Daniel Wolfe recounts how he and his brother's decision to street cast for the lead in their feature helped them discover a star:

"Director’s Cut. Two words that seem to imply ‘purer,’ ‘the vision as it should have been.’ The term has become a marketing moniker, like Dolby or HD. When asked to take part in this series, I realized we’d been lucky. 

"There aren’t ‘director’s cuts’ of my work, or mine and my brother’s work. When I made Chase and Status's ‘Blind Faith’ they put a ‘director’s cut’ out, but in truth it was label and artist approved. With The Shoes and Paolo Nutini, they gave us creative freedom.

"Again with Catch Me Daddy we had great support from the BFI, StudioCanal and Film4 in the final cut. So what could have made a different film? A cut without Sameena Jabeen Ahmed as Laila. Back to the casting… 

"We always wanted to street cast. We knew this would be difficult. People want a named actor. We wanted to find a young woman who could inhabit the role of Laila. She needed to be British Pakistani. She had to have a Lancashire accent. And she had to carry the film. 

"Months of street casting ensued. One day my brother’s watching casting tapes and he shouts me over. There’s a minute of this woman with pink hair, seemingly oblivious of the camera. We immediately arranged to meet with her. 

"I don’t like casting studios so we use rooms above pubs or in hostels, where possible with a pool table. I remember sitting unable to concentrate in that hostel in Manchester, having met hundreds of young women at open calls, then she bowled in. She owned the room. Nicki Minaj was spilling out of her headphones. Unprompted, Sameena started shooting balls. We tried some loose improv stuff. We asked her to come back a few days later. Same room. Moods different. She gets upset. We try different improvisations. Fear. Panic. We know she’s right. 

"The clips go to the investors. People don’t get her. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan does. He says, 'You’ve found her.' But the financiers need convincing. So we go up to Yorkshire with a Handycam and take Sameena and Conor McCarron onto the moorland. We let them improvise. Capture it. And Sameena is approved. 

"Here is the casting clip that sold Sameena in and meant we could make the film with her."