Warp Films and the creators of the musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie are are looking to cast 30 young people to star as the movie’s principal Year 11 class and will be holding an open casting call, challenging Sheffield to help them find their stars. Composer Dan Gillespie-Sells explains how below...
The class will be made up of principal characters as well as smaller roles, with Shaheen Baig casting the film. Sheffield will be at the heart of the film, with a director born there, the original theatre show produced by the Crucible, a story set and filmed on location in the city and the film adaption now being made by Sheffield film and TV company Warp Films.
Warp Films is reuniting the original creative team, director Jonathan Butterell, writer Tom McRae and composer Dan Gillespie-Sells on the project, with a script currently in development, and filming due to commence in 2019. The casting process will occur over the next seven weeks with the casting call open from now until 22 July 2018.
Casting director Shaheen Baig said: “We would love to find a beautifully diverse cast right here in Sheffield. The story is set here and it’s the most obvious place to start our search!”
People must be over 16 to apply and ideally will be from Sheffield or the surrounding areas. The production company is asking people to upload a one minute video of themselves along with some basic information to their website www.jamiefilmcasting.com, but are keen to stress that they would like to see a variety of candidates (there are no parameters on how you should ‘look’) and no experience is necessary to apply. The casting team will be visiting local groups and communities over the next few weeks.
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie opened at the Sheffield Crucible in 2017 and is now playing at the Apollo Theatre in the West End. Writer Tom MacRae said: “We can’t believe this. Three comprehensive school boys writing their first show together expecting a two and a half week run in Sheffield – and now it’s a West End hit that’s going to be turned into a major movie. Jamie’s taking his prom dress to Hollywood.”
