The Spotlight Podcast talks to Alex Wheeler of Martin Gibbons Casting about commercial castings.
In this episode of the Spotlight Podcast, we talk to Alex Wheeler, who works for the award-winning Martin Gibbons Casting. Alex is holding an Open House session with us on commercial castings, so we quizzed him ahead of time on everything you need to know to make your next commercial audition a success.
29 minute listen or read the full transcript below.
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Episode Transcript
Christina Carè: Hello and welcome to The Spotlight Podcast. My name is Christina Carè, I’m the content manager at Spotlight, and today we’re talking all things commercial castings. To talk about this topic with us today, we have Alex Wheeler who works at the award-winning Martin Gibbons Casting. Alex talks to us all about how commercial castings are a little different to other kinds of castings and gives a few of his tips so that you can succeed in this very time-pressured type of audition. A quick reminder that we’ll be calling for your questions for upcoming podcasts, so keep an eye on our Instagram and Twitter pages if you would like to get your questions to our future guests. For now, take a listen to this episode with Alex.
Alex, thank you so much for joining us on The Spotlight Podcast.
Alex Wheeler: That’s all right.
Christina Carè: And also bringing your friend, Chicken. Chicken the whippet. It has been very exciting for us in the office today to have you and your dog with us.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. He’s my assistant.
Christina Carè: Your assistant. He’s lovely. If anyone is listening and wants to see a picture of Chicken, it will be on our Instagram. So, you can check out Chicken later. But anyway, the podcast. I want to start, Alex, by asking you about casting and what drew you to working in casting in the first place?
Alex Wheeler: I had a theatre company years ago and we would do productions and rehearse readings and stuff like that, and I’d cast on at the Old Vic that they were doing. And I just quite enjoyed the process of it. Obviously, there’s not a lot of money in theatre so I decided to try and get into the broadcast side of it instead. So, I did.
Christina Carè: You did. And you work for Martin Gibbons Casting. What is that like? What kinds of projects have you been working on?
Alex Wheeler: So, we do millions of commercials. We’ve done literally hundreds and hundreds of them. And we do short films and some theatre. Yeah. Mainly commercials really.
Christina Carè: Right. And that’s part of why I asked you in today because you’re actually holding a session with us at our upcoming Open House, on commercial casting auditions.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah.
Christina Carè: I think that’s probably a good place for people to start really because people are very interested in working in commercials but maybe don’t understand the difference between a commercial casting and other kinds of casting. Can you start us off by explaining what you think the main differences are, particularly between doing a commercial and doing other kinds of… TV, for instance?
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. It’s quite different really. A lot of this is the skill base is the same for the actor, but I think that you have to have quite a different mindset when you’re entering the world of commercials from an actor’s point of view. I think some actors struggle with it because they’re looking for something that’s not there.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: Or that’s not always there. Sometimes it is, sometimes a commercial is extremely demanding acting-wise, but obviously sometimes it’s jumping up and down with a sign in your hand, or buying a pie from the supermarket, or what feels like nothing, but it’s entering into it with a relaxed mindset. And not looking for it to be Chekhov.
Christina Carè: Yeah. Right. It’s a very different beast.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. And it’s a commercial, it’s literally a commercial venture. So, it’s best to just understand that, and accept that and understand that the casting will be a lot quicker than a theatre or TV one. Might not get as many takes, as many chances because a lot of it is very much about look. Decisions of which are made by people who some of us will never meet, who are in different countries often. So, you mustn’t take it personally because it’s really, really not.
Christina Carè: Yeah. Well, let’s get into that a bit more in a second, but I want to go back to something you just said there, that it’s really quick compared to other kinds of casting. Can you take us through a little bit how projects actually come to you and what that sort of timeline looks like?
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. So, it does vary. And ideally there would be decent prep time set out in the pre-production of the commercial. But often they’re very fast turnaround, so we would get the fees and the casting brief sometimes a couple of days before we’re doing the actual casting session. So, we wouldn’t be able to do it really any nearer to those sessions because we wouldn’t have time for the agents to suggest their clients, and to then invite all those clients to come and meet us.
Christina Carè: Yeah, of course.
Alex Wheeler: So, yeah. It’s done very, very fast. I don’t know always the reason for that, but I think some of it is certainly money, isn’t it? Because the less time people are engaged on a job, the less you have to pay them.
