Hi and welcome to the Team Deacons podcast. This podcast is a dialogue between Roger and James Deacons, joined by Matt Wyman,

starting from a submitted question, and ending, who knows where.

We're also joined by guests on occasion.

We're connecting through Zoom, so bear that in mind when you hear the audio.

If you'd like to submit a question, please do so by emailing Pod POD at Roger Deacons.com.

Today we have a guest that we're really excited about. She's a casting director which is an area we don't always have direct contact with so I think we're going to learn a lot. She has cast many movies. A few examples are

five Harry Potter movies, Judy, Room, Golden Compass, Brooklyn, Love Actually, just to name a few, she's also been nominated for an

Emmy for her TV work. We're pleased to have Fiona Weir with us today.

Fiona, how did you get into your field?

When did you know that this is what you wanted to do?

Crumbs.

Well, I didn't know anyone in this industry at all and I was one of those kids growing up in the

70s he spent far too much time watching TV I guess and so I ended up going to university to do politics and law.

Of course as one does.

Yeah because that's so directly connected to casting.

But when I came out, I just desperately wanted to get into film.

And I got a runner's job, as lots of people do,

you know, get in at the ground floor, find out what everybody does and I didn't even know casting was a job, I didn't know you could do it.

So when I started in production, I went, wow, you can get paid for doing that.

That's incredible.

And so I checked out all the casting directors and the one who I thought was amazing was a lady called Mary Selway and I at the time was working as a production coordinator which is great job because you know what everybody does as a coordinator you also get a very stressed and your hair starts falling out.

That kind of stuff, yeah.

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