11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 8: Casting has closed for Control Freak, director Shal Ngo’s feature filming which starts shooting in Covington next month.
More than 500 people responded to the casting call Thursday for 79 extras of any nationality, and two lead roles for Vietnamese actor, according to the casting director and producers.
Original post 3:47 p.m. Thursday Jan. 4: Award-winning director Shal Ngo has an unusual opportunity for Greater Cincinnati residents: Not only does he need 79 extras for his Control Freak feature film, but the filmmaker is looking for Vietnamese actors for the lead roles.
Film Cincinnati announced the casting search Thursday for Ngo, a 2008 New York University graduate who has won awards from the SXSW Film Festival for The Box and the SyFy Channel for The Glow of a Warm Aquarium.
“The producers are looking for actors to fill principal roles . . . ‘Aunt Thuy,’ a female Vietnamese in her 50s, and ‘Sang,’ a male Vietnamese in mid-60s,” the film commission said.
They also need someone to be “The Sandshi,” a third lead character described as a “costumed demon,” and 79 background actors.
"I would love to have a local Vietnamese person for these (lead) roles, otherwise they plan to fly in actors. As a lover of my community here, I know we can find these two roles in the Tristate," says casting director Abi Esmena, owner of TheAuditionRoom513 in Longworth Hall on Pete Rose Way.
The Sanshi "will be in costume so any ethnicity works," Esmena says. "However, the person playing that role must be tall, thin and very flexible! They originally asked for people over 6-foot but I've opened it to 5-feet 11 and up. The most important aspect is the flexibility of this person, as they'll be in a suit with multiple arms operated by other people, crawling, contorting, moving around."
The film will be shot in Covington, Ky., and surrounding areas with production scheduled to start in mid-February.
Actors seeking the lead roles should contact Esmena. Background actors should apply at https://forms.gle/ZKctzArFTLmzeXGn9
Ngo, born in Minnesota to a Vietnamese artist-turned-engineer, has premiered two films at the Tribeca Film Festival. The Last Fisherman, a science fiction drama set in Vietnam he filmed while living there, was screened in 2018. The Box, an experimental documentary about solitary confinement in American prisons, premiered there in 2021. He also won best director for The Park at the 2022 Newport Beach Film Festival, according to his Shalngo website.
The writer/director/editor/animator splits his time between New York, Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
"Shal was bitten by the film bug early, and fondly remembers balancing his family's video camera on his 9-year-old shoulder (it shot directly onto VHS tapes and weighed a ton)," according to his biography on the Internet Movie Database.
Since graduating from NYU in 2008, he has "kept busy in the narrative, documentary and commercial worlds. He regularly works with progressive politicians and has created commercials and content" for Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). "His narrative and documentary work has won Adweek's Ad of the Day and Vimeo Staff Picks on multiple occasions."
He loves to "mix genres . . . and wants to blur the line between art and entertainment, and push his audience to ask deeper questions about their own lives and preconceptions," according to his bio.