Christina Carè: Yeah.
Alex Wheeler: So, it is just quite often a very fast process. And then the actual day itself, the appointments have to be short because you might be seeing five or six characters in a day, which obviously you wouldn’t do for TV really or theatre because you’d look at 15, 20-minute appointments. You wouldn’t take it a bit easy, which when we cast film, we do. Also, sometimes, it’s just you don’t need very long often, because obviously, the final thing is 30 seconds long generally. Or even if it’s longer, the person’s performance in it generally isn’t that long, so we wouldn’t need 20 minutes, you wouldn’t be able to do that many takes.
Christina Carè: Of course. Yeah. Particularly if you’re casting a whole family or something for a commercial, you’ve got so many different people and they’re only maybe saying one or two things.
Alex Wheeler: Generally, they’re not the star because the product is. So, if there’s a family sat on the couch, it’s the couch that’s actually the focus.
Christina Carè: The couch is the star of that.
Alex Wheeler: Well, really yeah. We cast a lot of bed commercials as well, it’s the bed that they’re trying to sell, isn’t it? Not the people in it.
Christina Carè: Yeah. That makes sense. So, when you actually finally receive that project brief and you do start to look for people, what’s that process like in terms of… I mean, you must get hundreds of submissions for each character, and ultimately, as you say, they’re only going to be saying one or two things maybe. How on earth do you start that narrowing down process? Is it first just based on the look or are you looking for authenticity of some other kind? What’s that process actually like?
Alex Wheeler: It really depends on what the brief is actually. So, there’s a few factors involved in that, a few possibilities really. So, if you’re sending out a brief that’s very good money, then you’re going to be looking at a higher level of agents. This is quite an awkward conversation, isn’t it really? But it’s true because the narrowing down has to happen somehow. Also if a brief is very, very wide, which often it is in commercial, so 30 to 35-year-old woman.
Christina Carè: Right. Of any description.
Alex Wheeler: Sometimes, yeah. We all wrangle for hours or days to get more information and we don’t always get it. So, we’ll have to either make a judgement call or see a variety of people. In that case, a brief like that, I’d say, the widest one, if you did 20-25-year-old female, you’re going to get thousands of suggestions.
Christina Carè: Of course.
Alex Wheeler: So, then we have to narrow it down, often by the agent. If it’s a very specific look, then the look would come first because we need them to look like that more than we need to know about other stuff, I suppose.
Christina Carè: Yeah. So, that’s probably a good thing to note is that it’s not necessarily whether or not you’ve got an incredible, crazy CV behind you if for instance, it’s look driven. What you’ve done before is probably not so relevant.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. And the demands of the job make a difference because there might not really be any acting involved, it might just be a physical score. You might actually just be putting something on a table, look fairly neutrally and you don’t need to be able to create a meaningful character or anything. It doesn’t make any difference. But, yeah, once we’ve put it out, we generally send our breakdowns to everyone, and sometimes we’ll restrict them geographically, so we would just send them to London or just to Manchester for instance, or whichever city it is. But generally, we’re sending them to everyone, but again it really depends on what the brief is, because if it’s too wide then we can’t really, because it’s just going to attract too many suggestions and we just won’t be able to look at them. In the past, we’ve sent out things and got thousands of suggestions per role.
Christina Carè: Right. Yeah, of course. And given the timescale that you’ve got to work with, that’s just not doable.
Alex Wheeler: We just can’t, physically don’t have time to look. So, then, in that case, you are going to start having to narrow it down through some means, and that often is the agent.
Christina Carè: And say, you’ve got past that point and you do have a whole selection of people in front of you, is it the headshot then that is the next thing that you’re looking at and it’s just a matter of, does this person suit that?
Alex Wheeler: I’ll be honest, a lot of people you just know of them anyway, from your knowledge of doing it for ages. Ideally, we’ll look at CVs and reels if possible. But again, it depends on what they’re doing because it might not matter if they could act or not.
Christina Carè: Right. Of course.
Alex Wheeler: But if there’s specific requirements, if there’s singing, I want to know that there’s some evidence that they can do that. If their role is particularly theatrical or stylized, then some theatre background is really helpful in that, or training, conservatoire training is helpful.
Christina Carè: Yeah.
