Casting directors Stephanie Pringle and Alison Fowler founded Chicken & Chips casting in 2015 when they were just 26 and 27, respectively. Since then, they’ve gone on to work for some of the biggest brands in the country, including Bumble, Nike, and Kayo. The pair made history when they won the entrepreneur category in B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards in 2018.
B&T sat down with the pair to talk about the challenges of founding their own casting agency at a young age and how being female didn’t exactly make it any smoother. The pair imparted words of wisdom for those dreaming of starting up their own agency today.
B&T: What have been your biggest lessons since starting Chicken and Chips casting?
Stephanie Pringle: No one is coming to save you and if you don’t diversify, you’ll render yourself redundant.
Alison Fowler: Try to not listen to the surrounding noise. Keep your head down and follow your own instinct and what feels right to you.
B&T: Tell me more about ‘Conscious Casting’ and the philosophy behind this term.
SP: Conscious Casting acknowledges that an actor’s identity can add meaningful dimensions to a story, it considers them as a whole person – not just their race, gender, or disability. It aims to remove barriers and starts to question the role description itself. For Casting, it means getting in the trenches and starting meaningful creative conversations with our collaborators which results in powerful casting choices. Conscious casting fosters creativity. It knows no bounds and incidental casting is the result of approaching the process consciously where we are able to see representation on screen authentically rather than ticking boxes where the end result is always tokenism.
AF: It’s a thoughtful casting philosophy; a process that looks to dismantle barriers and reevaluate traditional role descriptions prompting a deeper and more thoughtful exploration of characters. It can enhance creativity by embracing a limitless perspective, with more organic representation on screen. We’ve always considered this philosophy when casting from the very beginning; it should come naturally and exist without question on every project.
SP: I think there is an opportunity to bring casting into earlier creative and budgeting conversations. We often get these briefs where the client has already signed it off but there has been no meaningful consultation with casting prior. Often it’s an unrealistic budget met with expectations to fill roles with brilliant performers. A couple of our smaller, more agile production companies and agencies have moved to this model and it saves a lot of time and money in the process. It’s about keeping comms open and being collaborative with casting so that the client’s expectations can be better managed.
Can we also talk about the Boys Club in advertising? Maybe that’s another topic to be conquered in a different piece.
B&T: What has been the impact of winning B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards in the Entrepreneur category?
SP: The award was a huge milestone in our story as it happened when the business was only two years old. Casting directors don’t often get recognition in AdLand so it was really great to be acknowledged for our efforts as a key creative in the production process. We have been able to connect with like-minded people in the industry who we’ve gone on to collaborate with and it’s given us an opportunity to attend some amazing events, which, as casting directors, you don’t always get invited to! It’s been a really great experience!
AF: I think it came at a good time to give us that little boost of confidence and challenge our imposter syndrome at an early stage in our business life. It contributed to our credibility and brought casting to the conversation in Adland while establishing our place as entrepreneurs, somewhere we hadn’t even really recognised ourselves yet. It’s also been nice to have been invited to future events and be acknowledged as the only casting directors to have received the award.
B&T: With ageism a huge issue in the industry, what are the unique challenges that come with being young?
SP: One of the main challenges is finding meaningful mentorship outside of the traditional routes – I think we have an inherent problem in Australia with guarding information at the top level and not imparting it down the chain…There is a massive issue with wanting people to struggle the way they did instead of creating a nurturing environment (especially amongst women).
In our niche, we’re seeing overregulation masking as ‘protection of industry’ but in actual fact, there is little meaningful consultation with emerging screen practitioners and their thoughts on where the future is headed fueled by outdated perspectives (instead of being on top of trends and making a purposeful change to impact the industry’s future in a positive and sustainable way). Not inviting us into these discussions to contribute our innovative ideas, systems, and processes is detrimental because, for the most part, we’ve had to find our feet and figure it out, so our ways of doing things are more agile, more efficient and provide real solutions that match the current state of the industry.
Ageism is also the culprit in why original emerging key creative teams are dismantled and young filmmakers are becoming increasingly disloyal because of it. At the end of the day, original creative teams should be respected because they ultimately contribute to the young filmmaker’s success.
I’ve also been told I can’t do certain things that blur the bounds of my official job title. Bullying, being undermined in meetings, and being told “You look too young, you need to dress differently to be taken seriously”. Oh, we also get “you’re both so adorable” a lot…when considered in a professional context this gives me the ick.
Enter B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards!
AF: The ick for being ‘cute’ has been a 10-year journey. It’s crazy to us now how young we were when we started C&C, but this should be a testament that age doesn’t play a part in the quality of work produced or validity to exist in a space.
And it doesn’t just stop with age, we’ve experienced some hesitancy or interesting comments about our age, but also being female – the horror of opening a business at childbearing age. It shouldn’t form part of a comparison or criticism and it’s disappointing to feel this way when ultimately we all started somewhere irrespective of our biological age – we’re all ‘young’ when we start something.
