Modeling was my hobby and casting is my passion: Casting Director Akash Jain

From standing in front of the lens as a model to moving behind the lens as a casting director, Akash Jain the young talent is behind the casting of & TV’s episodic series ‘Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi’. Tellychakkar.com got into a candid chat with Akash to know about his experience in the industry. Tell us something about your journey in the industry? My journey in the industry started when I assisted for a short film named ‘Post gram bharat’ and then I made a research on Google about few production houses, to get an idea about the industry. After giving few interviews at various production houses, I took up Casting and today I think that was my right decision! I started my career in casting with ‘Nautanki Films’ as an associate casting director for shows like Madhubala, Do Dil Ek Jaan, Rangrasiya . Meanwhile, I also did the casting for ads, and then joined ‘Balaji Production’ for the show Gumrah as associate to casting director Tanushree Sharma. Currently I’m working for Fremantle India Production’s ‘Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi’ as the casting director. Why did you choose casting over modeling? Modeling was my hobby and casting is my passion. Modeling has been for fun; I started modeling when I was in my hometown Jaipur, but I knew that I don’t have a bright future in modeling. I just love doing the casting. Have you ever tried acting? No! I have never tried acting. I can make people act, but I can’t act in any ways. Do you believe in launching new faces? I do believe in launching new faces. I prefer new talent because I think going for the same old faces every time may not work with your script. My main focus is acting more than faces; basically I want the respective artist to fit into the character. What is more difficult - casting for episodic or daily? (Laughs) I like casting for dailies but now as I’m doing episodic, I think episodic is more difficult. In episodic your cast changes with every episode, you need to find out new faces for each new story. Is there any casting pattern you follow? I do casting according to the script; there is no particular casting pattern. The rest remains the same as in conducting auditions, short-listing actors, performing look tests followed by the final shoot. Where do you see yourself in the next few years? I want to establish myself as a good casting director; and for that I want to do a Bollywood movie with a good star cast.