How to Get Cast in a Blumhouse Production

While Blumhouse occasionally veers outside its lane—“Benji” (2018), anyone?—this production company traditionally brings the modern era’s hottest horror films and franchises to life. Here are just some of its titles:

• “Paranormal Activity” (2007) and its sequels
• “Insidious” (2010) and its sequels
• “Sinister” (2012) and its sequel
• “Dark Skies” (2013)
• “The Purge” (2013) and its sequels
• “Oculus” (2013)
• “Ouija” (2014) and its sequel
• “The Visit” (2015)
• “Hush” (2016)
• “Split” (2016)
• “Get Out” (2017)
• “Happy Death Day” (2017) and its sequel
• “Truth or Dare” (2018)
• “Halloween” (2018) and its sequels
• “Glass” (2019)
• “Us” (2019)
• “Ma” (2019)
• “Black Christmas” (2019)
• “Fantasy Island” (2020)
• “The Invisible Man” (2020)
• “The Hunt” (2020)
• “The Craft: Legacy” (2020)
• “Freaky” (2020)
• “The Black Phone” (2021) and its sequel
• “M3GAN” (2022) and its sequel
• “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (2023) 
• “Speak No Evil” (2024)
• “Wolf Man” (2025)
• “Drop” (2025)

Blumhouse will release a follow-up to “Five Nights at Freddy’s” in December 2025, and its “The Mummy” reboot and untitled “Insidious” sequel are on the books for 2026. The company has also produced some hit TV series, including “Sharp Objects” and “The Rainmaker.” In June 2025, Blumhouse acquired part of the rights to the “Saw” franchise, which will allow the production company to expand upon Jigsaw’s story with the help of its creators and frequent BH collaborators, Wan and Whannell.

Blumhouse Productions’ head of casting and in-house CD, Terri Taylor, has cast countless BH movies since assuming the title in 2013. Her history with the team dates back to 2010’s “Paranormal Activity 2,” as it’s the first film in which she partnered with Blum. She’s also cast “Get Out,” “Halloween,” “Us,” and “M3GAN,” among many others. Sarah Domeier Lindo, senior vice president of casting, joined Blumhouse when Taylor did and she’s also gone on to cast some of the company’s top titles, including “They/Them,” “The Black Phone,” “Freaky,” and “Drop.”

Because BH works with numerous leading directors, there are often other CDs involved. Anne McCarthy and Kellie Roy, for instance, teamed up on multiple films, such as “Insidious,” “Oculus,” and “Hush,” and Douglas Aibel cast all of M. Night Shyamalan’s BH films: “Glass,” “Split,” and “The Visit.”

As Taylor told Variety, she was not too familiar with the horror genre when she and Blum teamed up. “I could probably name five movies that I bought tickets to see in the theater, including ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘The Sixth Sense.’ I had so much to learn about the genre and its history,” she shared. “The Blumhouse stories are relatable because we see the family. The stories are about families in jeopardy, or families dealing with extraordinary circumstances. We search for actors who can approach the role from a human level, not some sort of overarching broad performance, but bring real human emotions and fear.”

Blum told us that casting comes down to Taylor’s expertise. “[S]he casts all the movies,” he noted. “And she is very instrumental to why the casts work really well. We’re very into the idea of ‘Let’s forget the math and let’s pick the great actor who fits the part.’ ” And this has afforded Taylor the ability to blend the new with the old.

“We are really lucky at Blumhouse that we get to be on the front lines of providing a lot of [horror] movies for the theaters [that] fans to go and see,” Taylor shared with us. “And so for me, there are tons of opportunities to discover new actors and forge new relationships with established, iconic actors, like James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, or Ethan Hawke…. The opportunities are just greater, [and] the stories are more complex.”

Despite sticking to the given genre, Taylor has cast a wide range of horror roles. “Casting a ‘Paranormal Activity’ film is different than anything else we do,” Taylor told Variety. “All auditions are improvised. We don’t have a screenplay, and we don’t provide slides. We just provide a fictional character description that says, ‘You are a coach, a father; you have two kids.’ We build upon that and pair actors together. There are times when we can see a [bigger] opportunity. An example of that was ‘The Craft.’ We wanted to build that cast thinking it could be a franchise. ‘The Craft’ is a cult classic.”

