Bad Genius features Chanon "Non" Santinatornkul in his first leading movie role as diligent student Bank whose moral compass gets realigned after he loses his scholarship. It is a part director Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya says the actor was "truly born to play." To prepare, Santinatornkul was given the screenplay months in advance and participated in acting workshops with his fellow cast members. He had previously played supporting roles in Naphat Chaithiangthum's boys' love movies Love's Coming (2014) and Love You You (2015). On television, after playing a secondary role in Hormones 3 (2015), he recently headlined sitcom spin-off Bang Rak Soi 9/1 (2016) and school drama Friend Day the Series (2017) in which his buff character is swooned over by both boys and girls. He has ambitions to work behind the camera and is currently majoring in film production at Bangkok's Mahidol University International College.

Still a student in the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, Chutimon "Aokbab" Chuengcharoensukying is Thailand's hottest new movie star. The 21-year-old has worked as a fashion model since she was 15-years-old and appeared in several music videos for Thai bands. Last year, she starred in Thank You for Sharing, an 8-minute viral short about cyberbullying that has over one million views on YouTube. Director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, whose Heart Attack was one of the best received films at last year's NYAFF, convinced her to unlearn the exaggerated style of television acting classes to present a natural persona. To secure the lead role in high school thriller Bad Genius she was auditioned twice, finally winning the role over hundreds of other hopefuls. Director Nattawut Poonpiriya says that throughout the screenwriting process, he couldn't imagine which actress could personify her quick-witted and strong-willed character, which anchors the film on several levels. "For solving the great demands of portraying Lynn’s character, Aokbab proved herself the correct answer for this film," said Poonpiriya. "Her great skill as an actress is to show that 'less is more': how she expressed her character’s choices through her eyes, her gestures and her movements made me a believer that this girl has the brains, the guts, and the ability to control and handle every step of the game without having to rely on anybody else."

Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya is no stranger to New York, or NYAFF, which he regularly attended when studying graphic design at Pratt Institute. His first feature was wholly set and partly shot in New York, the dark thriller Countdown (NYAFF 2013). The film, in which a group of Thai students are terrorized by their drug dealer, was a radical departure for its studio, GTH, best known for less risqué horrors, romantic comedies and dramas. After taking a break for five years - working on commercials, music videos, and viral videos - he returns to the big screen with Bad Genius. This time, Poonpiriya has boldly reinvented commercial Thai cinema with a blockbuster hit that doesn't rely on romance or ghosts. He spent more than a year developing the screenplay, based on a concept from his producers: "Everyone is born with unequal abilities." Poonpiriya is in a class of his own.