How “Harry Potter” Casting Led to “Club Kid’s” Reggie Absolom

By Tom Whitfield

Jordan Firstman chose 10-year-old Reggie Absolom to play Arlo in “Club Kid” after Carmen Cuba drew on Lucy Bevan’s six-month search for HBO’s reported $200 million-plus “Harry Potter” series. Firstman said Bevan had seen 40,000 kids during that search.

Firstman wrote, directed and stars as Peter, a party promoter trying to reconnect with Arlo, his long-lost son. His film follows a British boy dumped in New York after his hard-partying mother dies by suicide. Peter and his LGBTQ+ club circle revolve around music, dance and drugs; Arlo must leave his protective shell and bond with his father.

Firstman called casting the most “nerve-wracking” part of the production. Arlo had to project effortless cool to fit Peter’s circle while retaining empathy and wisdom. “[Arlo’s] not just cool, he’s empathetic and wise; there’s a lot of stuff about that kid that was on the page that needed to be there,” he said.

IndieWire reports a $4 million to $6 million budget, though published estimates varied and A24 did not answer its inquiry. Cuba, who cast the original “Stranger Things” ensemble, said: “I do six-month searches for kids.” On “Stranger Things” and “Starfighter,” she said: “you have time and money, and this was a small film.”

That difference ruled out a full trip. Cuba could not afford to fly to London and had to rely on a UK team. She said: “I was very nervous about just sort of the plan of attack, because I was going to have a UK team, and you need a British kid who looks like he’s half-Jordan.”

Bevan had just finished casting the first season of the upcoming HBO series, based on “The Philosopher’s Stone,” in which Harry turns 11. She had auditioned thousands of young British actors for Harry, Hermione, Ron and their classmates. Her credits include “Barbie,” “F1” and “The Batman.”

During a vacation with close casting-director friends, Cuba worked through her problem with Bevan. “I [said], ‘How am I going do this?’ just trying to map it out for myself before I left to go start it,” Cuba recalled. Bevan’s response was: “Why don’t I share some of the names.”

Cuba said: “This is just a testament to our relationship because Lucy would not normally do UK casting on a tiny movie.”

Early in the process, Bevan showed Firstman a photograph of Absolom. “I saw his face and I was like, ‘that is the face that I’ve seen in my head,’” he said.

Cuba said Bevan showed Firstman 90 children across a wider age range. Cuba and Firstman debated how old Arlo should be, with the character originally written to skew younger than 10. Firstman never wavered from Absolom, whose résumé included “Silo” and “The Other Bennet Sister.”

Firstman said the script described Arlo as one-quarter Indian and his mother as half Indian, and said Absolom was also quarter Indian. Peter and his friends called Reggie’s mother “Innit Babes,” a nickname based on her favorite expression.

Bevan advised: “Let’s not focus on that. That’s not going happen.” Firstman added: “Every single thing that I had asked God for, this kid came to me in Reggie.”

Bevan hosted the London callback because Cuba had no budget for a flight. Cuba said: “Lucy was so generous. They had no money to fly me to London to do the session in person, so she hosted the callback session there.”

Firstman rejected a casting-room format. “Let’s not do it in this casting office, let’s take it outside,” he said. Bevan’s assistant met them outside with a camera, and Firstman and Absolom walked and talked. Cuba said she had rewatched the audition recently and called it “just amazing.” She credited Firstman’s ability to connect with children for the film’s “familial” feeling.

Firstman also cited a decade of drug-fueled clubbing in Europe and New York, and a bond with a close friend’s child, as models for the role. “The reason kids like me is I don’t treat them as kids,” he said.

Firstman said he knew what Reggie saw online and could push the candor “a little bit.” He added: “Once he understood that I liked to be made fun of too, everything shifted. Once he got permission to make fun of me too, the whole dynamic shifted, and we just got so much more comfortable around each other.”

Traditional preparation failed. “We tried doing traditional rehearsals, and it was awkward,” Firstman said. Instead, he proposed: “Let’s just keep hanging out, and keep having pizza together, and keep talking about music, and keep talking about TikTok clips we’ve seen, and send each other TikToks.”

What changed for Reggie Absolom?

The practical change was access and method. The “Harry Potter” search gave Cuba a ready pool of British children without requiring the reported $4 million to $6 million production to run a six-month search of its own. A London walk-and-talk callback replaced a formal casting-room session; pizza, music and TikTok replaced traditional rehearsals.

For Absolom, the result was a role and a way of working with Firstman. Cuba read the apparent ease as evidence of a familial connection. The podcast interview supplies no independent assessment of the performance and no comparison with actors a full UK casting round might have brought, so the anecdote establishes an efficient route, not a superior method.

IndieWire reports that the A24 release is now playing in New York City and Los Angeles and will expand on Friday, November 13. Firstman’s full interview is available on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast through Apple, Spotify and other platforms, with a video version on YouTube.

As “Club Kid” expands beyond New York and Los Angeles on Friday, November 13, the casting shortcut has delivered a finished film. Whether the chemistry Firstman describes will carry beyond that production remains untested in the account.