An Audition Is Not a Tryout

10 minutes ago

5 min read

Acting students seated in a studio with notebooks during class

Actors spend an enormous amount of time waiting for permission. Permission to work, permission to be seen, permission to call themselves professional. Permission from an agent, casting director, director, producer, or somebody else sitting on the other side of the table. Over time, this can create a terrible relationship wtih auditioning. Instead of walking into the room as an artist with something to offer, the actor walks in hoping to be chosen.

An audition is not a tryout. You are not there to prove that you deserve to be an actor. You are not there to demonstrate how badly you want the job, and you certainly are not there to guess what everyone wants and contort yourself into delivering it. You are there to share your work.

I recently had former Maggie Flanigan Studio student Graham Powell on my podcast, Creating Behavior. Graham co-wrote, produced, and starred in the independent feature Shackled. In the process of making the film, he found himself on the other side of the casting table, watching hundreds of actors audition. The experience fundamentally changed the way he thought about auditioning.

Graham described three levels of work that he saw. There was good work. The actor knew the lines, understood the scene, had made choices, and had clearly prepared. Then there was great work, when something unexpected happened. The actor brought imagination and a point of view to the material and illuminated something that perhaps the writer hadn't even realized was there. And then there was the rare audition where the actor made Graham forget that he had written the words.

I love that distinction because that is what great acting should do. The writing disappears, and human behavior takes its place. We stop watching an actor execute choices and begin watching a human being live through something.

One of Graham's most interesting observations was that with some actors, he could actually see their homework. I know exactly what he means. You see the action. You see the beat change. You see the moment where the actor has decided to become emotional. You see the interesting choice they have carefully planned for a particular line. The actor has prepared, but the preparation is sitting on top of the scene.

Craft should not look like craft. It should disappear. Your preparation is there to give you something to live off of. It should deepen your understanding, ignite your imagination, clarify what you're doing, and give you a personal reason to enter the circumstances. But then you have to leave it alone. Great actors prepare meticulously and then have the courage to let that preparation go.

Acting happens off the other person. If you're monitoring your choices, anticipating your next moment, or trying to reproduce something that worked when you rehearsed, your attention is in the wrong place. The work has become about you. Your job is to place your attention fully on the other person and allow yourself to go from one unanticipated moment to the next.

This becomes especially difficult in an audition because most actors enter the room trying to get something. They want the job. They want approval, validation, a callback, representation, or simply some evidence that they're talented. The problem is that the need to get something makes you self-conscious. Your attention turns inward. You begin monitoring how you're doing. Do they like me? Was that good? Did I make the right choice? Should I do something differently?

None of this has anything to do with acting.

Imagine instead that you walked into an audition with nothing to get. You prepared seriously. You made strong, personal choices. You understood the circumstances. You knew what you were doing. Now you were simply there to share what you created.

Graham said something during our conversation that I loved. He described an audition as free work. A sample of what you do. Essentially: This one's on the house.

That's a radically different relationship to auditioning. I'm an actor. This is what I do. I've spent years developing a craft. You've given me material, I've worked on it, and here's what I've created. This one's on the house. Take it or leave it.

That doesn't mean arrogance or indifference, and it certainly doesn't mean you don't want the job. It means your artistic self-worth is not dependent on whether they give it to you.

There are a thousand reasons you may not get a role, and many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your work. Height, age, chemistry, network, hair color, resemblance to another actor, financing, a producer's opinion, someone's previous relationship with the director, or an offer going out to a name. You have almost no control over any of it.

What you do control is the quality of the work you bring into the room. That is where your attention belongs. Your responsibility is to develop a craft substantial enough that when opportunity arrives, you have something worth sharing.

This is also why actors need to reconsider what constitutes a successful audition. If your definition of success is getting the job, you are setting yourself up for a miserable life because most auditions do not result in jobs. That's the profession.

There has to be another standard. Did I prepare? Did I understand what I was doing? Did I bring myself fully to the circumstances? Was my attention where it belonged? Did I allow myself to be affected? Did I work truthfully? Did I create something?

Those are questions an actor can actually answer.

You may do extraordinary work and not get cast. You may occasionally do mediocre work and get hired. The profession is strange that way. But over the course of a career, your job is not to become brilliant at getting people to choose you. Your job is to become an actor capable of doing consistently vivid, personal, imaginative work.

Stop walking into auditions asking for permission. You have something to offer. Prepare rigorously, walk into the room, share your work, and then leave it alone.

This one's on the house.

Build a Craft You Can Rely On

The freedom to walk into an audition with something to offer comes from craft. It comes from having a process you trust when the pressure is on.

At the Maggie Flanigan Studio, our acting classes and acting programs develop the technique, listening, imagination, and emotional availability required to work truthfully. Our Professional Acting Business Program helps actors navigate the business without allowing it to define their artistic worth.