Ask Not What Your Audition Can Do for You… Ask What You Can Do for Your Audition!

I’ve told people this a million times… stop thinking about what you THINK the Director or Casting Director is looking for in audition. Stop TRYING TO BOOK THE JOB. When we get into our own heads and start thinking about our NEED or DESIRE to book, we are thinking thoughts that are not in the head of our character, making it harder to bring truth to the moment. We spend so much time memorizing lines or thinking about what we need to do to book the gig, that we take the life out of the character and desperation creeps in.

In an audition, it is our job to GIVE and not to GET. In Bryan Cranston’s incredible autobiography, A Life in Parts, he states:

Breck suggested that I focus on process rather than outcome. I wasn’t going to get anything: a job or money or validation. I wasn’t going to compete with the other guys. I was going to give something. I wasn’t there to get a job. I was there to do a job. Simple as that. I was there to give a performance. If I attached to that outcome, I was setting myself up to expect, and thus to fail.

My job was to focus on character. My job was to be interesting. My job was to be compelling. Take some chances. Serve the text. Enjoy the process.

And this wasn’t some semantic sleight of hand, it wasn’t some subtle form of barber or gamesmanship. There was to be on predicting or manipulating, no thinking of outcome. Outcome was irrelevant. I couldn’t afford any longer to approach my work as a means to and end.

Once I made the switch, I was no longer a supplicant. I had power in any room I walked into. Which meant I could relax. I was free.

I highly recommend reading Mr Cranston’s book. It’s full of pearls of wisdom!