How did Sarah Halley Finn become the MCU’s casting director? She had to audition.
Finn recalls when Marvel Cinematic Universe executive producer Louis D’Esposito (with whom she worked on the film “S.W.A.T.”) recommended her for the role, arranging a sit-down to see if she would become the casting director for “Iron Man.” As Finn entered a conference room for the meeting, a statue sat as a centerpiece on the table before her — one of Fantastic Four foe Doctor Doom. Finn, who grew up reading “Fantastic Four” comics with her brother and had seen the 2005 adaptation “so many times” with her own sons, used this prop to her advantage.
“It’s all coming full circle!” she laughed. “I think I just had a full nerd moment.”
The nerd moment paid off. Since this audition, Finn has served as the casting director for nearly every one of the MCU’s 37 films (barring 2008’s asterisk of “The Incredible Hulk,” which was distributed by Universal) and a large chunk of their TV outings. With “Avengers: Doomsday” on the horizon, Finn faced one of her greatest challenges in the franchise yet for 2025: finding a new Fantastic Four.
“There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into what we do that is not apparent,” Finn said of casting directors. “Anybody can have an idea like, ‘Oh, I read this book, and you know who should play that part?’ But truly, it’s an incredibly thorough, detailed, painstaking, thoughtful process that happens over months, if not years, to try to arrive at the best possible match of actor and role and material and director.”
Finn discussed the extensive process behind casting “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” directed by Matt Shakman and written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer with a story by Pearson, Kaplan, Spring and Kat Wood.
Marvel’s Fourth First Family
As Finn Zoomed in for an interview, she sat before a row of Funko Pops, a testament to both decades of comic book history and the 17-year franchise she helped mold. The director, who said she has a database of “probably 40+ thousand actors,” admitted that the statue collection is “getting out of control.” But adding the Fantastic Four, so heavily rooted in their 1960s origins and repeatedly at the center of heavily criticized adaptations, to this array would be a new beast altogether.
“We came into this one very intentionally keyed into the family aspect, bringing back the First Family to Marvel. We knew that Sue and Reed were going to be parents, that there was going to be a child involved,” Finn said. “In the extended family, Ben is such a close friend, like an uncle, and Johnny is also the brother and the uncle. There are many roles that everyone’s playing, but they have formed this really tight bond.”
These traits were important to Finn as she aimed to find actors befitting both the source material and the MCU interpretation of these heroes. This would, after all, be the fourth rendering of this team in live action (and the fifth for Reed Richards following an appearance by John Krasinski in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”)
As Sue Storm, Vanessa Kirby anchors the team, playing the part of a humanitarian, a public-facing figure and, when necessary, a warrior. Joseph Quinn plays a more mature, less hot-headed Johnny Storm, signaling the film’s depiction of a team four years into its existence. For the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing, Finn cited Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s piercing eyes and New York lifestyle as signifiers that he was perfect for the part.
“(Moss-Bachrach) really has that kind of gruff but lovable quality that is so identifiably sort of a color of New York,” Finn said. “With a character like that, so much is going to be communicated through the eyes. You watch ‘The Bear’ and you see his work on that and it’s like a masterclass on inner life.”
A Different Reed
Finn was hesitant to point to any single character as being the most difficult to locate an actor for (“They’re always all hard to cast,” she laughed). Still, she did cite an immense amount of pressure on finding the Fantastic Four’s leader: Reed Richards.
“(We needed) somebody who would have that razor-sharp intelligence and wit and dynamic personality,” Finn said. “I felt a desire to do something different, to have a fresh take on this character, to have a fresh take on the franchise. We’re making it again — let’s do something that brings it into the modern day that honors the origins and the authenticity of the characters and the roots of the story, yet brings something fresh and exciting to the audience.”
And a fresh take they brought. In Pedro Pascal, Finn located an actor who would bring Reed Richards to life in a way fans had never quite seen on-screen. Pascal’s Reed is one of complexity, a man who brings his world both to the future and finds himself stuck in his own forward thinking. It’s a quieter and less traditional take on the character than past portrayals, yet one still rooted in comic book precedent.
In one key scene, Pascal’s Reed tells Sue “I don’t dream. I don’t wonder. I invite the worst possible thing into my head to figure out how to hurt them before they hurt anybody else.” It’s a moment evocative of writers like Jonathan Hickman, whose Oppenheimeresque portrayal of Reed wrestled with the obligation of saving his world from calamity and, possibly, losing his family — and himself — in the process (this characterization became an integral component to Hickman’s “Secret Wars,” soon to be adapted in the MCU). Finn felt Pascal’s strengths as an actor suited this take on the character well, despite going against audience expectations.
“It felt risky,” Finn said. “Even though that terrifies me, I’ve learned to trust that that’s a good thing.”
Giant-Size Expectations
Another risk came in the casting of the film’s primary villain: Galactus. The godlike entity of cosmic consumption stands among Marvel’s largest-looming characters, both in terms of popularity and physical stature.
“I think that one was particularly satisfying in terms of the fan reaction,” Finn said. “This is a role where the expectations were outsized.”
Galactus, a creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s in the 1960s, presents a tough challenge for any casting director. Kirby’s iconic rendering of the character makes for a difficult translation, as his most iconic elements — his purple tunic, his tuning-fork helmet, his skyscraper-sized stature — could come off as undercuttingly goofy or entirely unmenacing in the wrong hands. While Finn could’ve tossed this part to a massive name, she instead opted for the relatively lesser-known Ralph Ineson.
Finn considered Inseon’s presence more important than pure name recognition. When the actor addresses the Fantastic Four for the first time, telling them, “I was once little like you,” Ineson’s deep, sonorous voice rattles theater seats.
“There’s no baggage, and there’s nothing else that you necessarily are going to think of,” she said. “You just get to meet Galactus as he is with the voice, with the booming presence that he brought to it.”
With the Fantastic Four out of the way, Finn looks ahead to the future of the MCU. The casting director said she’s already “getting educated” on the X-Men before the mutant team is introduced to the MCU proper.
Finn also said she could “say nothing” about the highly secretive “Avengers: Doomsday” (featuring the return of Robert Downey Jr., this time as Doctor Doom), though she did note that the team-up film invites her to look back at her nearly two-decade time with the MCU.
“It really gives me the opportunity to look back at the swath of years and all the roles and all the range,” Finn said. “It’s very humbling and sweet to think about.”
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is streaming on Disney+ now.
