Mumbai: At 3 pm on a rainy Mumbai day, a narrow lane in Andheri suddenly fills up with a motley bunch of people, from portly middle-aged men to glamorous young women and guys with ripped bodies. It’s the daily walk-in audition at the office of Mukesh Chhabra, one of India’s most in-demand casting directors. And more people than ever are vying for roles.
“I’ve always been interested in acting but never had the courage to pursue it because I’m on the heavier side,” said one of the hopefuls, a 50-year-old bank employee. “But now I see people like me on screen and want to try.”
Every day, come monsoon floods or oppressive humidity, aspiring actors queue up at Chhabra’s two-story office-cum-studio, each one eager to record their ‘introduction video’. A young intern holds up a camera while a security guard jots down names. The instructions are simple: state your name, age, gender, city, and acting experience. And then, fingers crossed.
Once relegated to the end credits, casting directors are finally getting their due, thanks to the rise of OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime and an insatiable demand for new realistic content and talent. Casting directors are proving that A-list names aren’t essential; talent and the right fit are the winning formula.
I fought with Anurag Kashyap to cast Pankaj Tripathi in ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ and Sushant Singh Rajput in ‘Kai Po Che’
-Mukesh Chhabra, casting director
Star power no longer rules; real, relatable characters do—whether it’s Manoj Bajpayee as a bumbling dad-cum-intelligence officer in Family Man, Sobhita Dhulipala as a social-climbing wedding planner in Made in Heaven, or veteran ‘supporting actor’ Jaideep Ahlawat headlining as a complex cop in Paatal Lok. Savvy casting choices are driving these shows’ success and spotlighting both known and unknown actors.
For those who can’t make it to Mumbai, Chhabra has even launched an app for remote auditions.
“I want to help people and this is my way of doing that,” Chhabra said. “People sitting anywhere in India can be an actor, and I want to become the platform where that dream can be fulfilled. They just have to record themselves, and upload a video, and they will become a part of our actors’ database.”
Casting is evolving into not just a ‘respectable’ profession but as an indispensable one. In India, the change began with filmmakers like Vishal Bhardwaj and Anurag Kashyap, who not only hired casting directors but started acknowledging them in opening credits from the early 2010s. Elsewhere too, there’s more recognition—Hollywood will finally start awarding an Oscar for casting in 2026.
“Once when we were starting out, I was on a train and told someone I am a casting director, and they winked and laughed. All they associated with the word casting was ‘couch’,” said Abhishek Banerjee, an actor and one half of the casting company Casting Bay.
That perception is slowly fading. Names like Mukesh Chhabra, Nandini Shrikent, Abhishek Banerjee, Tess Joseph, and Shruti Mahajan command respect.
“Casting directors humanise a film, and we find actors with a lot of love and effort,” said Joseph. “It is a small community of people and we deserve acknowledgement, be it on movie posters or opening credits.”
Casting is an intentional business. There is no dreamy ‘spotting’ someone at a market or cafe and them becoming a star, as many movies depict.
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Star factory with a slow start
An office in the backlanes of Versova doesn’t immediately scream ‘star factory’, but inside the Mukesh Chhabra Casting Company, a new generation of talent is being discovered.
In one audition room, a Delhi-based actor, clad in a white kurta-pyjama, prepares for the role of an upright, young politician.
“We need more anger,” an intern prompts. After nearly six takes, the casting director finally approves and sends the video to the director. In another room, a team scrutinises photos, searching for actors who could convincingly portray Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Sonia Gandhi for an upcoming biopic on former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao.
As Chhabra arrives, there’s a whirlwind of activity, from security guards opening doors to colleagues updating casting statuses. He is the first casting director to go corporate some 15 years ago, transforming a one-room operation into a well-oiled machine spanning two floors.
“I knew I had to become organised if I wanted people to take it seriously and pay me. Directors like Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bharadwaj understood the importance of casting, but many had to be convinced,” said Chhabra, a trained actor himself.
It took him about 10 years to change the mindset of veteran directors.
“They were like, ‘why should we hire a casting director? We can do it ourselves’,” recalled Chhabra. “I always tell the director that either I will convince you, or you will convince me about a particular actor.”