Alex Wheeler: So, yeah. It really depends on what the brief is but you’re just trying to look for the relevant information to support their cause.
Christina Carè: Yeah. So, then say you’ve narrowed it down. How many people are you likely to actually bring in and see?
Alex Wheeler: Between eight and 12 probably.
Christina Carè: Okay. So, it’s a much smaller number obviously.
Alex Wheeler: It’s very, very small, and that’s one thing that people must also remember, that when you get to the casting stage, you’re already in an extremely small, shortlist.
Christina Carè: Of course.
Alex Wheeler: Out of what might have been 600 people.
Christina Carè: So, you’ve already done amazingly well to get to that point.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. Based on things that are totally out of your control. But, yeah.
Christina Carè: Exactly.
Alex Wheeler: Like, you’re there, you’ve now got a high chance of getting the job. So, there’s no need to be nervous about it, we obviously want you to come and succeed.
Christina Carè: Yeah. Of course. So, I want to go into that then a bit more, because obviously one of the questions we get a lot is about making a good impression in the room, physically, once you’ve actually managed to get past that whole process. What do you think makes the difference between a good impression and a bad impression?
Alex Wheeler: Well, nerves are just awful really, for everyone. We can deal with that if it’s just us and the actor. We can navigate that much easier by just putting them at ease. But often with commercials there are quite a lot of people in the room, there could be eight people sat there and they could be looking at laptops and not really paying attention. And so bringing that nervous energy in is always counterproductive for any performance, isn’t it? Of any style really. That’s also something that people have to overcome through time and practise.
Christina Carè: For sure.
Alex Wheeler: I think having any sort of attitude about what it is slightly astonishing because you must have known what it was before you came.
Christina Carè: You mean like a bad attitude to the product or something?
Alex Wheeler: Oh, yeah. It’s very rare, but it happens.
Christina Carè: Oh, dear.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. Where it’s a bit like, I’m too good to do this.
Christina Carè: I see.
Alex Wheeler: Well, didn’t force you to come.
Christina Carè: Yeah, of course.
Alex Wheeler: But the thing is to be relaxed and confident, and I think it’s showing that side of yourself that you would show if you were working in retail or that sort of thing. That warm, open, friendly professional side of yourself that’s relaxed and ready to do whatever ridiculous thing we’re going to ask you to do.
Christina Carè: Right. So, some enthusiasm.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah, but it just has to be real. It has to be calm. You have to be just ready to do it and be friendly and just all the normal things that we will be to you.
Christina Carè: With a commercial, as opposed to a short film, I suppose it’s not quite as important to demonstrate your entire personality up front and have a whole chat or anything like that or what do you think?
Alex Wheeler: I suppose it’s two different things because with a short film it’s a much slower pace, isn’t it? Or any film, it’s a much slower pace generally, for a decent cast part. So, you’re automatically entering into a much slower pace of interaction, so it’s just automatically, generally, more relaxed anyway, because it doesn’t have that frantic time pressure in a reception full of people that you’re trying to get through and all that.
Christina Carè: I think I ask mostly because I know that we get asked a lot, should I make small talk or should I talk about myself a bit before I just launch into my audition? That’s a common question that we get.
Alex Wheeler: I think you’ve just got to go with whatever’s happening in the room.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: The casting director will normally solicit chat if they want that.
Christina Carè: Yeah.
Alex Wheeler: We always do, because that’s how we would relax the person coming into the room.
Christina Carè: Of course.
Alex Wheeler: I don’t want to just bring them in and stand them in the corner and make them perform.
Christina Carè: “Start!”
Alex Wheeler: Yeah, exactly.
Christina Carè: Okay. What about with younger performers? Because I’ve noticed obviously you guys have cast things for like CBeebies and things like that. What’s the difference with a younger performer? Is there a difference?
Alex Wheeler: Not really. No.
Christina Carè: They just come in and do the same sort of things?
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. I mean with smaller children, nerves can be just debilitating and there’s no possibility of performance.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: And in that situation, we don’t put them under any sort of pressure whatsoever. If they don’t want to do it, they absolutely don’t have to. That applies to adults as well, you don’t have to do anything. Generally, it’s quite fun really, because they tend to view it like play more, which is actually the ideal that acting training, as an adult, is leading towards, isn’t it? That you enter into a process like a child, in a way, with joy.
