Casting Director Cami Patton on Bringing the Post-Apocalyptic World of ‘Silo’ to Life

Cami Patton is known for casting such shows as Justified and Parenthood. She is an 11-time Emmy nominee and a two-time Emmy winner for her work on the mini-series Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Patton is also the casting director of Apple TV+’s most popular streaming show, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi series, Silo. The project reunites her with showrunner Graham Yost, with whom she worked on numerous projects, including Justified, The Pacific, Band of Brothers, Boomtown and The Americans.

Silo, based on the author Hugh Howey’s book series, is about a society that lives in an underground silo because the world outside is toxic…or so they’re led to believe. It boasts an all-star cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson, David Oyelowo, Tim Robbins, Common, Rashida Jones, Iain Glen and many others.

In this two-part exclusive, Patton spoke to Casting Networks about various topics, including casting Silo and working with her longtime collaborator Yost. Later, Patton describes her early years in casting and offers valuable advice for actors auditioning.

Silo was shot in the UK, and the show’s leading lady, British actress Rebecca Ferguson, is also an executive producer. Was she attached from the get-go?

Not at all. I came in December 2020, and in January, we brought on (casting director) Suzanne Smith from the UK, who I’ve worked with on and off for over 25 years. Our first order of business was casting (the lead role) Juliette, which is Rebecca’s role. That was the big focus at that time. We were casting at the height of COVID-19, which was a huge process. We auditioned ladies all over Zoom. We had our list of people that would be ‘offer only’ and spent a fair amount of time trying to whittle that down.

What were you looking for?

Not everybody can bring grit and toughness or tomboy-ness to that role. We talked about Rebecca from the beginning, but it was a big time in her life with Dune and Mission: Impossible, and she was still filming. It was a lot for her to wrap her head around whether or not this was something she wanted to do. She took a long time with the material. She did her research. She read the books but ultimately passed but couldn’t let go of it. She returned to us as we were getting ready to test and said, ‘Is this cast yet?’ It was not straightforward in any way.

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

What were some of the challenges you faced?

I’ve worked with Graham Yost longer than Suzanne, so I know his sensibility. His characters are fully formed, well-rounded people, and there are always moments of humor, even in dire situations. You need people who can get his tone. In the case of Silo, even though it’s set several hundred years in the future, it feels almost period because those people went inside that silo a long time ago with what are now incredibly antiquated computers. The show has a steampunk feel. Trying to figure out who physically fits in that world for all the roles was challenging because they can’t feel too contemporary.

After you cast your Juliette, where did it go from there?

Within about a month of being on the show, we started talking about casting Bernard (an IT technician played by Tim Robbins) and Sims (an enforcer portrayed by Common). We couldn’t cast Lucas (IT worker played by Avi Nash), an is-he-or-isn’t-he love interest, until we knew who Juliette would be. We had lists of offers for many of the roles, but also we’re auditioning, which was helpful on several fronts. First, when you see people read for a role, you learn so much about the character in terms of what does and doesn’t work. Secondly, you also might find somebody you didn’t expect to find. We took a go-for-it approach.

We meet some characters in the first couple of episodes, and then they’re gone. Others we don’t meet until several episodes into the series. What considerations do you take when casting characters like that because you’re asking the audience to invest in people who may not stick around?

Exactly. When I was reading the book, I thought, oh man, this is going to be impossible because we lose characters that we think will be in the whole run of the show. From a casting perspective, those were much more difficult to nail down than those staying throughout and taking the story forward. It’s such a difficult needle to thread. You want to aim as high as you can with casting and have brilliant people pull you into the show and set the world up for you, but not have the viewers wanting to turn off the show when those characters are gone.

David Oyelowo and Rashida Jones (who play husband and wife) got audiences emotionally invested in the show with those first two episodes. They pulled you into that world in an amazing way. With David as (sheriff) Holston, it was more about the character being a leader and someone the silo trusts and feels safe with. David emanates that. And you want his memory to hang on throughout the series. With any actor less than someone like David, you’ll forget about Holston as the series goes on. And it’s important that you don’t. That full circle moment at the end that occurs would have been meaningless if that character hadn’t made an impression on you.

Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo, photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

How did you settle on Ferdinand Kingsley – son of legendary actor Ben Kingsley – for Juliette’s love interest, George?

There was a PBS series called Victoria that I loved about Queen Victoria and Albert, and he played the Queen’s chef. He had his own storyline as a love interest to her. He made a real impression in that. Ferdinand came to the States to visit, and his agent in New York knew I liked what he did in that project. He set up a general, and I met with Ferdinand while he was here. He was also in David Fincher’s Mank (as Irving Thalberg) and has done a ton of theater in the UK. When I first read the script for Silo, Ferdinand was the first thought in my head to play George.

In what way?

There is a centeredness to Ferdinand. There’s something very inviting about him. His character was one of the ones viewers had to invest in, even though it was not a huge amount of screen time. However, he is everything that drives Juliette throughout the whole season. The challenge was how do you elevate it in the way it needs to be elevated without pulling the viewers out of the story where they’re like, wait, what’s that guy doing here? We don’t stop thinking about him, and at the very end, when Juliette gets to see what happened to George, your heart is broken.

What roles are you most proud of having cast on Silo?

I would say it’s between Ferdinand and Sophie Thompson, who was the first person I thought of for the part of (fertility counselor) Gloria, because I’ve seen her on stage, and she’s just brilliant. I don’t want to speak for Suzanne, but my guess for her would be bringing Harriett Walter (to play a veteran engineer) There is nothing Harriett can’t do.

There is also a young kid who doesn’t have a lot to do, but you’ll see him again in season two. He plays Cooper, Juliette’s shadow, who helps her fix the generator and has to take over once she goes up top. The actor, Matt Gomez Hidaka, had just graduated college, and we gave him his first gig. He was sent to England for the shoot, spent months there and had the time of his life! And he’s so adorable and so good!

Rebecca Ferguson and Ferdinand Kingsley, photo courtesy of Apple TV+.

You also cast Rick Gomez as maintenance worker Patrick Kennedy. You’ve worked with him several times, including Band of Brothers, Boomtown and Justified. All three projects were also with Graham Yost. How important are these types of long-standing relationships, particularly with showrunners?

I am blessed to have a few people in my life that I’ve worked with for a long time and know very well what they will or won’t respond to. Probably more than anyone, Graham is someone whose voice I know. I understand his tone. Fortunately, we have very similar tastes. We respond similarly to people. The other thing that I love about Graham is he is completely open. If you bring him something that’s not what he wanted, but it works, he’s like, okay. He is a great collaborator and very good at expressing what he’s looking for and knowing if something is missing.

Do you send people to him for general meetings if there is an actor you feel he may want to be aware of to work with in the future?

He sends people to me more than I send people to him. I tend to wait until there’s something specific, but when he sees somebody he thinks I should know, he lets me know. He’s turned me on to quite a few people, and I’m so grateful for it.

What are some of your memorable casting experiences with Graham?

Justified was my baby and always will be. We had a short shooting schedule. We did one episode every seven and a half days. From a production perspective, it was a beast, but from a casting perspective, it was so much fun to find those characters. The show was so dark and twisted but funny and specific. Margo Martindale came in and read 17 pages of material for that character. She was the first name I wrote down for that character. She lived in New York, and I called her agent. We couldn’t fly people because we were the show with no money, so it was really difficult. I called her agent and said, ‘please tell me by some miracle of a chance, Margo is in LA.’ He goes, ‘She’s there doing press for Secretariat.’ I got her in, and the rest is history. Margo was supposed to be in five episodes, and she was in almost all of them. She took over the season. It changed everything.

Margo Martindale and Timothy Olyphant, photo courtesy of TVFanatic.com.

Another one with Graham, from a different perspective, was The Americans. I worked on the pilot and did the original casting, but because it was shooting in New York, I was not going to do the series. But I was thrilled to have put Keri Russell and Matthew Goode together. Now they are married and living happily ever after, and that makes me happy.

Stay tuned for part two of our interview with Cami Patton.

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