Above you can see the Casting Menu in it's current state. Clicking on a role will give you a list of possible actors you can cast. You can set your own search parameters to filter the results by age and race.
Clicking on the actors name will give you access to more detailed information. Name, Age and Race (multiple races are possible) should need no further explanation, but let's take a look at the other values and what they will mean in the game.
Fame - Shows how well known (not necessarily how acclaimed) and actors is. This will determine the salary. Big names can cost millions, but they will draw people to the cinemas. The value is dynamic. Playing a big role in a successful movie will increase the value, but it will deteriorate over the years. If the actor doesn't manage to get cast in big productions on a consistent basis.
Performance - Shows how skilled the actor is. This also includes basics like being reliable or listening to directions. Younger actors usually will have lower values, but the value will increase as they gain work experience (how fast depends both on their talent and the quality of the productions they are involved with).
The actors performance plays a big part in calculating the overall quality of the movie/tv-show.
Depth - There are a lot of competent, well-trained actors, but only a few have the ability to add complexity, a multilayered personality, emotional depth to a role. Depth is also dynamic and will increase with experience, but much slower than performance. It's used to calculate the artistic value of the movie (which is used to calculate the chances for award winning).
Attractiveness - How handsome/beautiful the actor is. A high value will improve the mass appeal of the movie.
Talent - This value is hidden (unless you cast an actor via open audition). The talent value itself is static, but a high value will mean faster improvement and bigger potential for improvement, while an actor with little talent will learn much slower and cap out at a lower skill level.
Experience - Also a hidden value. Determines the salary (although not nearly as much as fame) and is one of the factors used to calculate the quality of the movie. An actor will gather experience by participating in production. How much depends on the size of the production and the importance the actor has in the production (playing a lead character in the newest Star Wars movie will add more experience than playing a minor part in a low-budget Horror flick).
Clicking on the blue icons on the bottom of the actor display will lead your to even more information. The second icon opens the genre display.
The Genre Factor - The Genre Factor is a melting pot of several different things. How well the actor fits into a genre, how much experience he has with that genre, how willing he is to participate in a production of that genre. Some actors have a wide range and will do well in pretty much every kind of movie, others are great within a specific genre but don't really work in others. However, this value is also dynamic. Landing a big hit with a movie of a certain genre will drastically improve the genre factor for this genre.
The third icon will show the actors in-game filmography, the fourth icon shows a list of the awards the actor has won. These two features are not yet implemented, but I will tell you more about them in the future.
The game will come with a database of hundreds of actors and actresses of all ages and races and of course you have the ability to add more via the editor, but if you are still unable to find the right actor for a certain role (or simply want to keep the costs low) you have the option to hold an open audition and cast a newcomer.
You will get a list of actors who made it to the finale round of auditions (how many varies). You can look at their stats and choose one of them for the part. The one you choose will be added to the normal actor pool and will be available for future production for both you and the AI Studios. All the others will get discarded, so choose wisely.
You might have noticed, that the picture displayed for the newcomer is a simple placeholder. If this bothers you, you can easily add a picture by dropping a bitmap image of the right size in the game folder, as long as the file name matches the full name of the actor.
Ok, that's it for now. If you have any questions, feedback or criticism feel free to comment below.
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