Diana Rowan

If the measure of success for a casting director is the future success of the actors they pluck from the crowd, then Diana Rowan has certainly done time at the top of her field. She is the casting director who helped Anna Paquin, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Kerry Fox and Lucy Lawless on their way to international careers, while developing her own talents as a writer and director of short films.

In a way, she is a sort of fortune-teller... although she always takes care to tell those auditioning that the process is akin to buying a lotto ticket, she saw in an 11-year-old girl with no acting aspirations, something that would lead her to that walk up the red carpet. Writer Michele Hewitson, describing Diana Rowan in a 5 March 2004 NZ Herald interview