Get to Know the Casting Director: Danielle Aufiero and Amber Horn 

Welcome to the inaugural installment of our newest series at Casting Networks, Get to Know the Casting Director, in which we’ll feature a need-to-know person of casting. And to kick it off, you’re getting two for the price of one. Danielle Aufiero and Amber Horn of Aufiero/Horn Casting are known for a number of projects, such as Andi Mack, On My Block and Sound of My Voice. The two have many upcoming ones, as well, such as The Baby-Sitters Club and Motherland: Fort Salem. With everything they’ve got going one, the dynamic duo still found time to talk with Casting Networks and let us all get to know them a little bit better.

When was the moment that you knew casting was for you? 

Aufiero: I originally thought that I wanted to be an actor, and then my high school drama teacher did an on-camera week in our class. We filmed all of our scenes, and then they were played back so that everyone could see their own. That experience made me realize that I’m better at judging what is on camera than being on camera, myself. I’ve always loved movies and shows, but the idea of casting them seemed out of my reach. I majored in literature in college and didn’t have any experience in that world. So I lived in New York City for a while and had a few other career paths before slowly, but surely, I found my way in.

Horn: I knew very early on in my life that I had a passion for casting. Growing up, I watched Full House and came to realize that a lot of its recurring characters also recurred on other shows I watched. I was very interested in how that all worked but didn’t really know that much about it when I was younger. Then when I was in college, I ended up doing casting work on our senior film, even though I had been given the role of producer. And I just fell in love with it. I worked in production out here for about a year, though, before making the switch over to casting. The first opportunity I had was to work for the casting company that Rebecca Mangieri, Wendy Weidman and Barbara Fiorentino had at the time. That’s where I met Danielle. 

Speaking of which, how did you decide to start Aufiero/Horn Casting? 

Aufiero: I was working for those three casting directors, and I would hear all about this mysterious Amber Horn who was living in Dallas. Everybody talked so highly of her, and I was just dying to meet her. One day, I finally got the opportunity, and we clicked right away. We worked together as casting associates and would just hang out as friends, joking that we would one day start a partnership together. Then Carmen Cuba connected me with the opportunity to cast an ultra-low budget movie that she wasn’t able to do, and I asked Amber if she wanted to join me on it. It was the movie Sound of My Voice, which wound up getting to Sundance, and Amber got a call about another movie while we were casting that one. We started getting more and more of these small little projects, and everything was just clicking and really working. So Aufiero/Horn Casting started back in the summer of 2010 with Sound of My Voice, and we’ve been casting together ever since!

With almost 10 years together, have you developed any fun practices at your office?  

Aufiero: We like to celebrate good interviews or milestones with a nice meal or outing. A funny example comes from when Amber and I were leaving an interview that we were really excited about. We wanted to go to a fancy place to celebrate, so we picked Chateau Marmont. A very wise friend once told me that if you’re trying to get a reservation at a hotspot, use a British accent when you call. I tried it before realizing that the hostess who was taking reservations that day actually knew Amber — they’re both from Texas. So I dropped the accent and confessed.

Horn: It was just this crazy coincidence that she not only worked at the Chateau Marmont, but that she also happened to be working the host stand that day. We were trying to get a good table with a fake British accent, but because of a connection I didn’t know I had, we ended up getting the best seats in the house. She was so nice about it all and thought it was really funny, too. 

Aufiero: So since then, whenever we wrap a project, we try to take the associate or assistant that worked on it out for a nice dinner. Our staff works incredibly hard, and we always want them to feel appreciated. We’ll also do some fun office outings with them.

Horn: We took our team to Vancouver earlier this year to visit a couple of our shows that shoot in Vancouver. We surprised our office staff with a stay at the Four Seasons. I think another special thing about our office is that we try to keep our staff as long as possible and promote from within. A couple of our current casting directors started with us at the assistant or associate levels. People often have to go to other offices or start their own casting companies in order to get promoted, so it’s cool to experience people on our team becoming casting directors right beside us.

Aufiero: And we try to refer projects to anyone who used to be on our team that has gone off on their own. We had a lot of people helping us in the beginning, so we know how important it is to pay it forward. 

Your team won an Artios Award this year for casting Andi Mack. How did it feel to be selected for this honor by your peers?

Aufiero: It was an unbelievably exciting honor, and we were just blown away. We love Andi Mack, and that show has created so many special experiences for us. It’s just a unique, important and educational project. 

Horn: It’s a show that starts so many important conversations in homes across America and hopefully across the world, too. It’s been really cool to be just a little piece of that huge puzzle. And the show has launched so many careers, too.

What are you watching right now? 

Horn: Well, we’re casting a film right now called No Man of God. It’s about the FBI agent who was able to build a relationship with Ted Bundy during his last couple of years, when he was in prison. I have been doing a lot of research on Ted Bundy so that we could find the right person to play him and have since fallen down the rabbit hole of watching any material there is on him. So to answer the question, I’ve been watching Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. I literally fall asleep to it, so I’ve been having some really weird dreams. I can fall asleep to anything — that’s how Danielle judges how good I think something is.

Aufiero: Yeah, if she stays awake for it, then it’s especially good. As far as what I’m enjoying right now, I’ve been watching Hunters on Amazon, and it’s pretty great!

The names behind Aufiero/Horn Casting shared that their company started small, which involved borrowing the neighbor’s Wi-Fi at their first office and using a BlackBerry as their office phone. With such an interesting “origin story,” we were curious to know who’d play the lead roles if it were turned into a series. They picked the stars of 2 Broke Girls — Kat Dennings for Aufiero and Beth Behrs for Horn. Their choice was fitting, they said, because they really were two broke girls when they first started Aufiero/Horn Casting. It follows that your big takeaway from this inaugural article in our new series is that it’s possible to start humbly before getting to a place where you’re winning awards. Or perhaps you don’t have a hookup at the Chateau Marmont, and their words have inspired you to try out your British accent on its reservation staff. Regardless of your big takeaway from their interview, we hope you enjoyed getting to know the casting directors.

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This interview has been edited and condensed. 

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