You may have heard of this wonderful opportunity through a friend and/or the always dependable Craigslist. After jotting down all the pertinent information and taking direction from HopStop, you head out to a casting call where disappointment awaits. Upon signing in, you enter a fairly barren lobby decorated with several framed and weathered movie posters. The vibe in the room is that of a funeral parlor and the secretary at the front desk looks confused and is enamored with her blackberry. “If this is a cold read like the breakdown said, where the hell are the sides?” you think to yourself, or possibly mumble aloud as your frustration steadily builds.
A gentleman nearby taps you on the shoulder as he hands you a sheet paper and says ” You gotta read dis in the room dude.” Thanks fellow thespian/hobo. After glancing over the side for about twenty minutes you are called into a room by a young lady who looks no older than 19.
” So you’ve been in commercials before right?”, says the little girl. ” Well the ad said no experience necessary but I have taken some on-camera classes.”, you respond.She turns over your headshot and pretends to study your resume with a crooked smile and says,” Okay, lets get this done.” Your blood is past boiling at this point but you must contain yourself as you slate for the camera and stumble through the sides while your nervous system nears collapse. The toddler expresses her thanks and you exit the room ready to smash your head through the nearest wall.
While in the elevator you ponder aloud ” What the fuck was that. Did I just waste my time? Was that a scam?” Later on at work, your fellow co-actor alerts you ,” Oh by the way, that audition was a scam. Some people were issued business cards and if you followed up, the casting agency asks you for money up front. Sorry.” No shit, really?
Perhaps you haven’t experienced those exact chain of events, but I recently have.
Now all of us are smarter than this I’m sure. But every once in a while you may be fooled. Its important to keep your blinders up and be fully aware of the red flags, some of which were listed above. Also, listen to your gut, if the audition feels off to you, chances are it is. Actors are extremely vulnerable creatures. There are many tactful predators out there waiting to feed on your sensitivities in order to drain your wallet. Though, I feel, your vulnerability as an actor is one of your strongest assets. So protect yourself but always be ready to tap into your fragile spirit.
Have any of you attended a scam audition before?
“It is more frightening but it is not less productive to go your own way, to form your own theatre company, to write and stage your own plays, to make your own films. You have an enormously greater chance of eventually presenting yourself to, and appealing to, an audience by striking out on your own, by making your own plays and films, than by submitting to the industrial model of the school and studio…You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you’ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you’re learning to say it better.” - David Mamet, True and False
All of us actors have something to say. What, where, when, why, and how we say it illustrates who we are in this great chaotic community of free thinkers. Since we were able to speak, we were the ones who spoke out of turn, spoke too much in class, and spoke up against authority.
This is the beginning of something which I hope will serve as an open forum for all of you fellow struggling actors out there who, despite your level of success, question your existence and ask yourself the big questions every day. Come here for inspiration, come here for self discovery, or just come here to bitch and moan. In no way do I consider myself an expert. For that matter, who hell is a true expert on this vicious art? I’m learning as I go along as all of us are.Through this exchange I would like all of us to learn from each others mishaps and breakthroughs.
At the end of each post I will pose a question or comment for future feedback from you the reader. I will rely on your feedback to generate future posts.
As you can probably tell, I recently re-read True and False by David Mamet. Being a former student of Sanford Meisner, Mamet cuts through all the bullshit in regards to an actor’s technique. Reacting as yourself and working freely from moment to moment is golden according to him. Book work, or the ” paint by numbers” approach to preparation, is useless and harmful to the actor. According to Mamet, “the only reason to rehearse is to learn to perform the play.” He stresses that exploring the meaning of the play and investigating the life of the character is a waste of time. ” There is no character, there are just lines on the page.” Well then, I wonder why he’s coercing the actor to surrender to the words of the playwright.
In part I agree that we as actors must cut through all the nonsense and strive for simplicity in our performance. Through the “reality of doing” the truth will unfold and natural inner life will awaken and become present for you and more importantly, the audience. I don’t agree that all book work is harmful. I believe by internally replacing the characters in the play with people you are close with in your daily life is helpful in ushering in a true light. Connecting the circumstances of the character with past experiences supports a truthful performance also. Most importantly, remaining connected to your breath as to access your true emotional core is essential to great acting. But, hell, I may be wrong. That’s what I love about acting. We are all striving for a truth almost unattainable. That my friends, is beautiful in itself.
I have been finding, on auditions, that the casting director, director, dude in the room, doesn’t care about a truthful performance. They just want you to act. On a recent audition I was told to act like the character Jesse Pinkman in AMC’s Breaking Bad. The casting director wanted me to enter the room high and use that as the basis of my performance. I did a pretty good read, but, needless to say, I walked out of the room discouraged.
While on an audition should you just give them the hammy acting they beg for or work for something real even if you risk botching it? Should you experiment during an audition?