Christina Carè: Do you think there’s something that parents can do to help, in terms of preparing their kids? Or do you have any advice for parents?
Alex Wheeler: I’m not a parent, so I don’t have any specific parenting advice, but in sense of this… I really like meeting the parents who are really not that bothered whether their kid gets the job or not.
Christina Carè: They’re just relaxed themselves.
Alex Wheeler: Their kids are just into it and wants to do acting and enjoys doing these sorts of things and they bring them and then they take them to badminton or take them out for their tea or whatever. I think it’s best to keep it like that because you can’t put too much weight on it. Particularly in commercials when decisions are being made on just things that they really, really can’t control. It would be really easy for them to take it too seriously or internalise it, so I just think it’s important for children and parents and everyone, to just take it for what it is. Just come in and have fun and go again.
Christina Carè: Yeah. Just treat it like it’s not like the be-all and end-all.
Alex Wheeler: Well, it’s absolutely not the be-all and end all, it really, really isn’t. It’s just a job interview. Or if it’s a kid, it might just be a laugh. They might just actually be running in and jumping on a couch or something, so it’s probably just a bit of fun. Yeah. You should just treat it like that, I think.
Christina Carè: Okay. So, that’s good advice to parents to just maybe treat it as a fun thing for your child if they’re interested in acting. That’s the best way to help prepare them.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah, I just would avoid doing anything that applies any pressure to the success within it, because there’s just not really… They don’t really have any control over it.
Christina Carè: Right. Yeah. That’s a good lesson for everyone. Just got to go with it. Can you explain to us a little bit about pencilling, and I know that’s a controversial topic and it makes lots of actors quite upset.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah.
Christina Carè: What’s your view on navigating that? Or how does that work?
Alex Wheeler: So, if I talk specifically from commercials and not film. We might see 300 people, 200 people, 100 people, a lot of people. I don’t know, it’s not realistic for a lot of casting directors and casting companies to give feedback on everyone from the first round. It would take all day. And I don’t know whether that is reasonable at that stage. I’m not saying I don’t think it’s reasonable. I’m saying I don’t know. When people have come to recall, I think you need to communicate with them about whether they’ve got it or not. The problem is that we are only able to pass on information that we’re being given. So, if there is no information, I can keep saying there’s no information, but I actually sometimes don’t know. Sometimes people get confirmed the day before the shoot, and so they have been on pencil for quite a long time.
And those pencils still stand if they choose to honour them. I think that ideally, people will communicate and if people are now not successful then you definitely need to tell them, particularly if they’ve been to a recall because they’ve invested time now. I agree with what the actors are saying about it, it’s a bit rude to just suddenly just say nothing after the first round. It’s just a lot of time in commercials it’s just not realistic for us to be able to do it.
Christina Carè: Yeah. There’s just so many people.
Alex Wheeler: The trouble comes from, that we just don’t know the answer. So, you’re on pencil because no one’s been confirmed. I think the issue though that a lot of people have is that someone has been confirmed and then the other people are not being communicated with and that isn’t fair.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: So, then you’re on pencil for something that doesn’t exist anymore because someone else is doing it. So, I think that’s probably the most contentious and annoying thing, that you’ve been kept hanging on for nothing. But a lot of the time the delays are to do with communication to us. Because we can’t confirm people. We don’t cast the people. We don’t decide.
Christina Carè: So, it’s the information from producers or directors or someone else.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. From production companies or agencies. Yeah. So, we don’t make the final decision so we can only confirm if we’re told to.
Christina Carè: That’s good for people to know, that it’s a bigger web, a production.
Alex Wheeler: It really is.
Christina Carè: It’s not just the casting person has not told him.
Alex Wheeler: And although from our perspective, because obviously, we’re thinking about the performers and the casting. A producer is dealing with all of the strands of the production. So, the production design, the costume, they’re having to hire all of the people to do all these separate jobs, aren’t they? The crew, the lighting, the sound, everyone. So, it is just one strain of a very, very massive project for often one or two individuals. And they’re waiting for decisions often from the end client, so that would be the supermarket or the car company or whoever. It’s them, generally, who are going to cast the person, and that’s the information that we’re waiting for. And they’re not under the same pressure as the rest of us because they don’t feel like they have to be, I don’t think.
