in casting because I studied film and television at Glasgow University. I got a job as a runner in live television in London and moved down after I graduated. I was very unhappy in that job. I was working with some lovely people, but I wasn’t working for great people. Eventually, I got so frustrated that I handed my notice in.
I [wanted] to stay in London and find another job, so I sat down and thought about what I found interesting and enjoyed, and which aspects of the industry I was interested in. I did know I wanted to work in production. I love people watching, so I thought maybe I could work with actors.
Someone told me about an agent called Maryam Hunwick, who was looking for a new assistant. I called her, and through the course of chatting to her on the phone, she said to me, “I think you want to do casting, not agenting. I think you want to buy, not sell.” So she recommended that I call a producer called Gillian Berrie, who had literally just set up a casting company. I had a meeting with Gillian the next morning, and I think I started that day. I had no idea what I was doing and continued to have no idea what I was doing for quite a long time. I learned it on the job. I think learning it as you go is really good.
In terms of the practical process of getting submissions, back then it was by faxing the breakdown out to all the agencies. I used to stand by the fax machine, I knew all their fax numbers by heart – actually until fairly recently – but I’ve started chucking them out my brain. The practicalities of getting breakdowns out, going through suggestions, organising the suggestions, setting up the auditions, moving into recalls, doing the casting advice notes, reading a day out of days, which is part of the scheduling process, we get given this document and we work out everyone’s bookings through that.
And the terms of the Pact Equity Agreement, none of that was anything that any of us knew. So we were learning everything on the job, and everything was done by paper filing, not electronic filing and emails. Most of the agents didn’t use email. I did, because I’d just done my degree and we needed to have an email address at uni, but most people didn’t use email or have a mobile phone. So it was all very analogue. I think I still suffer from some overhang of doing it the old-fashioned way, whereas my team, who have joined the company over the years, have been trained in a lot of different aspects that I just wasn’t, and I think life’s much easier now.
We were on the fourth floor of our office block, which had no lift, which wouldn’t be allowed now probably. The postman used to drag multiple sacks of CVs and photos up the stairs, and he would be so furious every time we’d send a breakdown out. I would literally sit on the floor, pour out three post office sacks of mail, and just organise them – a piece of paper above with the character name – and just organise them into piles. Once we were finished, we’d file all of them. And we had walls and walls and walls with all the old Spotlight books. We used to go through them face by face and pick people out and stick post-its in them. And we would just have files and files and files of these projects. It was a very different world.
We used to have to phone you guys all the time and say, “Oh, this person doesn’t seem to have an agent.” And everyone would be ringing round other actors trying to track this person down, including Spotlight, trying to help us with that.
How did you first become involved in the casting for ‘House of Guinness’?
We’ve worked with Kudos for a few years now. We did SAS Rogue Heroes, which Steve Knight also wrote. And I remember when my agent said, “We’ve been sent an offer for this project called SAS Rogue Heroes,” I sort of thought they got the wrong phone number as it didn’t sound like something that seemed to match up with some of the stuff that we’d done in the past. I read the script and just thought it was brilliant. And because it was nothing like anything we’d done before, it was even more exciting.
So we did that with Steve and the team at Kudos, Karen [Wilson] and Emma [Kingsman-Lloyd] – the execs there – and Tom Shankland, who also directed House of Guinness. When they had House of Guinness, they gave me a call and said, “We’ve got another Steve Knight project. Do you want to take a look at it?” And the scripts are just amazing.
Could you tell us about the casting process for ‘House of Guinness’?
No one was attached, so the first thing that we did was we started making lists of young actors, because it centres around the Guinness heirs after the death of Benjamin Guinness Sr. So, basically, we had this young family to put together from around [age] 17 or 18 up to 30 odd for the eldest, and only, daughter.
Benjamin Guinness Sr. set up the Guinness brewery, and two of his children took over running it when he died. It was the late 1800s, and they were incredibly forward-thinking. Actually the history of it is fascinating, and Steve has really captured so much about the people and their lives, but also some of the incredible things that were done by the younger family, like bringing in pensions for the workers, exporting the product to America and building the brand. They were very ambitious.
It’s a high value show, so it requires a really high budget to get it made. It’s very ambitious as a show, and some of that pressure is on the casting department. You’ve got Steve Knight – and that’s an incredible name in the industry with audiences, especially because he’s the creator of Peaky Blenders, and you know that folks will tune in for that reason – but you also want to cast [actors] that the audience might be excited by. We started off by doing lists and coming up with ideas and then we quite quickly got into the audition process and tackled that.
