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The performances are extraordinary and it's largely an amatuer cast,
correct?
Yea, completely. I mean no one had ever acted before.
There's totally different stories behind almost everybody in the film.
For Quvenzhané's role we knew that was the film, it was going to be,
her mind and her eyes and her face was going to be 80% of our,
screen time and so basically as soon as we started writing we started
casting. We looked at about 4000 girls we think, over the course of
about nine months. She just came into a library audition in Houma,
Louisiana, which is the last town when you go South and she walked in, and
was very kind of...didn't want to talk a whole lot. She was very quiet,
but you could just see the sort of intensity and the focus that she had.
You look in her eyes and you could see the gears turning,
in her head that we have never experienced with anyone twice her age,
or even adult actors, you know..she's just a miracle,
I mean she's every bit as good as she is, it's not movie magic,
it's like the actual magic.
Dwight, who plays her father, that role was supposed to be cast,
professionally and we tried out several professional actors and
Dwight actually ran a bakery...our runs a bakery that was across
the street from where out casting office was, so basically every morning
while we were auditioning professionals for his part, and
auditioning for Hushpuppy...we were eating donuts from his shop and,
getting to know him over pork chops, and coffee.
You know sometimes you have to look at 4000 people and sometimes,
you know the person is actually just sitting in your backyard.