For Chhabra, life changed after casting 384 actors in the acclaimed Gangs of Wasseypur (2012). It proved his ability to find new talent in an industry where nepotism and ‘connections’ ran rife.
Over the years, he has sometimes butted heads with filmmakers over casting choices—and been proved right too.
“I fought with Anurag Kashyap to cast Pankaj Tripathi in Gangs of Wasseypur and Sushant Singh Rajput in Kai Po Che (2013),” he said. Each of those gambles paid off.
To work with Rajkumar Hirani, Chhabra had to jump through hoops.
“I wanted to work with Raju Hirani. Then he called me for a BoroPlus ad with Amitabh Bachchan and I travelled from Chandigarh to Goa to cast—he was probably testing me. After that, he gave me PK. I brought in Sushant,” he said.
For his own directorial debut Dil Bechara (2020) too, Chhabra cast Rajput, who died before its release.
The office walls are a timeline of Chhabra’s success. A Chamkila poster, signed by Imtiaz Ali, occupies pride of place, with the inscription ‘our journey continues, best wishes’. Then there are posters of Jawan, PK, 12th Fail, Dunki, Sanju, Badlapur, The Family Man, and others.
In his personal office, three shelves brim with awards. But what stands out are the signed testimonials and messages of directors and actors, scrawled across the white walls.
“If you weren’t there, we wouldn’t be here as well,’ reads the message from Sanya Malhotra who passed the audition and was cast in Aamir Khan’s Dangal (2016) and then later in Jawan.
But appreciation isn’t always guaranteed.
“We do get credits now, but some actors, whom we handhold through auditions to them being finalised, remember to thank everyone but us. It is still an ongoing process of acknowledgment,” said Devendra Patel, a casting director with Chhabra’s company.
Chhabra’s ambitions are as big as his talent pool. With a new office in Agartala and a London network, he’s expanding his empire.
“My next goal is the Oscars,” he declared, resting between back-to-back meetings. “That really would be the gamechanger for casting in India.”
OTT platforms became a new frontier for casting directors and actors to push the envelope and create content closer to reality. But getting actors on board wasn’t always easy in the early days.
Riding the OTT wave
Casting as an industry got a huge boost with the OTT content explosion, breaking entertainment away from the stranglehold of star culture. With OTT shows often demanding a cast of up to hundreds for 6-8 episodes, casting directors became the gatekeepers. The focus shifted from big-name actors to finding the perfect fit, opening up space for both hungry new talent and underrated character actors.
But things were changing even before that, according to Tess Joseph, who started out her career in casting with international productions like Mira Nair’s Namesake (2006) before setting up her own Versova outfit in 2014.
“The first big change that happened was the acknowledgement that casting directors existed. OTT definitely had a big hand to play. But things moved with ensemble films, like Chak De! India (2007) or Even Kai Po Che,” she said.
OTT platforms became a new frontier for casting directors and actors to push the envelope and create content closer to reality. But getting actors on board wasn’t always easy in the early days.
One of the earliest OTT hits, Family Man (2019), struggled initially.
“Lots of stars said no. Raj and DK’s previous film A Gentleman (2017) had flopped, and people were unsure of OTT. I suggested Manoj Bajpayee, and the rest is history,” said Chhabra. In the following season, he cast Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who later became a household name with her item song ‘Oo Oo Antava’ in Pushpa: The Rise (2021).
Similarly, there was widespread scepticism about Delhi Crime (2019) since it was a bootstrapped venture.
“Nearly everyone had said no to the role of DCP Vartika. Shefali Shah was the only option left. She did one scene and killed it,” said Chhabra. The series ended up winning Best Drama Series at the 48th International Emmy Awards.
We decided to not keep our names (in our casting company), because then people would respect the names and not the job. And we wanted everyone to respect us. For lack of a better word, people really thought we were pimps
-Abhishek Banerjee, actor & co-founder of Casting Bay
Another big hit, Made in Heaven (2019), created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, had its casting handled by Kabiku Productions, run by Nandini Shrikent and Karan Mally.