Whilst you might be bringing new faces in younger roles, or actors who you know as a casting person are brilliant but just need a shot at a bigger or more challenging role, we also had some fantastic older roles in our leading cast. We’ve got Dervla Kirwan [playing ‘Agnes Guinness’] and James Norton [who plays ‘Sean Rafferty’], for example. We never want to compromise on someone being a great fit for a role so, for me, when we’re considering profile in roles, it’s about making sure that whoever we’re thinking of casting could be a great fit for the character, and also that it could be interesting for the actor to take that part on. We’re hoping for that sweet spot when we’re on the hunt for actors who audiences love to watch.
It was quite a long audition process because we saw a lot of young people for the Guinness family and their various matches and love interests. We were really open-minded. We saw a lot of Irish talent but we also did have some people coming in and doing the accent flawlessly. Arthur Guinness, who’s the elder of the sons, was educated at Eton so it gave us a little bit of flexibility on the accent, although we did cast an Irish actor in the end.
It’s got a big cast: people who work at the brewery, other members of the family, the women who married in. And so we were in this constant hamster wheel of the next casting sessions. We had a lot of people in and out of the office for a few months, which was delightful.
We didn’t do very many direct offers, so even some of the younger higher profile cast, and some other actors who were also auditioning for those parts, went through a normal casting process. Hopefully it might be a multi-season series, but because of the timeline that Steve plans to tell the story on, we’ll need to cast older actors if it goes forward beyond a second series. We’d be looking to replace them with the older versions of the characters, and you have to get that right.
Spotlight members Fionn O’Shea, Louis Partridge, Anthony Boyle and Emily Fairn in ‘House of Guinness’ / Image credit: Ben Blackall/Netflix
The show follows the legacy of the iconic Guinness brewery. How important was it to cast Irish actors and how did you go about ensuring this authenticity?
We have a mixture of actors. The actress Emily Fairn, who plays ‘Anne Plunket’, the eldest of the Guinness children, is from Liverpool, and we’ve got James Norton, who’s from London. But we did see a tremendous number of Irish actors.
We made sure that we did lots of self-tapes for the first round because we find self-tapes such an inclusive process – we can consider many more actors than if the first round was in person. That doesn’t mean that we go around seeing hundreds of people for every role – that’s not the case at all. I think it’s a general misconception that casting directors do that, but we definitely don’t.
For something like this, when you’ve got these young roles, you really can afford to be inclusive. Also, we knew that we had all these other parts coming up. Sometimes you will start by seeing people for one role and then they may be brought back for another, or they maybe end up with something else down the line. They’ve invested in that process with you, so you may bring them back in again later.
We worked closely with the Irish agents, making sure that we followed up on all their suggestions where we could. I did a film in Ireland called Jimmy’s Hall a long time ago, and I lived in Sligo for six months. I got to know the Irish agents really well. We work with them all the time, but [on House of Guinness] it was particularly about putting effort into picking up the phone to them and saying, “This is what we’re about to do, make sure we see all your suggestions.”
The authenticity is really important. We were filming in the UK, just to be clear. It filmed in the north of England, but at the same time we treated it almost as if it was filming in Ireland. I always think if you’re going somewhere to film, try and hire as many people locally as you can. And that’s not for the budget, that’s [because] if the circus is going to come to town, then the circus can include people who work in that market daily. It doesn’t always happen and it doesn’t always [mean] that you get to cast those people, but they should be in consideration.
How does the casting process differ when you’re working for a streamer like Netflix compared to an independent film company?
I think working with broadcasters and the streamers can slightly differ in that, quite often, the streamers are looking at an international audience, so the talent pool differs. When you’re doing your initial list of people for lead roles who might be recognisable to an audience, they will be slightly different depending on which broadcaster and which streamer you’re working with and whether it’s intended for an international market. Certain shows have translated incredibly well from the UK over to the States or certain British actors have worked quite a lot in the States and that really helps.
It can still come up in a preemptive discussion. The producers might say, “Well, it hasn’t definitely sold, but we want it to sell in as many territories as possible. Can we look at people that have that good international profile?” That comes up in independent film as well as it’s so much harder to get a film made nowadays. Sometimes with independent British cinema or something that’s only intended for the UK market, the pressure is much less. It’s not a pool of 10 people who have translated internationally and all the casting directors and streamers are trying to get the same talent – your pool broadens slightly.
