Research shows some casting agents have anthropological training.

Anthropologist Sadre-Orafai says:

‘The role of the anthropologist is evolving and the kind of people we work with is evolving, too. As anthropologists studying professionals, if we’re only focusing on what people do on the job, we may be unwittingly narrowing our focus. We need to grant multiplicity to our research subjects when we’re measuring the work they do […]

‘Just as ethnographers use techniques of intimacy and estrangement in their fieldwork, balancing insider and outsider perspectives to make the strange familiar (translating others’ experiences so that they are intelligible beyond a local context), and the familiar strange (gaining enough critical distance to see underlying patterns and connections), so too, do street scouts and casting directors.’

Quote source: Eureka Alert.