
Team building
Rivals, Mary & George, Kaos, Bridgerton and The Tattooist of Auschwitz meant 2024 was a stellar year for television – and for casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry. She tells DQ about her approach to her role, self-taped auditions and why TV must continue to take risks.
There is no doubt that the television industry has undergone huge change over the last 25 years, from the shift to streaming platforms and the globalisation of the programmes available to watch.
Yet casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry, whose recent credits include Bridgerton, Mary & George, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Kaos and Rivals, points to the importance the leading actors can now play in getting a series to green light, much like the films she worked on early in her career.

“Casting is not binary in that every job is completely different and you have a different ultimate goal,” she tells DQ. “You can have a show like Bridgerton that has an IP already and it doesn’t require a name at all. That is when you can make the stars.
“You have other shows where maybe it doesn’t have IP and you’re relying on a great script, a great director, and also maybe two, sometimes even three, very recognisable names.”
Hendry points to Leo Woodall, star of One Day, The White Lotus and Prime Target, as one example of a star having a “huge moment” and someone who could help get a project approved more quickly.
“In the 20 years that I’ve been doing this, that’s the biggest shift I have seen,” she continues. “I started in film and in film, if you’re not a studio, you’re looking for who is playing the lead roles in order to get the film greenlit. That’s now happened in television. Incredible scripts with incredible head of departments and directors still require the attachment of two or three leading actors in order to get the official green light.”
It may have been the novels by Julia Quinn and the backing of super producer Shonda Rhimes that first secured a green light at Netflix for Bridgerton. But the romantic period drama has made and enhanced the star power of its young cast members, not least Regé-Jean Page, Phoebe Dynevor, Nicola Coughlan, Simone Ashley and Bessie Carter, thanks to its large on-screen ensemble. The series also notably pushes one particular couple into the spotlight in each season, with Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha taking the spotlight in the upcoming fourth run.
Not knowing how globally popular the show would be at the beginning was a “blessing” for Hendry in those early casting sessions. But she adds: “I do have the pressure and the responsibility to make sure that we get it right, not only for the production company but for the fans as well.”

As a result, chemistry work plays a big part in how actors are paired up in series. “Taking an actor and telling the world this is the most attractive man in the world, that is a lot of pressure and not everybody always ticks all the boxes to find the best-looking person who is also the best actor, who is absolutely perfect for the role,” Hendry says. “I don’t know how they cast Bond.”
Another big ensemble piece the casting director worked on is Rivals, the adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novel for Disney+. Set against the backdrop of the drama, excess and shocking antics of the power-grabbing social elite of 1980s England in the ruthless world of independent television, the line-up includes Alex Hassell, David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson, Emily Atack, Victoria Smurfit and more.
Hendry praises the collaborative team behind the series, which is produced by Happy Prince, who were happy to bring together thoughts and ideas about who might join the eclectic cast.
“I have a singular lens. I am a white woman of a certain age. I am gay. I’m not saying that other people can’t think like that, but it’s my lens that I look at the world and then everybody in my office has something different to that,” she explains. “And everybody in a production room has something different to that. The more collaborative you can become as one and listen to each other, the better the casting is. That’s what happened [on Rivals].”
While casting every show is a different process, so much of it can just be about “feeling,” Hendry notes, as casting one person can affect how you consider those already cast or those roles yet to be filled.
“We did it well on Rivals because we have people from different areas of television and film that all worked together because we were very careful in making sure that every person we added didn’t move the tone in a specific way,” she says. “Equally, [it was about] making sure it didn’t feel like it was a jumble, like a mess. It is a skill for sure. But if you work together, there shouldn’t be one voice in the casting process.”

Yet in one instance last year, Hendry joined an upcoming series when its leading actor – a Hollywood A-lister – was already attached. Her challenge then was to find someone who could star opposite Julianne Moore (Still Alice, May December) in Sky’s historical “psychodrama” Mary & George.
The series – from Hera Pictures – is based on the true story of Mary Villiers (Moore), who moulds her beautiful and charismatic son George to seduce King James I in the hope of gaining immense power.
“She is a massive star and you have a show that’s called Mary & George,” Hendry says. “Then, of course, you’re like, ‘How do we cast the & George to make it feel like it is Mary & George and not just all about Julianne Moore?’”
According to the character description, George is someone who is completely irresistible to both men and woman, and the actor who plays him had to hold their own against a screen legend. Hendry found “the best actor” in Nicholas Galitzine, whom she had previously cast in Prime Video feature Red, White & Royal Blue.
The job didn’t end there, however, with an ensemble needed to support the title characters. Nicola Walker, Tony Curran, Laurie Davidson, Niamh Algar and Trine Syrholm were among those to join the show.
“I’m very proud of the Mary & George cast, and I think we have some incredible female actors, specifically,” Hendry says. “There’s lots of excellent performances. Nicola Walker went head-to-head with her [Moore] and it was great to see one of our great Brits match up to one of Hollywood’s finest.”