We worked very closely with Netflix on the casting of House of Guinness. It felt very creative working with them. We met every week on a video call and we’d let them know where we were at. There were a couple of situations where the director, myself, the execs at Kudos and on the show felt really strongly about some talent that maybe weren’t as well known or who hadn’t worked with Netflix before. They were incredibly supportive of us moving forward with that. Then there are other things where they do just need to say, “Look, it’s a brilliant idea and we absolutely love that actor, but we have this international reach, we have to get this show to translate and we do want audiences to want to tune in or select a show on the interface from abroad.” It still felt creative, but with those roles you go, “Okay, I understand. This is also business and we can go down that road.”
It feels like at the moment, there’s quite a few people in those roles who have a way of doing it where they really respect the filmmakers in that conversation.
You’re known for finding new faces. How do you go about finding new talent?
It’s changed a lot! If we take it from when things are more digitised, we would put a breakdown out on Spotlight and let everyone know what we’re doing. There’s so much new talent on Spotlight waiting to be discovered so we would make sure we send out messages there.
Nowadays, we can rely on socials so we can have a two-pronged attack. We can use our socials to reach people in certain areas because people repost it or send it to their friends. We put open searches on Instagram quite a lot as we find that gets passed on and reaches people.
And we work with the agents. People who’ve come to [acting] later if they’re a bit older or maybe had a career break, and certainly with younger people who are just out of training or haven’t had the opportunity to go into higher education, you can reach them through the agents. But I used to literally stand in shopping centres handing out leaflets. Literally.
What was your working relationship like with the show’s creator, Steven Knight and directors Tom Shankland and Mounia Akl? How involved in the casting process were they?
Steve is always so busy writing, but he watches the favourites that we send. He always watches them and comments and gives us any input if he feels like something’s slightly off, but he almost never does that. He really trusts in us and the producers. Because we’d worked with him on SAS Rogue Heroes as well, there’s probably a degree of comfort for him and he really trusts the directors.
With the leads, he would generally deal directly with our execs and we would check in with him and check that he’s happy with the direction everything’s going. I don’t remember a single thing where Steve had a worry or a concern or disagreed.
With Tom Shankland and Mounia Akl, who were directing House of Guinness, we worked very closely with them. Mounia had less casting to do just by the nature of her being the second director. But we worked incredibly closely with Tom Shankland, like WhatsApping every five minutes and with each other for every single one of the auditions. He’s only a few short stops from our office so he was in our office for full days of casting, three days a week for quite a long period. It was really nice to have that with him because we had it on SAS Rogue Heroes, but because of Covid we had to do it all online. It was nice to do this one fully, being in the room with him all the time.
So yeah, we work very closely with them and they’re both amazing with actors and incredibly supportive of people who may not even have had a screen job before.
Image credit: YellowBellyPhoto
You’ve also worked on ‘All of Us Strangers’, ‘His Dark Materials’ and ‘I, Daniel Blake’. Could you tell us about any memorable moments during the casting process for these shows?
Funnily enough, there’s a bit of a through line between All of Us Strangers and His Dark Materials.
What was interesting about All of Us Strangers was the casting process was a lot of quite deep conversations with Andrew [Haigh] and the producers about how to bring those characters to life. How to tell those stories and what effect one person would have on how the audience would respond over another person. That’s always the case with casting, but when you put four people on the screen, the effect that those four people have is so much more impactful throughout the entire duration of the running time of the film. I feel like we had very deep conversations whilst we were discussing the list to get us to that place.
Andrew’s spoken about this publicly, a lot of it did feel personal to him, and so it was working through a lot of that stuff with him. I don’t mean in a therapy way, I just mean making sure that we were helping him get to where he needed to be with his vision.
I feel like His Dark Materials was something that was a little bit comparative. When you are bringing these multiverses to screen and you get talking animals, which we did all the voice casting for – I’d never done voice casting before, that was an eye-opener – and we were doing witches, we were doing the children of witches, we were working with these fantastical worlds where everything is different, but you have to ground it. We also had worlds where everything is different but the same, and then we had the real world – sort of our current world. And you’re also telling that in the 2010s and 2020s. We were almost part of the worldbuilding and that’s kind of similar to All of Us Strangers – it was worldbuilding that we were doing. It puts a different spin on the casting process.
