Casting a 6 Year Old Child Makes 'What Maise Knew' Possible

Dramatizing the human interplay of a bitter divorce through the eyes of a 6-year-old child is a risky creative assignment. All the more so when the source material is by an abstruse, introspective author generally associated with waxen costume dramas. In “What Maisie Knew,” co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have preserved the spirit of Henry James’ century-old story of innocence and broken attachments while radically reworking its outer details. The result is a superb film about childhood, “Kramer vs. Kramer” with a literary pedigree.

“It began with a great screenplay by Carroll Cartwright and Nancy Doyne,” McGehee said during the filmmakers’ visit to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. “We responded to the idea of seeing this situation from the vantage point of this little girl. The outer trappings were never central to the story.” Moving the story from wealthy gaslight-era London to today’s upper-class Manhattan was less challenge than finding a cinematic equivalent for the writing’s rich subterranean moods.

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To learn more about casting calls please visit the International Truffles Casting Fair