At a recent audition, I entered a small waiting area, and saw only one other actress. She was standing, facing the wall with her back to the center of the tiny room. She was “getting into the zone”. I grabbed the keys to the ladies room and left. When I returned, she was still facing the wall. Suddenly it occurred to me – she was trying to “toughen her mind”. I could tell by her body language that she was trying to control her fears. In that moment, I realized,

Oh, I don’t have to do that. None of us have to do that!

I exhaled, knowing that I’d already done the work, and that’s all I needed to do. She was called into the room, and through the thin walls I could hear her mess up the first line. On her second try, she still messed it up. They gave her a redirect (I couldn’t hear what), which prompted her to improvise in her own words. It was obvious that she didn’t understand the script.

When we hold on to something too tightly, it’s bound to slip away from us. When we’re more concerned about messing up than being in the moment, we’re bound to…mess it up. Even if we don’t forget a line, we’re liable to forget context, relationship, wants  – all that stuff we spent so much time & money learning – only to end up giving just a “meh” audition.

Audition stress can be boiled down to one thing –
the result of making something too precious.

This usually happens when we’re not getting as many auditions or bookings as we’d like. We’ve put so much weight on it. It’s as if this is our only (or most important) audition, as if this is the only time an office will ever call us in. We don’t even realize we’re doing it, but the heaviness is there. And then if we hear nothing – depression sets in. Making something too precious can drive us mad. We all know what happened to Gollum.

When it was my turn to go in,

I was focused and relaxed at the same time. It was…unusual. We’ve all heard that we are the solution to casting’s problem, but at that moment, I knew it. When I was done, they were speechless. Literally, silence hung in the air as the writer, directer, producer and CD all stared at me, waiting for/ wanting me to continue, but there was no more dialogue. Finally, the director simply said, “Can you do it again?” No re-direct. I felt he just wanted to see if I could replicate was I’d just done. And I did.

#thatfeelingyougetwhenyoustunthemwithyourbrilliance.

Be an Actor in Motion.

Consider the power of being an “Actor in Motion”. There’s more to an actor’s life than just being on set. Really. When we see this, we begin to see our auditions as just… something we do. They are part of the fabric of our “working actor life”. We know that there will be more. Most importantly, we know we have an actor’s life that’s filled with behind the scenes maintenance that is fun to do, like marketing and classes. (And if it’s not fun, it’s only because we’ve already decided it doesn’t matter.)  See movies & shows, read scripts, surround yourself with fellow actors who are doing the work, not just talking about it.