She started at seventeen, answering the phones at A Country Practice. By twenty-five she had opened her own casting department, the youngest casting director in the country. By twenty-nine she had cast Cate Blanchett in Heartland, Simon Baker in E Street, and Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill in Frontier. The pattern was set early. Find the person before the rest of the room does, and trust the room to follow.
She founded Toni Higginbotham Casting in Woollahra a little over twenty-five years ago. The practice now operates from Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, and the same instinct still shapes every brief that crosses her desk.
Apple. Pepsi. Samsung. Mastercard. Qantas. CommBank. AAMI. AVIS. Nissan. OPSM. G.H. Mumm. Catch. Great Northern. MilkLab. BlueBet. Sydney Water. Australian Tourism. The brand list is long, and Toni has cast for most of them more than once
Among these, two campaigns stand out. Apple’s First Dance, a marriage equality film of real couples shot entirely on iPhone, made the week the country voted yes. AndThe Regulars for Victoria Bitter. Toni worked with Droga5 Sydney on the first campaign in Australian history to win a Gold Pencil for Casting.
The film and television work runs alongside it. Netflix’s Sweet River. Cruel Hands, out this year. As well as a feature in pre-production between Sydney and Los Angeles.
Recognition has come from Cannes, AWARD, Clio and Caxton.
The work continues…
Three rooms across Australia. One in Sydney, one in Melbourne, one on the Gold Coast. The fourth, wherever the project needs her.