“Casting is about remembering the socio-economic milieu of the characters. Sobhita Dhulipala fits into the role of a woman who is now rich and polished, but has the slightly rough edge of her upbringing,” said Shrikent.
Dhulipala’s performance catapulted her to fame, landing roles in films like Major (2022) and Ponniyin Selvan parts 1 and 2. Shivani Raghuvanshi’s authentic depiction of a lower-middle-class girl from Dwarka and Shashank Arora’s portrayal of a quirky wedding photographer also won plenty of fans.
Shrikent’s company also cast for Akhtar and Kagti’s hit thriller Dahaad (2023). Sonakshi Sinha was Akhtar’s pick for the lead, but casting Gulshan Devaiah as a soft-spoken inspector was the brainchild of Mally and Shrikent.
The goal is to discover actors who can bring characters to life.
“An actor might be great, but is he good for a particular part? That is what casting directors have to decide. Unless I am 100 per cent sure, post auditioning, I do not let them know,” said Chhabra.
However, casting requirements vary widely across different production types and genres.
“On a commercial film, I have to think of known faces filling the cast. But for indie films, or with certain directors, the pressure is only to find great actors, whether it is Vikrant Massey in 12th Fail or Diljit Dosanjh in Chamkila. Their career graph is not the criteria,” said Chhabra.
For Atlee’s Jawan, Chhabra assembled a pan-Indian cast, drawing talent from Tamil, Gujarati, and even Bhutanese cinema.
Everything needs to feel real. That’s the difference between casting for a Bollywood film and a film meant for a global audience. We don’t tell actors to perform emotions; we want to see how the actor brings reality to the situation
-Tess Joseph, casting director
Web series have also offered opportunities to revive fading or typecast actors, like Harman Baweja in Scoop (2023) and Anil Dhawan in Andhadhun (2018). Sometimes overturning audience expectations can work too—like casting the usually glamorous Karishma Tanna as investigative journalist Jagruti Pathak in Scoop.
Filmmakers often have varying degrees of involvement in the casting process. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, for instance, requires actors to audition in full costume and makeup.
“It almost looks like a final rehearsal. Often, actors feel like they have already clinched the role because they are completely in character,” said casting director Shruti Mahajan, known for her work in big budget productions such as Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018).
Directors sometimes also request specific changes during auditions.
“In the Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) auditions, Sanjay sir asked me to add extra kohl and loosen a few strands of a character, and that small change made the actor look more convincing in the role she was auditioning for. That is his vision at work,” said Mahajan.
PoSH committee, no couch
On a muggy Monday morning, Abhishek Banerjee took a break in a pristine white makeup van, still dressed as the character he’s playing in the upcoming season of Netflix’s Rana Naidu. But though he’s an award-winning actor, casting is just as important to him.
Nearly all casting directors started off in other fields. Chhabra and Joseph were assistant directors, Shrikent assisted in production design, and Banerjee was a theatre actor. Mahajan, an HR manager, quit her job to try her hand at casting.
“After all, the roles are similar—you need to find the perfect fit for the job,” she said.
Banerjee, who comes from a middle-class family in Kharagpur, initially drifted into casting after trying to make a living in Mumbai by working as an actor and assistant director.
“I was getting to act, read scripts, and meet directors and producers. I needed camera training, and casting became my training institute,” he said.
About 8 years ago, he co-founded Casting Bay with friend and business partner Anmol Ahuja. Their long list of credits includes Panchayat (2020) and the Netflix movie Bulbbul (2020), starring Triptii Dimri. (probably use Mirzapur as well)
Part of their mission was to change perceptions about casting as a sleazy, exploitative profession.
“We decided to not keep our names, because then people would respect the names and not the job. And we wanted everyone to respect us,” Banerjee said. “For lack of a better word, people really thought we were pimps. Those jokes still happen now, but at least these are now just jokes.”
Chhabra is equally committed to maintaining a professional image. Most of his employees are women and the organisation has a Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) committee in place.
“I wanted that aspiring female actors could audition without worry, and even their parents could also see that it is a proper system,” he said.
Tools of the trade
To excel at the job, a casting director must be a film buff, love research, and have the knack for picking the right actor from a sea of aspirants.
