Auditions: No Excuses
Auditions: When Excuses Take Over Your Read…
- “I just got the material.”
- “My reps didn’t send me the full script.”
- “I have three auditions today, so I’m not off-book.”
- “Normally I coach, but this appointment was too last minute, so…”
- “I was camping and didn’t have internet, so I just looked at this for the first time this morning. What exactly is this project, anyway?”
Casting Directors have heard every excuse imaginable when it comes to why an actor isn’t prepared for their audition. Actors will use it to preface what we are about to see, which makes us assume a combination of the following:
- “This read will be subpar.”
- “I’m going to have to give them a crapload of backstory before we can even start.”
- “I will likely not get them to the performance I want, no matter what, since they don’t know the lines well enough.”
- “This will likely be a waste of both of our time.”
When you start your read with an excuse, not only are you putting the CD on edge, but you’re also saying to yourself, “This isn’t going to be very good.”
Truthfully, we KNOW that there are extenuating circumstances as to why you may not be FULLY prepared for this read. We know you’re human beings, with lives and families and jobs/classes/auditions. (And 2020 update: we know there’s a global pandemic and everything changes by the moment.)
We also know when your appointment went out, so unless we sent you that audition within the last 12 hours (or less,) we DO expect you to have figured out a way to become prepared. And if it was so utterly impossible to do so, did your reps try to move your appointment? (Sometimes we can’t allow you to change your day/time, but we are always aware of when the request has come in… or if it hasn’t.)
On the reverse, when we knowingly give an actor very little time to prepare and they come in, bounding with energy and ready to play without a word of how much time they had with the sides, we are utterly delighted. Inevitably, those actors will get the callbacks/jobs, even if they’re up against people who have twice the resume. They come in open-minded, ready to do the best they absolutely can without fear or hesitation, and guess what… IT WORKS.
