28-04-2025
Initially Against Casting Lily-Rose Depp In "Nosferatu," This Casting Director Got Real About Why She Owed The Actor An Apology
Renowned casting director Kharmel Cochrane is opening up about some of her casting decisions, including one she was strongly against and another she fully supports.
If there was a popular project out in the last few years, Kharmel might have had something to do with it. She casts for film, TV, commercials, music videos, and shorts. Some of her most popular work includes Nosferatu, Saltburn, A Quiet Place: Day One, Bob Marley: One Love, The End of the F***ing World, Rye Lane, The VVitch, The Lighthouse, John Wick: Chapter 4, and more.
Over the weekend, Kharmel participated in a Q&A session at Scotland's Sands Film Festival where she explained why she needed to apologize to Lily-Rose Depp after initially dismissing her as a serious contender for the leading role of Ellen Hutter in the 2024 American horror gothic film Nosferatu.
'I had to text Lily-Rose Depp and say I'm sorry,' Kharmel said per Deadline, before shedding light on the casting process. "I had said absolutely no way to Lily-Rose Depp. I didn't think she could act."
"I hadn't seen anything that I thought showed she could act. And I'm not even bothered by the nepotism thing. I think that's a whole other conversation. And then she auditioned. I was wrong. And I've got no shame in saying if I'm not right.'
The 25-year-old actor went on to prove a lot of the naysayers wrong with this film. She starred alongside Bill Skarsgård, Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, and Willem Dafoe. The film raked in over $100 million worldwide, becoming Focus Features' second highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office, behind Brokeback Mountain.
