With more than 250 credits to her name, casting director Nancy Nayor has helped bring some of your favorite films to life. In the past year alone, she’s worked on hits like “Office Romance,” “Regretting You” and “Send Help,” so she understands better than anyone what casting is like in 2026.
“With newcomers, usually there’s an auditioning process, and that’s a much more extensive journey and seeing people read, chemistry reads. Often with stars, it’s less of a reading process,” she told TheWrap. “Sometimes stars come attached to the project, sometimes I come on board before anyone’s attached and then it’s more of a process of showing the work to the directors and producers and making the decision of who we love, who we want to put the puzzle pieces together.”
“On ‘Send Help,’ it was two known actors, so there were no auditions. Obviously, when it’s a story like a ‘Paranormal Activity’ or something that involves people next door — not the glamorous, gorgeous, celebrity, A-list actors — the audition process is the most exciting thing because there’s so much discovery,” Nayor continued. “It’s the most exciting thing to see what’s happening with ‘Obsession’ right now, it literally is an obsession. People are obsessed with it, and they didn’t know those actors before. Within the industry, we might have been aware of them, but the broader audience didn’t know them at all and they were totally there at the box office.”
Indeed, Nayor has been casting horror and thriller films for decades — including iconic classics and modern masterpieces such as “Barbarian,” “The Grudge,” “Lisa Frankenstein,” “Saw X,” “Scream 4,” “Darkman” and “Casper,” just to name a few.
“I always feel like I have to trust my gut. It’s just this intuitive feeling that has been validated over time, so now I’m more confident in that gut instinct than ever,” she shared. “Whether it’s Jennifer Carpenter in ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ or Georgina Campbell in ‘Barbarian’ or Willa Fitzgerald in ‘Strange Darling,’ seeing critics and audiences alike just absolutely be floored by those performances, it helped me build that confidence to fight for the people I believe in with passion.”
Plus, this means she has a vested interest in seeing casting finally get Oscar recognition at the 98th Academy Awards earlier this year.
“I think it’s one of the greater injustices of our industry. I remember, years ago, going in to meet with one of the heads of the Academy — decades ago — with a team of other casting directors and casting executives. I was an executive at Universal at the time,” Nayor recalled. “They said, ‘Well, really, the director cast the film.’ I said, ‘Well, the director may pick the fabric based on their vision, but it is the costume designer that brings in plaid and polka dots and stripes and gives options’ — and that’s exactly what we do.”
“We don’t usually make a unilateral decision. It’s always a collaborative decision-making process. But we present ideas that the directors often are not even aware of their work, especially in these projects where discovery is so important. I really remember fighting for it and we’ve all been fighting for decades, so it felt even more thrilling to see it finally happen,” she added. “It plays such a significant role in the success or failure of a project. When you see something that feels like like the casting’s off or those people would never be together or it just doesn’t feel right, it’s distracting. So when someone gets it right, it feels like that craft deserves recognition.”
Still to come, Nayor cast “My Boyfriend Is a Demon,” a horror movie about a girl who accidentally summons a seemingly perfect date — complete with a cast that could appear to skew towards the nepotistic persuasion.
“People get a bad rap for being a nepo baby, but if you went into any family business — a son or daughter of a shoemaker — and you thought it was a fascinating profession and you went into it, nobody would give anyone a hard time twice about it. Somehow, it just seems to feed the Internet to create an issue where there isn’t one,” she said. “I don’t think we, as casting directors, would ever compromise talent … it just wouldn’t make any sense. Of course, there’s something to genetics, and they inherit that sort of ease at being on set because they’ve grown up watching their parents and they’ve been in the environment of the industry. But in the end, it’s the best audition that wins the role.”
“When I cast Jack Quaid in ‘Companion,’ I didn’t even think about who his dad is, he was just the perfect guy for the role,” she added. “In ‘My Boyfriend Is a Demon,’ the first two actors on board — one was a relative newcomer, Bailey Sloan; the other happened to be Will Ferrell’s son, and it’s his first film. As the process snowballed, we wound up casting Ever Anderson, who’s Milla Jovovich’s daughter, because she gave just a killer audition, it was spectacular. She was on an equal playing field with many others and she knocked it out of the park, so she got the role.”
“We also cast an actor named Vinnie Hacker, who is an influencer. Again, he came in to audition, I thought, ‘Well, this will be fascinating. Can he do it? Can he be that traditional actor?’ And again, his audition was just spectacular, I was on the edge of my seat,” Nayor further noted. “He was so charming, and he already had the ease of being in front of the camera, being an out-of-the-box personality, so that helped him win the part.”
Ultimately, the woman behind Nancy Nayor Casting sees the modern movie-making experience as a chance for up-and-coming, undiscovered talent to advocate for themselves unlike at any other point in cinematic history — even if it means having to self-tape.
“Certainly post-Covid, so much more of the process is now virtual. So much less interaction in person means that more people can be considered because more actors can self-tape,” she explained. “I can just see a higher volume of actors and consider more choices, so that part’s great. But I do miss — and I think the actors also miss — that interaction in the room of working with a casting director and director giving notes or suggestions that an actor can deliver on the spot. I think we all miss that.”
“There’s also this whole influencer, TikTok, Instagram world of new celebrities, obviously YouTube now has become a breeding ground … there’s so much ability to be proactive, to share your talent with the world on so many platforms,” Nayor concluded. “There used to be all these shut doors you had to tear down and break down, and you don’t have to now. We’re all out there looking to find the next gem and the next giant star.”
