Angelina Jolie took a massive gamble. When she decided to adapt Loung Ung’s harrowing memoir about the Khmer Rouge genocide, she didn't head to Hollywood's casting agencies. She went to the streets of Cambodia. Honestly, the First They Killed My Father cast is a miracle of authenticity that most Western audiences haven't fully processed. It isn't just a group of actors performing a script. For many involved, it was a visceral, public reckoning with their own family trees.
The film follows five-year-old Loung Ung as her world collapses in 1975. The casting had to be perfect. If the children felt like "actors," the whole project would have felt like an exploitative Hollywood exercise. Instead, we got something that feels like a collective memory caught on film.
The Search for Loung: Sreymoch Sareum's Quiet Power
Sreymoch Sareum was discovered in a local school. She wasn't a child star. She had no IMDB credits. Yet, she carries nearly every frame of the movie with a gaze that is unnervingly heavy.
Jolie’s casting process was unconventional, to say the least. They used a game involving money. They would put money on a table, ask the child to think of something they needed it for, and then "catch" them taking it. It sounds harsh. It was meant to find children who understood the concept of desperate need. When Sreymoch was asked why she wanted the money, she said her grandfather had died and they didn't have enough for a proper funeral. That kind of raw reality is exactly what the First They Killed My Father cast brought to the set every single day.
She doesn't talk much in the film. She doesn't have to. The way her eyes change from a playful child in Phnom Penh to a hollowed-out soldier in a work camp is one of the most haunting transitions in modern cinema. It’s the kind of performance that makes you realize how much "professional" child acting usually relies on being cute or precocious. Sreymoch is neither. She is a survivor.
Phoeung Kompheak and the Weight of the Father
The role of Pa, Loung’s father, is the emotional anchor. Phoeung Kompheak plays him with a heartbreaking gentleness. In real life, Kompheak is a scholar and an interpreter. He’s a man of intellect. This translated beautifully into the character of a high-ranking government official who has to pretend to be a lowly worker to keep his family alive.
There’s a specific scene where he says goodbye to Loung. He knows he’s going to his death. There are no big speeches. No swelling violins. Just a father looking at his daughter. Kompheak’s performance is a masterclass in restraint. Most people forget that the Khmer Rouge specifically targeted the educated—the doctors, the teachers, the "intellectuals" who wore glasses. Having an actor who deeply understands that specific cultural erasure adds a layer of grief that you just can't manufacture.
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The Mother: Sveng Socheata’s Impossible Choice
If you want to talk about the powerhouse of the First They Killed My Father cast, you have to talk about Sveng Socheata. She plays Ma. Socheata is actually a well-known actress in Cambodia, but this role pushed her into a different stratosphere.
The scene where she forces her children to run away and leave her—knowing it's their only chance at survival—is gut-wrenching. She has to play a mother who becomes increasingly "hard" and "cold" to toughen her children up for a world that wants to kill them. It is a nuanced, painful performance. Socheata has spoken in interviews about how the filming process felt like an exorcism for the country. Every time they wore the black pajamas (the uniform of the Khmer Rouge), the trauma of the 1970s rushed back for the crew and the local extras.
Why the Background Cast is the Secret Ingredient
Most war movies use "background talent" as props. Not here.
Jolie and Rithy Panh (the legendary Cambodian filmmaker who produced the film) hired thousands of Cambodians. Many were actual survivors or the children of survivors. This led to some incredibly intense moments on set. Reports from the production in Battambang and Siem Reap mentioned that the sight of the Khmer Rouge soldiers—even though they were just actors—triggered flashbacks for the older locals.
This creates an atmosphere you can't fake with CGI. When you see a crowd of people being marched out of a city, the fear in their eyes isn't just "acting." It’s a cultural memory being reenacted. It’s heavy stuff. It’s also why the film feels so grounded.
A Cast Built on Shared History
- Loung Ung (The Author): While not "cast" in a traditional sense, she was on set every day. She helped the actors understand the specific internal dialogue of her family members.
- Mun Kimhak (Kim): As Loung's older brother, he had to portray the transition from a protective sibling to a starving laborer.
- Run Malina (Chou): She provided the perfect foil to Loung—the sister who tried to keep some semblance of girlhood alive in a camp.
The Risks of This Casting Approach
Casting non-professionals is risky. If the kids don't "click," the movie dies. But Jolie’s team, including casting director Kulikar Sotho, spent months scouring the country. They didn't just look for faces; they looked for spirits.
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The language was another factor. The film is almost entirely in Khmer. This was non-negotiable. Using a First They Killed My Father cast that actually spoke the language allowed for a rhythmic, naturalistic flow of dialogue that subtitles can only partially capture. It wasn't just about the words; it was about the sounds of the jungle, the specific way a mother hushes her child in a Khmer village, and the cadence of the propaganda being shouted over loudspeakers.
The Legacy of the Performances
What happened to the cast after the film?
Sreymoch Sareum went back to school. She didn't immediately jump into a dozen other movies. This is part of what makes her performance so singular—it exists as a snapshot of a specific time.
The film served as a massive employment project for the Cambodian film industry. It trained local crews and gave local actors a platform on Netflix that they would never have had otherwise. Before this, Cambodian cinema was struggling to rebuild after being completely decimated by the Khmer Rouge (who killed almost all the country's artists). This movie, and this cast, represented a "coming back to life" for the nation's storytelling.
Reality Check: The Controversies
We have to address the "casting game" controversy. When a Vanity Fair article first described how the children were cast—the thing with the money—there was an immediate backlash. People called it cruel.
However, both Jolie and the Cambodian crew pushed back hard. They explained that it was a standard improvisational acting exercise, rooted in the actual themes of the movie. Loung Ung herself defended the process, noting that the children were looked after by therapists and doctors on set. It’s a reminder that when you are dealing with a First They Killed My Father cast that is recreating a genocide, the line between "acting" and "reality" is paper-thin and extremely sensitive.
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What You Should Do Next
If you’ve seen the movie, the best thing you can do is read Loung Ung’s original book. The movie is visceral, but the book gives you the internal monologue that no actor—no matter how talented—can fully convey.
Specifically, look into the work of Rithy Panh. He was the producer on this film, but his own documentaries, like The Missing Picture, use clay figures to tell the story of the genocide because there is so little actual footage left. It provides a massive amount of context for why the casting in Jolie’s film was handled with such reverence.
Finally, support the Cambodian film industry. Look for films like The Last Reel or Diamond Island. The First They Killed My Father cast proved that Cambodia has an immense well of talent; the world just needs to keep watching.
Understanding the history of the Khmer Rouge isn't just about facts and figures. It’s about the faces of the people who lived through it. By focusing on a local, authentic cast, the film ensures that the victims are seen as humans first, and statistics never. This wasn't just a movie; for the people of Cambodia, it was a piece of their own history being handed back to them.
For those interested in the technical side of the production, researching the cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle provides insight into how he captured the cast’s performances using a "child’s eye view" camera height, which is why the performances feel so intimate and overwhelming.
The true takeaway here? Authenticity can't be fast-tracked. It takes months of scouting, a deep respect for local culture, and the bravery to let non-actors lead a multi-million dollar production. The result is one of the most honest depictions of war ever put to film.