Christina Carè: One thing that’s probably good to mention there actually, in terms of talking about the brand itself that you’re working for ultimately, in creating the commercial, is that sometimes… We actually had Esta Charkham on a podcast a while ago and she mentioned the fact that she’d had a client who went for a soft drink ad and hadn’t told her, as the agent, that he was doing that. She was quite upset because that meant that he could never do any other soft drinks. That’s probably an important thing to mention to actors is that if you’ve been in an Evian ad you can’t then go do another water brand or something.
Alex Wheeler: Most of them, they don’t want any conflicting commercials for two or three years. So, yeah. We have had that situation come up before that they’ve neglected to tell us, or the agent has forgotten or they’re a new client to the agent and then that information has not been passed on, and then we’re getting videos sent to us from YouTube of this person they want to cast in the rival companies’ commercial.
Christina Carè: Right. Which they can’t do.
Alex Wheeler: Well, they won’t do, will they? Why would they want to?
Christina Carè: Of course.
Alex Wheeler: Why would they want to do that?
Christina Carè: You can’t be the face of a conflicting set of brands.
Alex Wheeler: No. Sometimes it will just come down to how featured they are as well because obviously we never know until the final edit how much actually someone is in it. And if they’re not really in it, or they look very different, it might not matter. But if they are featured as representing the brand, then no. No one’s going to want to cast them.
Christina Carè: So, that’s important to tell the actors, that if you’ve been in some commercials, you should really communicate that to your agent.
Alex Wheeler: Absolutely. Because there’d be a lot of commercials in that case, if you had done quite a few commercials, there’d be a lot of castings that you wouldn’t get submitted for by your agent because it would be conflicted. So, if you had just filmed an Ocado advert, they’re not going to sub you for the Sainsbury’s one.
Christina Carè: Right. Of course. I want to touch on something you mentioned before, which is the attitude thing, of something maybe being “beneath you”, in quotation marks, as an actor. What do you say to that? Because it seems to me that actually, commercials are often… They can be a make-or-break thing too. If you’re in the John Lewis ad for Christmas or something, obviously that’s massive. Commercials can be tiny, they can be huge.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah.
Christina Carè: What do you think about that, in terms of acting performances? Is there an art to commercial?
Alex Wheeler: I think there’s… I mean, acting is acting in a way, but I think that the interpersonal, professional skills, you just have to slightly adjust to play the game of commercials a bit more. Because we’re not just dealing within the creative world, that world in commercials is then expanded out to clients and people who are not in the creative field. They work in an office at a brand.
Christina Carè: Yes.
Alex Wheeler: So, I think if you do feel that way, and you can feel that way if you want, don’t come in.
Christina Carè: Yeah.
Alex Wheeler: Don’t submit yourself.
Christina Carè: Making commercials are not for you.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. Just don’t get involved. It’s quite rare that it happens, but we have had a few things like that and I’ve thought, well, that’s not really fair, is it? Because it was quite clear what it was, it literally says on Spotlight: ‘commercial’. So, I think that’s not fair because we’re human beings too. I don’t want to have people treat me horribly at work more than anyone else does.
Christina Carè: Of course. Yeah. And you can detect a bad attitude really if it’s in the room.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. And it can be for a thousand reasons, of course. I don’t know that it’s always for those reasons, but it can sometimes manifest itself like that. Just like nerves can sometimes manifest themselves as aggression. I’m not psychic, so I don’t know what they’re actually thinking.
Christina Carè: I want to ask you one other thing about just the art of casting, I guess. What is your take on diversity and inclusivity for casting, for instance, families and things like that? Do you have a view, do you try to push for more inclusive casting? What’s the take on that? Or is it very much, it comes from the brand? Do they dictate what kind of person does this thing?
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. It generally comes from the brand. However, we will push back if we can’t see any reason for it. Yeah. That’s very difficult for commercials because we’re not the gatekeepers of that problem, unfortunately, as obviously we’re working to a casting brief, so we’re trying to find whoever they’ve asked us to find. That doesn’t mean that we can’t go back, and we do go back and say, “Why are they all Caucasian? What’s that got to do with anything?” That sometimes can be to do with it being shown in a particular market or a particular region. So, it could actually just be to do with that. It can be to do with the demographic of their customer, I think. I don’t know loads about that side of it obviously, that’s all happened before it gets to me. What I think about diversity and inclusion are that those are two completely different things.