Another period drama provided Hendry and her team with an altogether different challenge when she partnered with executive producer Claire Mundell and producer Synchronicity Films for Sky’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz. An adaptation of Heather Morris’s novel, it is inspired by the true story of Lali and Gita Sokolov, who met as prisoners at the Nazi death camp and, after falling in love, become determined to keep each other alive amid the horrors of their surroundings.
Hendry has known Mundell “for years” and as soon as she joined the six-part series, the casting director put authenticity at the heart of her work, most notably hiring Jewish actors to play Jewish roles on screen. She also oversaw extensive European casting for the hundreds of supporting roles and the extras on set in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Heading the series are Jonah Hauer-King as Lali, Anna Próchniak as Gita, Melanie Lynskey as Heather Morris and Harvey Keitel as older Lali. But across the board, she says: “What the actors achieved was incredible. What they did was brave as well, in what they put themselves through in order to do justice to a lot of those families from the past.”
Because of the nature of the storytelling and the real events that led people of various nationalities to enter the camps during the Second World War, they were “using actors from everywhere, really,” says Hendry, who notes that is it an easier process now actors and agents are able to submit self-taped auditions.
That, in itself, is a “hotly discussed topic,” she admits, but she is a fan of the practice because “it makes it a fair playing field for those who don’t have money and those who don’t live in cities to give themselves a chance.”
However, with self-tapes, she believes casting directors have a greater responsibility to support those who do submit their work for potential roles.
“It’s not fair for the mental health of the actors now to just be throwing tapes into the darkness,” she says. “We, as casting directors, have got to take responsibility of it, make sure we watch them and, where possible, acknowledge receipt or acknowledge if they haven’t got the part so they can put their heads on their pillows at night and stop thinking about it.”
Yet of all the shows Hendry worked on that arrived on screen in 2024 – others include The Decameron and the second season of Funny Woman – it is Netflix series Kaos that she is particularly proud of.
A darkly comedic reimagining of Greek mythology, it finds the gods atop Mount Olympus in disarray as three mortals reshape the future of mankind. But the challenge for Hendry was to build three different worlds – the gods, the mortals on Earth and the underworld – all on a television budget.
“Each needed a different tone to them or feel to them, but they all have to exist within the same show,” she explains. “You have to get the gods right. Then you’ve got your humans on Earth that you should identify with, and it should look modern day and be inclusive. And then you get to the underworld, which has a completely different feel altogether. This is one big, fabulous world with three different heartbeats.”
While Hugh Grant was initially cast as Zeus, it is Jeff Goldblum who makes the role his own, starring alongside Janet McTeer (Hera), Stephen Dillane (Prometheus), Aurora Perrineau (Riddy), Nabhaan Rizwan (Dionysus), Killian Scott (Orpheus), David Thewlis (Hades), Leila Farzad (Ari), Michelle Greenidge (The Tacita) and Rakie Ayola (Persephone).

Yet in one of 2024’s most controversial cancellations, Netflix axed Kaos after just one season. “It’s just so sad that Charlie [Cavell, creator] didn’t get to finish their storytelling because what was coming was going to be so much fun to do. But I’m glad it exists out there in the world and I will always be forever proud. It’s a very special show.”
Hendry’s upcoming projects include BBC series Film Club, Prime Video’s The Assassin, the third season of Prime’s fantasy adaptation The Wheel of Time, which returns in March, as well as S3 of Sky’s Gangs of London. But it is Broadchurch, the ITV crime drama, that stands out as the show that taught Hendry “how to do it,” with a cast featuring Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker, Eve Myles, Vicky McClure and Charlotte Rampling.
“Still to this day, it is probably one of the finest casts we’ve ever had,” she says. “If you look back and see where they all are now, it’s ridiculous. You never get them all in the same show again.”
Hendry now hopes the television industry will continue to be inclusive and tell stories that have the power to change the world and allow the small screen to become a safe space for viewers in an uncertain world. “And that shows that take chances, like Baby Reindeer or Kaos, which tell complex and queer stories, still get a platform and they’re not ignored for safety whilst we’re trying to navigate a financially unstable market,” she says.
That instability means broadcasters and commissioners may be less likely to greenlit so-called ‘risky projects’ and take chances on unknown talent. “But that is where the fabulous storytelling lies,” Hendry adds. “Baby Reindeer is an example of a risk that has paid off hugely, not only for Netflix but to boost someone like [breakout star] Jessica Gunning’s career, which is so deserved. Long live the risk-take.”
tagged in: Aidan Turner, Alex Hassell, Bella Maclean, Bessie Carter, Bridgerton, Danny Dyer, David Tennant, Emily Atack, Julia Quinn, Julianne Moore, Kaos, Katherine Parkinson, Kelly Valentine Hendry, Laurie Davidson, Leo Woodall, Luke Thompson, Mary & George, Nafessa Williams, Niamh Algar, Nicholas Galitzine, Nicola Coughlan, Nicola Walker, Phoebe Dynevor, Rege-Jean Page, Rivals, Shonda Rhimes, Simone Ashley, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Tony Curran, Trine Syrholm, Victoria Smurfit, Yerin Ha