“Adolescence” co-creator Jack Thorne’s adaptation of “Lord of the Flies” remains largely faithful to William Golding’s 1954 novel. The series, a co-production between Sony Pictures Television’s Eleven Films (which makes it eligible for the Primetime Emmys) and the BBC, follows a group of boys who become stranded on an island in the early 1950s following a plane crash. The boys are a mix of “little ’uns” and the “big ‘uns”, ranging in age from 5-6 and pre-teens. Thorne’s adaptation is divided into four chapters unfolding through the perspectives of its main characters: Piggy (David McKenna), Jack (Lox Pratt), Simon (Ike Talbut) and Ralph (Winston Sawyers).
Nina Gold, who recently landed an Oscar nomination for casting “Hamnet,” teamed up with fellow casting director Martin Ware to assemble the cast of more than 30 boys. Like many, they had read the book in secondary school and re-read it again, but this time, they started with the script. Knowing that each episode focused on a particular point of view helped them get into the head of each child.
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No stranger to casting young kids, the search was wide. Gold’s team sought children from schools, drama groups, acting groups, and even social media. The one exception was “no girls.”
Gold points out, the scripts were character-driven which meant the kids would have to do the heavy lifting. She says, “There’s no let up from it being the kids, the kids are everything, and that’s really unusual, because you normally have an adult, a grown up to cut to.”
As daunting as the task was, Gold and Ware had nine months to search for the boys.
Piggy actor David McKenna came along late in the casting process. He saw a post on social media and sent in a tape. “It was bad quality,” Ware says. But even through that, and in his short introduction, there was something about McKenna that seemed “peculiar and weird, and you wanted to know more about him.”
When McKenna came in, he had never been in anything. But for Gold, the young Irish actor had something special — and she should know. Most recently, she cast Jacobi Jupe in Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet.” Gold says, “It’s rare to the point of never that a kid comes in and is a fully formed perfect, ‘Oh my God, this is definitely it. Call off the search.’ That just never happens, but you see potential. He had some flashes of ‘This kid is really, really interesting.’ He had incredible moments.’”
Both Gold and Ware saw that McKenna had potential. They weren’t wrong. McKenna will next appear in Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia.”
The casting process didn’t just involve callbacks. There were in-person meetings, and as the other kids were cast, Ware, Gold and director Marc Munden spent time with them to see how they behaved.
Ware says, “You have to see them at different times, and try to do something that maybe makes them a little tired, and see what they like at the end of that, and to start to feel confident they’re going to be able to carry it. He’s quite an old soul in lots of ways, which really works so well for character.”
Gold adds, “The thing he has in common with Piggy, as David is, he’s really interested in other people.”
While McKenna was one of the later kids to land in the process, Sawyers was the first actor they had committed to. During the days of workshopping, Sawyers stood out. Ware says his ease of authority and observing how other children would come and eat their sandwiches next to him made it clear that he would be someone really good to build the other cast members around.
Gold and Ware did some tinkering with their casting, having some read for different roles. Lox Pratt was one example where they had him read and experiment with what he could do. He ended up playing the show’s savage antagonist, Jack. “He’s an incredibly lovely, sweet, nice boy,” Gold says reassuringly. The key thing was testing his acting ability to make sure he could “nail that nastiness.”
And he did.
Once they had cast the four main boys, they went about casting the little ‘uns, something they left towards the end of the process.
“We saw anyone who wanted to stand in front of a camera who was 5, 6 or 7 years old,” Ware says. As with the older kids, they put them through the workshops. He continues, “Even if they didn’t have much to say, they still have to concentrate and be part of the scene and remain engaged in the action, even if they’re just standing in the corner doing nothing.”
Aside from Piggy and the twins being the toughest, Ware says the little ‘uns were the toughest to cast because of their age. Unlike previous casting jobs, the two didn’t get to go on location. He says, “You do auditions and then cross your fingers, in three months time, they’re going to be on some beach in Malaysia and be able to say it. You have very little control over that. You’re just casting a personality type, and hoping that it survives contact with the reality of the film set.”
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