Q: What is your advice for auditioning actors?
My No. 1 pet peeve when I am auditioning actors is when they come in ill-prepared. I feel that they need to take every job seriously. If they don’t want it, they should just decline the audition. But you should be there, you should be prepared, and you should give it your all—because this career is such an exciting one.
I mean, think about it! Think about being a working actor and how exciting that life is. Every day, you don’t know what your next audition is going to be. You don’t know if you’re going to book that job. You don’t know where in the world that job is going to take you. You don’t know who you’re going to meet along the way. Your life and career can really turn on a dime. I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again, so I think that you need to bring the love of that lifestyle into the room and breathe it into the character.
Consider auditions as a time when you get to play and when you literally get to do what you love, because that’s what acting should be. If acting is not what you love, stop doing it. You should only be an actor if you feel like you must act. It’s a career path that requires so much dedication and passion, and you need to put that all out there in every audition.
Someone who comes in ill-prepared shows that they don’t have that passion. Why should I have the passion for you if you don’t have the passion for yourself?
This story originally appeared in the Nov. 18 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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