Date: February 19th
Location: Actors' Guild Hub at Spotlight, 7 Leicester Place, London, WC2H 7RJ
Time: 14.00 - 17.00

Gemma Sykes is a freelance Casting Director who worked with Dan Hubbard for nine years before setting up Gemma Sykes Casting.

This informal workshop will start with a short introduction about the process of casting from Gemma's point of view, and there will (time permitting) be a Q&A session at the end to ask all your questions on how best to prepare and how to make the best of the audition process. 

This practical workshop includes a mock audition 'read', working from scenes which Gemma will select and send out beforehand. Participants will be asked to choose the scene they feel most suits their casting or that they most identify with will be asked to learn their lines. Actors will receive honest feedback in a supportive environment. 

A camera and a monitor will be used during the workshop so that participants can watch each other on screen as the scenes are read however there will be no playback.

Gemma started her career in Casting 16 years ago, in her early years working under many high profile UK casting directors, including Sarah Crowe, before joining Dan Hubbard Casting in 2009-2017. Gemma established her own company, Gemma Sykes Casting in early 2017 and has since worked on numerous independent and studio films and most recently Alex Galrand's FX series, DEVS.

Gemma’s Casting Director credits whilst at Dan Hubbard Casting include: American Odyssey (Anna Friel, Adewale, Peter Facinelli), Fanny Lye Deliver’d (Maxine Peake, Charles Dance, Freddie Fox, Peter McDonald), The Stoner Express (Billy Boyd, Alice Lowe, the late great Howard Marks), The Rezort (Dougray Scott, Martin McCann, Jessica deGouw) and The Hippopotamus - based on the best selling novel by Stephen Fry (Matthew Modine, Fiona Shaw, Roger Allam, Russell Tovey, Emily Berrington).

She has also worked as Dan's Associate on many of his most exciting projects to date including Captain Phillips, Jason Bourne, One Chance, Suite Francaise, Chalet Girl, Jimi All is by My Side (written and directed by John Ridley, Academy Award winning writer of 12 Years a Slave), The Phone Call (2015 Academy Award winner for best Short film)

View Gemma's IMDb page.