Taylor told us that of all the auditions she has ever witnessed, Daniel Kaluuya’s for “Get Out” remains the most memorable. “It was how committed he was,” she shared. “It was not like he was saving [anything]. He wasn’t reserving anything, in terms of, like, ‘Let me work up to that. Let me get to that.’ He sat in that chair, and we were ready to do that scene. He immediately put his foot on the gas pedal and went for it, from the very beginning.

“In my memory of [his audition], that performance was very close to what we captured [in the film],” she added. “He didn’t reserve anything for another take. And not that Jordan didn’t play around and [have him do different takes] multiple times, but out of the gate, [Kaluuya] was right.”

Taylor also cast the real-life sisters Madeleine and Violet McGraw in “The Black Phone” and “M3GAN,” respectively. “[They are] incredibly natural, talented young actors that could process character study, scene development, and progression. They can take direction. They can be additive when navigating the scene with an idea, [which is why] the McGraw family became part of the Blumhouse family,” Taylor said. She also noted that, while they cast Violet in “M3GAN” first, when Madeleine auditioned for “The Black Phone,” her self-tape “was so outstanding that Scott Derrickson really did wait for Maddie to become available, so that we could make [‘The Black Phone’] with her.”

Madeleine told the Hollywood Reporter she had a previous commitment, but Derrickson risked losing his lead, Ethan Hawke, just so he could secure her role as Gwen Blake. “I honestly couldn’t believe that someone would do that for me,” she said, “especially when Scott was willing to literally risk losing Ethan just so I could do the movie. I will forever be grateful for Scott.”

There don’t appear to be any open casting calls for Blumhouse’s upcoming productions, but we suggest bookmarking our horror casting page, as we posted listings for Lee Cronin’s “The Mummy” reboot in January 2025. We also recommend securing representation if you haven’t, since acting agents often know what’s casting before calls become public. Don’t have representation? Here’s how to get an acting agent. In the meantime, check out this roundup of spooky Halloween-themed gigs that are casting right now, as well as our guide on how to act in a horror movie.

Embrace your unique gifts. Allison Williams starred in multiple Blumhouse movies, including “Get Out” and the “M3GAN” films, so she’s no stranger to the big screen. But as she told us, success has nothing to do with following the same path as other A-list actors. Instead, you must find what makes you special and use that gift to stand out from the saturated crowd of hopefuls. “There’s no trajectory to follow. Even if you were to say, ‘OK, I’m going to model my ascent based on this other person’s,’ luck and timing play such a big part that it’s really futile,” Williams noted. “So the key is figuring out what skills you have that other people don’t. Chief among those are your personal experiences and your face and body and voice—those are things that no one else shares. So think about that, and then think about who you know around you that’s also creative in other roles.”

Make honest choices. Having cast all of Shyamalan’s Blumhouse films, Aibel knows what works best in an audition room—and that means honoring the sides as written, while still making strong choices when it comes to your own interpretation of a character or scene. “In terms of the audition process, one thing that I always encourage young actors to do, especially if they are auditioning, let’s say, for a film where the director may also be the writer, [is to] really try to respect the text that they’re given,” he shared with us. “Just know that whatever audition sides you’ve been given were probably carefully crafted by the writer, and try to live comfortably inside that and not rewrite it.”

He added, “Particularly with so many actors that are self-taping, they may be given an audition side that they don’t fully understand, and my recommendation is, if you have a lot of questions about it, answer them for yourself. Make a firm choice and just go for it. Use your imagination and your gut instinct to make the strongest and most honest choice that’s emotionally accessible to you.”

Love yourself. As someone who no longer has to audition for roles, Hawke misses the “most painful part of [his] life.” But the star of both the “Sinister” and “The Black Phone” movies also recognizes that experience begets confidence, one of the most important attributes an actor can possess. “I think that confidence is what we’re all looking for. Confidence only comes with experience. Confidence without experience is bravado; it’s ego. True confidence is rooted in experience. And confidence is fragile. Talent’s not...,” he told us. “And I’ll say the really corny thing that makes everybody’s skin crawl, because it’s so difficult to do and it’s so obvious, which is: Love yourself. And [then] good things happen—you’re a better friend, you’re a better citizen, you’re a better artist, you’re a better lover if you treat yourself with respect. It just starts there.” Hawke added, “Because if you can’t do that, you start tripping over all that and you can’t do anything else.”