“At the end of the day, casting is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle,” said Joseph, sitting at the Cat Café next to her studio, where the languorous animals are a contrast from the hectic pace of the day.
A well-thumbed database is essential. These dossiers were once limited to Mumbai talent, but now include actors from every region, especially since “pan-India” became a buzzword. A good memory is equally important.
“If I hadn’t met Ali Fazal, during auditions for Rock On!!, I would never have known that he can pull off a Lucknow accent (in Mirzapur). He has been cast only as an English-speaking character before. Siddhant Chaturvedi can play a Dalit cricketer in Inside Edge because I have seen him audition,” said Banerjee.
The casting process is no longer confined to the director’s chair. Casting directors are venturing far and wide to discover hidden gems.
“Where do you get the kids of Chillar Party (2011) or the students of Super 30 (2019) ? You need to travel and find them. I spent 3 months in Patna casting for Super 30,” said Chhabra. For Paatal Lok and Bhediya, Banerjee and Ahuja went all the way to the Northeast to find suitable actors.
It’s a far different scenario from even 15 years when scepticism about new faces was rampant.
Casting is about remembering the socio-economic milieu of the characters. Sobhita Dhulipala (in Made in Heaven) fits into the role of a woman who is now rich and polished, but has the slightly rough edge of her upbringing
-Nandini Shrikent, casting director
“Initially directors would react like ‘who is this guy?’ when we wanted to get a fresh face,” Banerjee said, recalling that he was once fired from a big-budget project for his “hardcore” picks and asked if he was casting for the gritty Satya.
But casting is an intentional business. There is no dreamy ‘spotting’ someone at a market or cafe and them becoming a star, as many movies depict. Even if a casting director notices someone, auditions and training are involved. If the person is unable to perform, they can easily be dropped from the project.
There is no formal course for becoming a casting director. It requires imagination and practice, with many hits and misses along the way. For Banerjee, “storytelling” skills come in handy, and for Shrikent, it’s important to have empathy for actors facing “nerve-racking” auditions.
“Our job is to help the actor give his or her best performance,” she said.
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Going global, getting ‘real’
With Kiran Rao’s Laapata Ladies overtaking Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal on Netflix viewership and movies like UPSC drama 12th Fail becoming big hits, indie, small-budget, and crossover films are no longer underdogs. They are slowly taking centrestage.
This year, Monkey Man brought British actor-filmmaker Dev Patel and Sobhita Dhulipala together, while Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light clinched the Grand Prix at Cannes. Casting has become more collaborative for such projects and ‘authenticity’ has become a prized quality.
“Everything needs to feel real. That’s the difference between casting for a Bollywood film and a film meant for a global audience. We don’t tell actors to perform emotions; we want to see how the actor brings reality to the situation,” said Joseph.
She has had extensive experience working in international projects, including Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and the Nicole Kidman starrer Lion (2016), a critical and commercial hit about a young man searching for his birth family in India.
“While casting for Lion, we took actors Priyanka Bose, Sunny Pawar, and Abhishek Bharate to a planetarium and rolled the scene straight after. One core moment in the film involved the youngsters watching the stars together. We either create or access a reality,” she said.
Technology like Zoom has made it easier to meet people worldwide and she says the first audition can now be online before the team meets the actors in person.
Joseph was part of the casting team for The White Tiger (2021), starring Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao, and Adarsh Gourav in his breakout performance as the anti-hero protagonist Balram.
“We saw 300-400 people in person for the role of Balram. Adarsh was part of a long list, but he stood out. Eventually, he was cast as Balram once director Ramin Bahrani came to Mumbai,” said Joseph.
After this, Gourav spent a month in a village, immersing himself in the character. His BAFTA-nominated performance led to roles in Guns and Gulaabs (2023) and the popular Netflix film Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023), cast by Shrikent.
With more international co-productions and a shift from pan-Indian to global cinema, Joseph hopes for a corresponding evolution in casting.
“We need to see people from different communities, queer people, people on the autism spectrum, people with disabilities,” she said. “We should see on screen what we see in the real world. That’s where I hope to head.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)