Biography

Andrew Fem (they/them) is a trans non-binary and multi-lingual casting director, college showcase consultant, community care organizer, and artist based in NYC. In casting, they work in television, theater, film, and whatever other medium you need.

They are interested in united liberation thru identity-conscious casting. Authentic representation is essential, but it's also the bare minimum - they are interested in collectively re-imagining how much farther we can go together. More on this on the Core Values page.

They've amassed a following on Instagram (@castingbythem) by using their platform to demystify the casting process thru providing practical tips to performers on how to go about the audition process, as well as explaining behind-the-scenes parts of the process that often confuse performers. They do all of this from the point of view of a working casting director - a perspective typically kept behind the paywall of classes and rarely made available to performers for free.

As a person who speaks* three languages (English, American Sign Language, and Spanish) and has extensive knowledge of the Deaf, alt comedy, downtown cabaret, drag, and spoken word poetry communities, they are able to bring a practical intersectional approach to their work to help create space for talent from historically excluded and overlooked communities to put their gifts on display.

For their philanthropic and advocacy work, they were the inaugural recipient of the Casting Society of America's Rosalie Joseph Humanitarian Award. They are an advocate for authentic representation of the LGBTQ and Deaf communities and a supporter of #DeafTalent.

For their work with Christine Kromer on Season 1 of Netflix's Russian Doll, they received a 2020 Artios Award for Excellence in Casting. For their work on Fire Island the cast was awarded the Ensemble Tribute at the 2022 Gotham Awards (casting doesn't receive an award... for casting. Tale as old as time!)

They like working on comedy and musicals and are passionate about new work and projects that reflect the authentic diversity of the world in which we live. They also really like making collages and crafts that live at the intersection of the pretty and the profane (see Art page or visit their Etsy). They're a double Libra, Gemini rising.

Whatever you need (truly), they've got you covered.

Favorite adventure so far? Getting a call at 5:30pm from two of the producers of High Maintenance that they needed to find a body double for Ben Sinclair (The Guy) who could do the Kevin Bacon Footloose dance the next day on the Brooklyn Bridge at golden hour for a potential episode tag that had just been added. They needed to find someone with a solid dance background who looked like Ben and ideally already had a Ben-style beard. And because the scene was shooting that next afternoon, the person hired would be needed for a fitting that next morning, and so... options were needed ASAP. They got the producers three great options within 15 minutes, all fully available, with extensive dance backgrounds, and beards, and ready to go, if needed. As is often the case with these things... the idea was promptly scrapped and nobody got hired because TV production is always a hilarious adventure, but those boys would have ate!
- IMDb mini biography by: Andrew Fem