We were there from the inception of the show and no one was cast, so we cast everyone on His Dark Materials across all the series. The books were written quite a long time ago now, so we were trying to modernise it and keep it fresh to appeal to different age groups and internationally as well.
I have so many memorable moments on I, Daniel Blake. It’s such a beautiful film and ultimately heartbreaking and gut-wrenching and important. Paul [Laverty], Ken [Loach] and Rebecca [O’Brien], the writer, the director and the producer – the work they do together is always so politically important. I think something that I’ve taken away from it is the difference that chemistry casting sessions made to the casting of the leads. We had all these amazing people in the mix. We were really lucky. A lot of them, no one had ever heard of, or they hadn’t ever played a lead, or they were working as actors but also had a day job and didn’t have an agent.
Most people that we see for Ken’s films are actors that nobody’s ever seen before and from local areas, because we really embed in that area when we go and make a film there. We contact all the theatre and drama groups and make sure that people know we’re coming and that we’d love to hear about folk who are there and doing it. But it was really interesting with the different people that we had in the mix at the final stages of casting ‘Daniel’ and ‘Katie’, who were played by Dave Johns and Hayley Squires in the end. It wasn’t until we put them together that we went, “That’s the film.” So that’s always quite memorable.
I’ve got to ask about your voice casting experience for ‘His Dark Materials’. How did it go?
I remember doing some voice casting with Otto Bathurst, the director, in the room and he said what he wanted. So he would say, “I think for the character of ‘lorek Byrnison’, it’s probably somebody with a Scandi or an Icelandic accent, and it’s going to be somebody in their sixties.” But what I had discovered from the self-tapes was that there wasn’t really a relationship between the voice I was hearing and the person whose voice it was.
[Otto] had given me this brief and I’d listened to all these tapes, and I said to him before [Joe Tandberg] came in, “He doesn’t look like what you told me. He’s Scandi, but he’s not the brief.” And this big strapping, handsome Scandi actor walked in, and I don’t even know what age Joe was at the time, but he’s young. I said [to Otto], “Okay, you’ve just got to cover your eyes.” And so we ended up sitting with our heads on our knees in the casting, covering our eyes while Joe prowled behind us, giving his ‘Iorek Byrnison’. And it was amazing. He got the part, but it took two or three of those auditions for Otto to also think, “Okay, I understand why you’ve got these people here because the voice is perfect. It’s just that I’m looking at them going, ‘What the hell? They’re not the character’.”
Imagining in your own head what a hare sounds like or what a polar bear sounds like is a weird experience. People can judge themselves if they think it landed for them personally, but we were constantly trying to go, “Let’s try not to do something that’s been done before.”
Would you like to do voice casting again after that experience?
I would actually. I would definitely do an animated film or series, I would just know a lot more about how to do it. I really loved animated films when I was young, I’m a huge fan of them, and so it would be something quite fun to do.
We actually did some voice casting last year for Babak Anvari’s most recent feature, Hallow Road. Throughout the film, it’s two parents in a car on the phone to their daughter and doing the voice casting was really interesting. You see pictures of [the daughter] in the film and we kept having to say to people, “You don’t need to use the same actress for the photos if you don’t want to. You can if it works but don’t look at her, just listen to her.” Divorcing directors from the image and the voice takes a little bit of time.
Kahleen’s Insights:
- Embrace the convenience of self-tapes, as they are seen as an inclusive way to get noticed and can be a stepping-stone to landing a role or being considered for future projects.
- Understand that while a casting director may have a specific idea of what a character should be, your unique interpretation can challenge their vision and lead to you getting the part.
- Casting directors value self-tapes as an inclusive way to discover new talent, so ensure your self-tapes are professional and showcase your range.
- Understand the importance of fitting the character’s background and accent, and be prepared to showcase your ability to bring authenticity to period or culturally specific roles.
- Strong connections between casting directors and agents can increase your chances of being considered, so keep your agent informed and engaged.
- Even higher-profile roles often go through a traditional casting process, so remain resilient and prepared for multiple audition rounds.
Thank you, Kahleen, for taking us behind the scenes of your cast experience.
‘House of Guinness’ is available on Netflix in the UK on 25 September 2025.
Take a look at our website for more interviews and advice from casting directors.