B&T: What advice would you impart to up-and-coming creatives who want to run a casting agency like yours?
SP: My advice would be to make sure you have boundaries in place to separate yourself from work because burnout is real and it’s ugly and it takes a long time to recover from. Someone also once told me that even when it’s quiet, the universe is still working in the background to move things forward – this helps during quiet times because it means that all of the leg work you’re doing amounts to something that will reward you in the future.
Also, set aside thinking time. Getting bored means getting creative and if you’re too busy with the doing and you’re not a few steps ahead of the game, you’ll quickly realise you’re not where you should be. And ALWAYS celebrate the wins – no matter how small.
AF: It’s the Wild West out there. Honestly, there is no way to totally prepare for any kind of business venture aside from being prepared for everything. Be prepared to feel the full spectrum of emotions; the stress, the extreme highs and the extreme lows, the painfully stagnant nature of quiet periods, and ultimately how to sit in the unknown. And know that you’ll never probably figure this out.
B&T: What is the importance of promoting authentic representation in both film and commercial?
SP: We all want to see ourselves reflected in truth on screen. Authenticity is important when we are telling stories that require a level of lived experience that not everyone may have but there’s obviously a lot of nuance involved in the process. To be able to discover an actor who hasn’t been afforded the traditional journey into the arts (and this could be for many reasons, be it socioeconomic, access, geographic location, etc) and give them a grassroots opportunity to get on set and learn is super underrated and rewarding for everyone (and that’s ultimately how we can walk the walk when it comes to representation).
Enter B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards!
AF: It’s about keeping the conversations active, challenging creatives and filmmakers to help dismantle stereotypes, encourage more nuanced casting choices, and ultimately the end result is empowering underrepresented groups by providing opportunities and visibility on screen. In promoting authentic representation, our role is to help facilitate these conversations with our creative partners, something we do on every project.
B&T: What is the problem with casting celebrities in your ads? What other problems have you noticed in this space?
SP: I think the main issue with this (and we have seen this trend in narrative too) is that audiences are smarter now. When we go to the cinema, for instance, we don’t want to be distracted by the ‘celebrity’, we love a newcomer because we can really immerse ourselves in the story without distraction and truly connect with the character. I think the same rings true in ads. A brand can build a long-lasting spectacle and reach more people through creating a really unique character and going through the casting process to bring that to life (like Rhonda & Ketut for AAMI). I think it’s something that we should lean back into. Also, celebs are always risky, right? Tiger Woods…case in point.
AF: I don’t think it has a lasting impact for a piece of creative or brand. If it does work it tends to provide a moment of spectacle and excitement “did you see so and so in that beer ad?!” But not necessarily contribute to impactful brand recall and recognition. Celebrities can be polarising with a narrow audience too – it’s rare to find someone that a wide audience will resonate with or appeal to, and they can feel disingenuine in marketing a product; they aren’t relatable and it comes with a label of ‘gosh they must’ve needed the money’ and less about the story or brand and product.
B&T: What do you think is the future of casting in advertising?
SP: This is the million-dollar question. There has been a real trend in using influencer talent in ads but I think this will soon start to bore the audience. We are constantly bombarded with people trying to sell literally anything via social media platforms. Rather than stand-alone UGC, we will see an increase in branded content masking as vertical short-form series where the audience can get invested in the characters. The ModiBodi TikTok series is a great example of this.
Similarly, on the flip side, the commercialisation of narrative content has so many side quest opportunities for brands like fan fiction and commercial partnerships in the production process and this will all impact how we cast the content.
Digital Avatars & NFTs for actors to address AI concerns and ethics around image likeness is also going to be something we need to consider as an industry. Actors will be able to license their digital image so we’ll be casting replicas and the process will get even more streamlined.
Enter B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards!
AF: The saying of 2024 for me: “We don’t know what we don’t know”. I’m constantly surprised by the ‘next thing’ or the newest trend, so it is a tough one to pinpoint. But I agree with Steph, branded long-form content feels like a really logical step; audiences making immediate purchasing decisions exist primarily on their phones, consuming content on various forms of social media platforms, all with the ability to link directly to purchase. I’d welcome this as a status quo in advertising, bringing back the narrative-driven advertising – what was a 60-second brand commercial can now be a 10 x 5 mini-series. This brings casting to the forefront of advertising more than ever – audiences (and buyers) resonate with characters first and foremost, and with strategic branding embedded in that of an ensemble cast, brands can find cult followings for products that could sell themselves with fanfare hype.
As the pair reflect on their journey, we can’t wait to see what else they get up to in the future. The pair won B&T‘s Diversity Award in 2020 for their Cricket Australia’s “What We’re Made Of” campaign. Their casting agency is responsible for feature films like A Savage Christmas and Birdeater, both of which have gained recognition at film festivals.