The Run-Up to ‘The Long Walk’: How Casting Director Rich Delia Found the Perfect Ensemble

Presented by Lionsgate

“The Long Walk” isn’t like most movies. When a group of 50 young men from the nation embark on a cross-country contest to see who can walk the longest without stopping, they quickly become a unit. From the moment the walk starts to the end of the film, these 50 boys — and the actors portraying them — are clumped together in a pack, falling away one by one as characters “get their tickets punched” in a life-or-death contest.

This presented casting director Rich Delia with a unique challenge: finding actors who could perform this highly physical, intensely emotional material in an ensemble where you don’t fully exit a scene until you exit the film. Delia joined the process early on, becoming a close collaborator on the Stephen King adaptation with director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner. Delia, however, has a different experience than those who work on-set every day, making the final product — an acclaimed film praised on one of the finest King adaptations — that much more of a pleasant surprise.

“Casting directors are sometimes some of the first people hired in the process, and then you are often done by the time the film starts. But I was so pleased when I saw the film that everyone really brought every quality to the role that we had seen in the audition process, and I feel like this is the cast that was meant to tell this story.”

It took Delia a long time to find this destined group of actors, with the casting director casting the film three separate times before it eventually reached audiences’ eyes. The final cast started with the “key piece” of Peter McVries (#23), played in “The Long Walk” by David Jonsson in an acclaimed performance. Delia, who had read hundreds for the role of McVries, was so excited by Jonsson’s audition that he quickly called Lawrence and a studio executive to say he’d found their guy, an actor who could captivate audiences’ interests and hearts to the bitter end.

“I was completely awestruck. I had never seen a version of the character the way that he played it … it was an electric energy.”

From there, Delia began building a cast around Jonsson, looping in co-lead Cooper Hoffman as Ray Garraty (#47). Delia felt that the loss of Cooper’s father, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who previously worked with Lawrence on the “Hunger Games” franchise), informed the character of Ray in a tragic and unique way — the young walker Cooper would portray lives in the shadow of his own father’s passing, seeking to set the world right after a bright light had been dimmed. This lived experience, mixed with Cooper’s own immense talent, coalesced in an undeniable way. 

“Cooper Hoffman is just a marvel, and that backstory really just made the audition something that was just not really an audition. It felt like you were watching the character from the film emerge.”

But two contestants does not a Long Walk make. After Jonsson and Hoffman, Delia still needed to find a number of performers who could shine whether they were in it for the long haul or they only had a few key scenes. Tut Nyuot was tapped to play Art Baker (#6), marking the “emotionally full” and “soulful” young actor’s first role in a feature film (“Getting to be a part of giving him his first major role was very exciting”). Charlie Plummer brought the nuance Delia needed for Gary Barkovitch (#5), a character that walks the line between possible antagonist and tortured soul (“His performance had no vanity whatsoever”). Ben Wang may play the comic relief in Hank Olson (#46), but it was when the young actor performed the character’s tragic death in his audition that Delia knew he was right for the part (“I knew that if it was that difficult to watch in an audition, I couldn’t imagine what was gonna happen when Francis Lawrence got hold of him.”

And then there’s The Major, a military figure who oversees the Long Walk — and the soldiers who enforce a dystopian regime throughout the country. It’s a tough role, one that represents the entirety of the cruel system that encourages young men to enlist in the tragic contest at the film’s center. The Major feels like an almost mythical figure, one who is iconic and known by everyone in the world of the film. Delia wanted to tap someone just as iconic to play the villain — and subvert expectations in the process.

“Mark Hamill is the ultimate hero. He is Luke Skywalker. He’s such an icon in so many ways, and I thought that there was something really interesting about subverting audiences’ expectations and of casting someone that they have such a warm association with in this truly villainous role.”

There are no small parts, and Delia needed someone who could provide a massive presence in just a few scenes as Ray’s mother, Ginnie. Delia cast Judy Greer in the role, one of the few characters who appears outside the Long Walk and who carries some of the film’s most emotional moments.

“Our story, it’s about younger men joining something without understanding the toll that that can take not only on them, but on their families, and I knew that someone like Judy Greer could come in and take these scenes that she has and leave such a lasting impression in such a short amount of screentime.”

2026 marks the addition of the Best Casting category to the Academy Awards. This gives casting directors such as Delia the space to make their work known and share all that happens behind-the-scenes in their part of the filmmaking process: “To me, a script is like a puzzle, and actors are all the amazing pieces, and getting to figure out who fits together and who works well together was extremely creatively exciting and interesting to me.”

“I was told very early on in my career we are hired for our opinion,” Delia said. “No one needs to take it, but we certainly have an onus to give it.”