Jina Jay, Casting Director

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casting directors

Find out more about Jina Jay, one of the top British Casting Directors based in London, UK.

Jina Jay is a full Member of both The Casting Directors’ Guild (CDG) and the Casting Society of America (CSA).

She trained under Patsy Pollock and Jane Arnell, and has gone on to work with many leading actors, directors and producers. 

Jina Jay entered the casting profession in her mid twenties, after seeing how her close friend Natasha Wharton was enjoying working in the film industry on script development after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Realising that she was frustrated with her own work, and had always loved film, she wrote to casting directors. That led to meetings with Jane Arnell and Patsy Pollock.

The Casting Director of many successful and critically acclaimed projects –  including Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018), Bird Box (2018) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Jina Jay has received many awards and been nominated for a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Limited Series, Movie or Special.

Find the impressive list of industry credits on the Jina Jay IMDb page.

Jina Jay is also a co-founder of the Casting Assistant Certificate course offered by the National Film & Television School, which is a groundbreaking pathway for people to enter the casting profession.

You can follow Jina Jay on Twitter to see open casting briefs for roles that are unusual or difficult to cast from a traditional roster of actors, with very specific requirements.

It’s also a good way to keep up to date with the team’s recent work, as is following the Jina Jay Casting Instagram account.

Casting Masterclasses

In June 2000, Jina Jay, Shaheen Baig and Jane Arnell took part in an online Casting Masterclass with the National Film & Television School.

In May 2021, the same panel came together again for another online Casting Workshop with the National Film & Television School.