Anna Karenina film casts Oxford students

Cherwell.org

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Hannah Grosskopf on Friday 4th November 2011

Photograph: Flickr

Open castings were held in Cowley on Saturday to find extras for the new Anna Karenina blockbuster that will be released next year.

The film is being made by Joe Wright, the director of Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, and will star Keira Knightley and Jude Law. Part of the filming will take place at a heritage railway centre near Didcot Parkway station which will serve as a mock Russian location.

For this section of the production the filmmakers wanted several extras ideally of Russian or Eastern European descent. The casting session was entirely open to the public but the producers did also specifically contact the Oxford University Russian Society to encourage students to attend.
Second year English student, Esme Hicks, told Cherwell that she went along to the auditions because of the prospect of “good pay and something to put on my CV and the opportunity to see a proper big-dog film director at work.”

Karis Alpcan, a Univ History and German student, explained the audition process, “When we got there, we queued for about an hour, then we had to fill in a form with our basic information, had our measurements taken and then had our photos done by a photographer there. The process took about 10 minutes.”

Those that are selected to take part in the filming will be paid £100 for each of the four days of filming which will begin on the 11th November