He said he had recently recruited a vegetable vendor he had found in a marketplace for an audition.
Generally, there are two tenses that we can use when we talk about events in the past: the past tense (e.g. 'said') and the past perfect tense ('had' + the past participle of the main verb; e.g. 'had recruited', 'had found'). When you wish to talk about events that occurred before a particular time in the past, you use the past perfect tense.
In the above example, the event of finding and recruiting a vegetable vendor happened first, then the interview followed in which the casting director talked about finding the vendor. Note that both events happened in the past, the difference being that one came before the other.
1. The teacher _________ (punish) him yesterday because he _________ (forget) to do his homework.
2. I _________ (am) very hungry earlier; I _________ (not eat) since this morning.
Answers: 1. punished, had forgotten; 2. was, had not eaten
