Chloë Curran has worked in casting departments on big TV shows like “Station 19” and “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and experienced the increasingly rare, wonderful world of a small-budget film on “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” And amid all the work of a network casting team — creating character breakdowns, combing through audition tapes, and interrupting agents’ Friday nights to sew up offers — she realized something.
There’s an echelon of directors and casting directors who have come up through the ranks together; there’s all this creativity going on in every corner of the internet, but there’s not an obvious way for up-and-coming filmmakers to make those same connections, build report with peers in casting, and, most importantly, discover the ocean of talent that casting directors have access to. She wanted to find a way to match creators doing their best work with actors hungry to do great work.
“I had an idea for a Valentine’s Day, like, creative matchmaking where [filmmakers] could fill out your favorite directors, actors, and if there’s alignment, I would just hook up my casting friends with director friends. It’d be like, ‘Here’s your Valentine,’” Curran told IndieWire.
That idea to match up-and-coming directors with casting services they’d love led to Curran creating Chaos Casting, a company with a tiered, heavily discounted price system designed specifically for independent projects that are maybe crowdfunding or have a micro-budget but could still level up their ambition and scope through access to casting services.
According to Curran, a casting team can help folks reach out to demographics their film might need but might not have in their personal network and to a caliber of actors who filmmakers might not think are within their reach but who would be excited by the opportunity. “There’s just a lot of actors who want to work — especially post-strike, post-COVID,” Curran said. “There’s so much talent.”
The only thing that Curran doesn’t want Chaos Casting to be about is cast-contingent casting, the practice of unlocking funding for a project based on a big name being attached. “I think there’s so much cool emerging talent,” Curran said. “I just don’t care that much about trying to hustle famous people. I want to ask cool, good actors and find fresh, exciting faces, and I want to make subversive, interesting art with people who don’t want to star-fuck.”
Curran’s theory of the case is that digging a little deeper and finding surprising, emerging talent will help indie projects find the attention they deserve — in many ways, the same as it ever was. The package tiers on Chaos Casting are called “The Eraserhead” and “American Graffiti,” after films that succeeded on a budget under $300,000 and $1 million. “I did some research on who did it within those budget ranges. If they can do it, you can,” Curran said.
“Just find the right people and do good work together” is a hopeful theory at a time when independent films, shorts, and movies in general seem so on the ropes. But ventures like Chaos Casting are intriguing simply for being a bridge between the capital-I Industry connections someone like Curran has and a submission form that anyone on the internet can fill out.
Curran couldn’t share any projects Chaos Casting has in the works but is excited by the possibilities of being the connective tissue that helps elevate the next generation of small, independent films. “I can help [filmmakers] find a good cast so their first movie is their breakout movie with breakout stars. That’s the vision,” Curran said.
