Discover Talent Skill

Find actors and reference talent for casting in the Horus movie pipeline.

Quick Start

cd .pi/skills/discover-talent

# Search actors by name
./run.sh search "Florence Pugh"

# Get actor's filmography
./run.sh filmography "Florence Pugh"

# Get cast of a movie
./run.sh by-movie "Oppenheimer"

# Find actors with bridge attributes
./run.sh bridge Corruption

# Find similar actors
./run.sh similar "Florence Pugh"

# Get profile images
./run.sh images "Florence Pugh"

# Check API connectivity
./run.sh check

Discovery Services

TMDB API key required. Get one free at: https://www.themoviedb.org/settings/api

Commands

Search Actors

./run.sh search "<name>" [--limit 10] [--json]

Search for actors by name. Returns:

• Actor name, popularity, known for department
• Profile image URL
• Top known-for movies

Actor Filmography

./run.sh filmography "<name>" [--limit 10] [--department Acting] [--json]

Get an actor's complete filmography:

• Movies they've acted in (default)
• Movies they've directed (with --department Directing)
• Sorted by popularity

Cast by Movie

./run.sh by-movie "<movie>" [--limit 10] [--json]

Get the cast of a specific movie:

• All actors in the movie
• Their character names
• Profile images for reference

Search by Bridge

./run.sh bridge <attribute> [--limit 10] [--json]

Search for actors appearing in bridge-genre films:

Similar Actors

./run.sh similar "<name>" [--limit 10] [--json]

Find actors similar to a given actor based on:

• Shared genre appearances
• Similar filmography patterns
• TMDB's "similar" algorithm

Profile Images

./run.sh images "<name>" [--limit 5] [--json]

Get multiple profile images for an actor:

• Various angles and lighting
• Useful for identity pack reference

Check API

./run.sh check

Test connectivity to TMDB API.

Integration with create-cast

This skill is called by create-cast during Round 2 (Reference Discovery):

create-cast Round 2:
├── Extract character specs from script
├── For each character:
│   ├── Call discover-talent with character traits
│   ├── Find matching reference actors
│   └── Build mood board of references
└── Present options for selection

Example integration:

# create-cast calls:
./run.sh bridge Corruption --json | jq '.results[:3]'
# Returns: Actors known for noir/psychological roles

./run.sh similar "Florence Pugh" --json
# Returns: Actors with similar filmography/type

Taxonomy Integration

All JSON output includes taxonomy metadata for cross-collection graph traversal:

{
  "results": [...],
  "count": 5,
  "taxonomy": {
    "bridge_tags": ["Corruption", "Stealth"],
    "collection_tags": {
      "domain": "Chaos",
      "function": "Revelation"
    },
    "confidence": 0.75,
    "worth_remembering": true
  }
}

This enables queries like:

• "Find actors matching the Corruption theme of this scene"
• "Actors who've worked in Resilience-type films"

Configuration

Environment variables:

TMDB_API_KEY=xxx    # Required: TMDB API key

Rate Limits

Example Casting Queries

# "Who could play a determined protagonist?"
./run.sh bridge Resilience --limit 10

# "Actors similar to Florence Pugh for young lead"
./run.sh similar "Florence Pugh"

# "Dark, morally complex villain actors"
./run.sh bridge Corruption --limit 10

# "Who was in Blade Runner 2049?" (for reference)
./run.sh by-movie "Blade Runner 2049"

# "Get reference images for casting board"
./run.sh images "Ana de Armas" --limit 5 --json

Output Formats

All commands support --json for agent-parseable output with taxonomy:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "id": 1245,
      "name": "Florence Pugh",
      "known_for_department": "Acting",
      "popularity": 89.5,
      "profile_url": "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/xxx.jpg",
      "known_for": [
        {"title": "Oppenheimer", "year": "2023"},
        {"title": "Midsommar", "year": "2019"}
      ],
      "bridge_attributes": ["Fragility", "Corruption"]
    }
  ],
  "count": 1,
  "taxonomy": {
    "bridge_tags": ["Fragility", "Corruption"],
    "collection_tags": {"domain": "Chaos", "function": "Revelation"},
    "confidence": 0.75,
    "worth_remembering": true
  }
}

Pipeline Integration

discover-talent → create-cast → create-image → identity packs
      ↓                ↓              ↓              ↓
  Find reference   Build spec    Generate look   Veo reference
  actors           with refs     from refs       images