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In 1996, casting director Cassandra Kulukundis began her career as an intern on writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut feature, “Hard Eight.” Now, 30 years later, she’s nominated for the first ever Academy Award for Best Casting for her work on Anderson’s latest film, the epic action-comedy-thriller-family drama “One Battle After Another.” It’s the culmination of a collaboration that has yielded some of the most memorable and compelling ensembles in American cinema, from “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” to “There Will Be Blood” and “Phantom Thread.”
Kulukundis has worked on all of Anderson’s movies since that first job on “Hard Eight,” and together the two artists have developed a unique way of combining popular movie stars, underrated but reliable character actors, and non-professionals who bring an added sense of authenticity to the proceedings. “One Battle After Another” is the ultimate example of their approach, a movie that features A-list actors giving the best performances of their careers (Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn), up-and-coming talent holding their own alongside the veterans (Chase Infiniti), and people who have never acted before anchoring the film in reality (James Raterman as the chilling Colonel Danvers).
The vast scale of “One Battle After Another” combined with Anderson’s meticulous attention to detail meant that Kulukundis had to cast each role with an actor vivid enough to give the impression of a character with a life outside of the narrative — something she pulled off flawlessly, from the revolutionaries who set the plot in motion and their next generation to the immigrants under Benicio del Toro’s protection and the ICE agents pursuing them. In the video below, Kulukundis talks about casting a few key roles and why she has a particular fondness for “One Battle After Another” among Anderson’s films.
Kulukundis’ first order of business, long before she even read a script, was finding an actress to play Willa, the teenage daughter of Leonardo DiCaprio’s fugitive revolutionary. “With Willia, it was anybody who’s right,” Kulukundis said of the broad criteria Anderson gave her. “Doesn’t matter if they’ve ever acted before, if they’re a star, if I found them in school, if I find them on the street. That was a huge net — if you were between 12 and 25, I was looking at you.” Kulukundis was able to narrow the search a little when she realized how important the physical demands of the part were to the performance. “The moment I saw [Chase Infiniti] dancing, I don’t know how to describe it. She’s the most unique looking human being I’ve ever seen.” For Kulukundis, Infiniti’s ability to hold her own against DiCaprio was also vital. “We tried him with a bunch of girls and he was really thoughtful and helpful and we could see the chemistry with Chase. She just kept passing all the tests.”
When it came to supporting roles like Danvers, an ICE agent who needed to project a calm and persistent sense of menace, Kulukundis found it challenging to get the actors where they needed to be in their auditions. “It became clear for certain roles that the actors were a little too perfect,” she said. For Danvers, she showed prospective actors documentary footage of real-life law enforcement agent James Raterman. When no one was able to replicate his vibe, she realized she should go straight to the source. “At some point it was like, why aren’t we just tracking Jim down?” She did, and Raterman was not only willing but turned in one of the great villain performances of the year, if not of all time. “He really grew during the process,” Kulukundis said, adding that Raterman now has an agent and is all-in on acting.
Like many of Anderson’s collaborators, Benicio del Toro came to “One Battle After Another” with ideas of his own, one of which was the idea that his character would run a kind of underground railroad for immigrants fleeing ICE. That meant Kulukundis had to find an entire ensemble to portray del Toro’s community, something she did on the fly while shooting. “I was running around just grabbing people off the streets and auditioning them,” Kulukundis said. “The town really embraced us and that helped us get those great faces. I love the mixture of people in this film. Paul and I have been doing this for so long. I really think that because we’ve been working like this for the last nine movies, we really hit on something magical here.” —Jim Hemphill
Presented in partnership with Warner Bros.
English (US) ·