Christina Carè: Yeah, for sure.
Alex Wheeler: We do see diversity, which tends to be box-ticking exercises. And I think inclusivity is trying to change systems and mentality so that things are actually accessible. I think, one is active and the other one isn’t. The other one’s a bit like, “Look how diverse we are.” But the answer to the casting bit is, yeah, we would try to do everything we can, but ultimately, it’s not up to us.
Christina Carè: There are many factors.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. But it has changed a lot over the last few years. There’s loads more, I’m going to use the word diversity because it’s appropriate in this case. There is more diversity in representation in commercials we’ve seen.
Christina Carè: Okay. Yeah. We’ve got something slightly new today for our podcast, which is that we’ve put a call out on Instagram for some questions. So, we have a question from Instagram for you, Alex. It comes from Efa Bradley. She says, “Hello. I’ve just moved to London and I’m hoping to start auditioning. What are the first steps to getting an agent?” What do you think?
Alex Wheeler: Well, it will depend entirely on what is on Efa’s CV.
Christina Carè: Do you think commercials are a good way to actually getting representation down the track?
Alex Wheeler: Well, I think it’s changed now really, that most agents will just consider commercials as part of the income, so I think it would be just as hard to get an agent to represent you for those as any other agent.
Christina Carè: Right. It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg thing.
Alex Wheeler: It is really, yeah.
Christina Carè: Because you did mention that sometimes you look at particular agents to suggest people for certain parts. So, in that case, you already need to have had the agent before you get the commercial.
Alex Wheeler: Absolutely. It’s like the old Equity card thing, isn’t it? Where you’d have to work to get an Equity card, but how do you work if you don’t have an Equity card? It depends on what… It really depends on what is on the CV, because if they’ve got conservatoire training, they’re in with a bigger shot. If they’ve got some credits they are in with a bigger shot. But it really is chicken and egg. You actually have to have something to offer this person to sell.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: Really. But that’s probably more a question for an agent actually, than me.
Christina Carè: Fair enough. Actually, maybe that inspires me to ask you one other thing about that actually. Does it matter if someone has worked much in the UK or if they have an accent or English as their second language? Does that matter much to you?
Alex Wheeler: Only if they’re speaking in the commercial, in which case their accent might be desirable and necessary. Often people aren’t speaking in commercial, so then who cares?
Christina Carè: They’re jumping on the couch. Yeah. If you’re jumping on the couch you can do anything.
Alex Wheeler: We see people from absolutely all over the place because it makes absolutely no difference, at all. So, no it doesn’t matter. But sometimes we’re actually actively looking for people who have that accent, so then I’m like, “Where are all the people with Slovenian accents?”
Christina Carè: So, if you have a Slovenia accent, maybe just let us know on Spotlight, that you’re ready.
Alex Wheeler: Yep.
Christina Carè: Well, that’s fabulous. I have one last question which relates to your session that you’re holding. You’re giving audition advice. Do you have any final advice that you would give to actors in terms of navigating the commercial audition process and succeeding?
Alex Wheeler: Be the version of yourself that is warm and appealing. Be professional. Be friendly and try to take direction quickly because we were under massive time pressure so it’s ideal not to think about it too much and just do it. Because it doesn’t require a lot of character preparation generally.
Christina Carè: Right.
Alex Wheeler: It’s literally what we just said.
Christina Carè: It’s the energy.
Alex Wheeler: Yeah. Just do what I just said, that’s all. Yeah. Just try to enjoy it and definitely don’t take it too seriously.
Christina Carè: Or too personally.
Alex Wheeler: Absolutely don’t take it personally. It’s not personal. Hardly ever is it personal, so you mustn’t do that. And that’s the case for any acting job. It’s hardly ever personal. There’s a myriad of reasons why people get chosen for things, and generally, it’s things they can’t do anything about.
Christina Carè: Yeah. Totally. Thank you so much, Alex. That’s great advice. Thank you.
Alex Wheeler: That’s all right.
Christina Carè: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spotlight podcast. That’s all for now, from the home of casting. Don’t forget, if you have any questions or people, you’d like us to speak to in future episodes of the podcast, you can hit us up on Twitter at Spotlight UK or drop us an email at questions@spotlight.com.
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