Leighton Meester is showing audiences her funny side as Deborah Revere (daughter to the famous messenger, Paul) on Fox’s new time-travel comedy “Making History.” Here, she tells Backstage about her worst audition experiences, the role that’s left a lasting mark on her, and why she has to remind herself to “take it easy.”
What has playing Deborah on “Making History” added to your acting skills?
Comedy. Plain and simple. [I’ve learned] about being comfortable in that setting and being able to trust my instincts and to explore and pinpoint what I think is funny, and [how to] turn that into something that hopefully other people think is funny.
How do you typically prepare for an audition?
The most important thing for me is to try to be relaxed. An audition, in any situation, is the least relaxed environment, so I do everything I can to be relaxed because I do a lot better [that way]…. Nothing makes me more tense than not fully knowing lines.
What special skills do you have listed on your résumé?
I don’t think I have any. I used to have dancing skills, which I like to believe I have, but I don’t—nothing that’s natural or innate or cool. Horseback riding! I do a little bit of that in “Making History.”
What was your most memorable survival job?
I started working when I was 11, so, truthfully, I’ve never had a regular job. But I would say that starting to work when you’re still a kid has its pluses and its drawbacks. I wouldn’t say it’s more or less of a struggle [than] if I had started a little bit older. I’ve been working for a long time. I did a lot of things that I suppose were great at the time, but I did “Law & Order,” “CSI: Miami,” that kind of thing. It’s one of those things where you get down and few months go by or a year goes by and you’re not working. Suddenly you’re thinking, should I do this? Then you get a job that pays your rent a little bit longer, so you have the chance to stay in your home and audition longer, and one thing leads to next.
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What is your worst audition story?
I’ve gone for auditions where they’re very specific about [how] everyone must be off-book, and you memorize the crap out of everything, and then you go in and they’re not doing three of the scenes. Another time, the casting director was reading lines for a tape, but also filing papers in his filing cabinet. Another couple of times a phone [was] ringing in the middle of it. Or the director just [didn’t] look up from his phone.
Which of your roles has left a lasting mark on you?
Curley’s wife in “Of Mice and Men” [on Broadway]. I did that in 2014, and it’s really stuck with me and I think it always will. It was such a challenge, because I would start off each show excited and positive and racing out onstage, and then the moment I got there, I got clocked with name calling and the audience would join in on it. It was a really weird time, because I knew everybody I was working with, and I knew there was a meaning in what [John] Steinbeck intended, but I didn’t realize how much it would seep in. Every night I would end up feeling so low and I would think about this woman and how it must have been for someone like her. It’s such a sad existence, and I felt what she did was out of being lonely and misunderstood and pushed away and not having somebody to talk to. I tend to think about her a lot.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Until you’re, like, 21, I don’t think you get advice. Teenagers…don’t take advice, usually. But I would probably say the same thing I say to myself now: Take it easy. Don’t worry too much, because you don’t have control. It sounds clichéd, but it’s sort of like everything in life…. When I think about auditioning, any time I wish I would’ve done that different—and [I] do that pretty much every time I leave an audition, and it’s been 20 years—I just replay it and the truth is, changing it up 5–10 percent wouldn’t make a difference. It’s not good to overanalyze.
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