Assembling the Avengers
MCU casting director Sarah Finn is like Marvel Studios’ very own Nick Fury, scouring the globe to find the very best talent to don the supersuits. Total Film meets the woman responsible for discovering the biggest heroes in cinema.
What does it take to be a superhero? Just ask Sarah Finn, Marvel’s long-standing casting director. She’s been there from the beginning, when she handed Robert Downey Jr. the role of Iron Man, and she has spent the better part of 12 years personally selecting the perfect actors to play Marvel’s roster of heroes.
“You don’t ever know what you’re going to find,” Finn tells Total Film of her often global searches, when we meet in London’s Corinthia Hotel. “Somebody might walk in and breathe life into a character in an unexpected way and you realise, that’s it, that’s the most exciting version [of the character].”
Now that Phase 3 of the MCU is complete, Finn is speaking about her work for the first time. “It’s nice to take a minute and look back at all we’ve accomplished,” she says. “I have a 12-year-old and he thinks the world has always had Iron Man and Star-Lord...”
“I AM IRON MAN”
“It was a somewhat challenging process casting Iron Man, because Robert Downey Jr. was not known as an action hero, and also had been, frankly, in the news in certain ways. However, he’s an incredible actor. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves for this part because, even though it’s this worldwide phenomenon, when you look at where he started as Tony Stark and where he ends with his daughter and ‘I love you 3,000’ and the arc his character has had, you can’t help but be struck by his talent. He’s one of the most talented actors we have.
“He was willing to screentest for the part to dispel any doubt that there was no-one else that could play the role. He was enthusiastic and willing to fight for it and, really, he walked in to do a screen test and walked out with the part. I don’t think we said it in the room, but I think everyone felt it. His audition is on the internet; he read a scene as Iron Man. And you’ll see it, when he says the words, it’s obvious you’re witnessing a moment in history.”
FIGHTING FIT
“Actors have to be all-in for the kind of training they’re going to undergo, but it’s not a requirement coming in. They have to have the willingness and desire to work on it. For example, Brie Larson had not done anywhere near the kind of workouts she [then] underwent to train for Captain Marvel. It will blow you away to look at what she did in the course of training. She had won an Oscar for Room and then she signed on for Captain Marvel, and she started training rigorously. Six months in, she was training twice a day and bench-pressing and they had her pushing a truck. She went for it. She devoted herself to that as much as she did the acting and the character. She wanted to physically feel the power of the character as much as she could. So [physicality is] not as much a prerequisite as it is a willingness to do what it takes to bring the character to life.”
MAKING A TEAM
“[Guardians Of The Galaxy director] James Gunn had this idea about this misfit family who come together, and I think that theme with family has gone through a lot of these films. But I will admit that when I sat down for the first big meeting and there was a statue of the tree [Groot], and I knew that two of my five team members were going to be a raccoon and a tree, it was a little intimidating for me! I cast them [Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel] and you’d be surprised by how much stuff goes into that. It was about asking, who is the raccoon? Who is Rocket? And really, he’s a very compelling character who’s wounded and tortured and broken, but funny and irascible and very sympathetic. I think we went through over 100 [voice] options for Rocket, so that was a fun process. Also, when we’re building the ensemble we’ve been very lucky to have this incredibly high-calibre talent.”
WAITING FOR A STAR-LORD
“When we were doing Guardians Of The Galaxy, Star-Lord was a very difficult role to cast. He had a very specific voice, in the way that when Robert Downey Jr. spoke the first lines as Tony Stark, we knew he had arrived. With Star-Lord, it was more difficult. We weren’t finding it as we were going. I had seen Chris Pratt audition for me in other things, and I had watched him in Moneyball and Her, and I really thought he could be right. But he didn’t see himself for the part at all, and wouldn’t audition. Refused.
“I tried over several months and I finally convinced him to come in and audition. James Gunn said, ‘The guy from Parks & Rec? I don’t want to see him, he’s totally wrong.’ So it was really a struggle. James says I tricked him. I don’t remember exactly tricking him but James was at the office and I scheduled Chris to come in and read, and I just said, ‘James, here’s Chris, why don’t we do this together?’ And it really was one of those eureka moments. As soon as Chris started saying the words, we knew he had our Star-Lord.”
‘it was a little intimidating having to cast a raccoon and a tree!’ sarah Finn
PAGING PETER
“Spider-Man was a huge challenge because I felt a big responsibility to the fans. If we were going to do it again fairly soon after the last iteration [The Amazing Spider-Man 2], I felt that it needed to be something fresh and new and distinct for people to get excited about. Otherwise, why go there? It was a challenge because Spider-Man was meant to appear in Civil War, which would take place a few months before the subsequent Spider-Man film, but we had to cast Tom Holland a year and a half earlier. So in the casting process, while we were looking at people, I was trying to gauge – and luckily I have boys – who had gone through their growth spurt and who hadn’t. You can’t ask that question, of course!
“We cast Tom, he was able to shoot Civil War, and then he had to wait an entire year before shooting Homecoming. He’s one that did a backflip in his screen test. He had all of the training from Billy Elliot. He asked me, ‘You think it’s okay if I do a backflip?’ I said, ‘As long as you’re not going to get hurt!’”
GOING FOR GOLD
“Oscar-winning actors – most actors – want to know what the role is, what the material is, and these are secretive projects, so it’s not like they can just get sent the script in the mail and take a look at it. It’s really a process of engaging them, and finding out if they’re passionate about bringing that character to life, because that’s where it works. We never want to twist anybody’s arm. It’s not going to work for the film if they’re not genuinely enthused about bringing these characters to life. When Cate Blanchett signed on to play Hela in Thor: Ragnarok, it was a hugely exciting moment because it was Cate Blanchett! And she was genuinely over the moon about working with Taika Waititi and
Chris Hemsworth, this character, bringing it on and having fun.”
CASTING A SPELL
“Every process is different to be honest. There’s no two movies I’ve cast that have followed the same exact path. But in general, it’s a massive research project. Some of it will be in-person readings, some of it we’re able to utilise regional casting directors. Like when we did Black Panther, we really wanted a South African presence in the film for the tribal elders. I’ll read with actors in LA when they’re there, they’ll submit self-tapes... I also do as much research as I possibly can. Because I can’t travel everywhere, I voraciously read theatre reviews, film reviews. I’m always looking, covering things, so we can find talent. It’s so much easier than it was a decade ago because people can send us tapes on their iPhones. Honestly, lovingly, they [Marvel] give me a long leash and I’ll see a lot of people, research, research, research, and then we start distilling it and try to hone in on what is the right idea for the role.”
A DIVERSE FUTURE
“We’re very sensitive, we read, we listen. I’m always listening and trying to learn from everybody. We have a very diverse team in my office and that’s very important. I think representation is important and, in the last Spider-Man [Far From Home], we were able to put more LGBTQ presence in there. That’s something people are very aware of and I think you’re going to see more of that coming forward. There’s a genuine desire from Marvel to increase diversity as much as we can in the films. It’s exciting.
It’s a really exciting time.”
AVENGERS: ENDGAME IS OUT NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL HD.