If you were to compile a list of the most powerful people in the movie business, you might start with the auteurs, the A-list actors or the execs who bankroll Oscar-winning projects.
But among those better-known powerbrokers is another vital cog in the Hollywood machine: the people with the ability to make and grow stars.
This year, for the first time, casting directors will be honoured by the Academy, and one of the frontrunners is Nina Gold – the woman who put together Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in the critics’ favourite, Hamnet.
As a gatekeeper to some of the biggest roles in film and TV, Gold has encountered her share of egos, but it was the unassuming nature of her latest co-stars that she said made them the perfect pairing.
“I just really felt like it had to be Jessie Buckley from the very moment I started thinking about the character seriously,” Gold said. “She has this quality of connectedness to the physical world that Agnes has, and she’s devoid of bullshit in the same way Agnes is.”
Mescal, she said, was “celebrated and fancy” but modest enough to do a chemistry read. “He wasn’t egotistical,” she said. “He came to see if it was right – and it really was.”
It was a decision that paid off: last weekend Hamnet won the Golden Globe for best motion picture drama, while Buckley took best female actor in a drama film. Both are now favourites for the Oscars.
Gold, meanwhile, has been shortlisted in the inaugural best casting category for Hamnet at the Academy Awards, alongside other films including Sinners, Frankenstein, Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another. The category has been included after decades of lobbying for casting directors to be formally recognised.
“I’m really thrilled, and slightly terrified,” Gold said. “It’s wonderful that casting directors are finally being recognised on the same playing field as our other creative colleagues in film-making. Because our tools are other human beings, it’s harder to pinpoint what the creative work actually is.”
Gold has cast for some of the biggest films and TV shows of the past three decades, including last year’s big awards winner Conclave, as well as Game of Thrones, The Crown, Slow Horses, The Day of the Jackal and several Star Wars films. She cast for more than 10 projects in 2025 alone, and her accolades include multiple Emmys and a prestigious Bafta special award for her outstanding contribution to TV and film.
There was no single formula to being a successful casting director, she said. “There’s an analytical side – shared qualities between actor and character – but ultimately it’s instinct. If you can get the actor and the character to intersect at exactly the right point, then it really is magic.”
Gold grew up in Cardiff, the daughter of a schoolteacher and an academic, and studied at Cambridge. Her first casting job was recruiting extras for an AC/DC video, before years working in music videos and commercials.
When she cast a 1992 McDonald’s advert directed by Mike Leigh, it changed everything. The pair became friends, and Leigh later hired her to work on Topsy-Turvy, her first major film. She has since cast seven of his films. “She has an uncanny ability to get it,” Leigh once said. “To differentiate at the most subtle and refined level between one actor and the next.”
Gold has helped to launch the careers of Claire Foy, Eddie Redmayne and John Boyega, whom she cast in Attack the Block after spotting him in a small play at the Tricycle theatre. She cast Bella Ramsey and Maisie Williams in Game of Thrones when they were still part of local theatre groups. Williams won the part of Arya Stark after Gold saw about 200 hopefuls for the part.
“You do a lot of combing and scouting all over the place, and sometimes you find someone amazing,” she said. “We cast Jessie Buckley in Taboo when she was quite fresh out of drama school, and later cast her again in Chernobyl. It’s really great watching people who have real talent grow and grow in their acting and career. I feel very maternal.”
With persistent concerns about diversity in film and TV, Gold acknowledges the barriers. “If you’re British, even if you think you’re not thinking about class, it’s still subliminally part of your thinking about character and people,” she said. “Drama schools aren’t as diverse as they used to be because of cost, but there are still brilliant working-class actors out there.” She recently cast a new BBC show, Waiting for the Out, featuring predominantly working-class performers.
She said there had been “phases” when working-class actors dominated the industry. “At one point the most sought-after young actors of the moment were Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.”
The industry, she added, had become increasingly risk-averse. “Names help get audiences and money, even if it’s not always the best way creatively. It’s demoralising to make something brilliant that no one sees.”
Has she ever had to fight with a director over casting? “I couldn’t possibly comment,” she said with a laugh. “But film-making is a collaborative endeavour – ideally, we’re speaking the same language.”
