Acting Is Not About Being Someone Different
ACTORS
Audition Etiquette: Some Do’s and Don’t
Do…
Your due diligences – doing your research will pay in the long run; you will know about the project, the Casting Director and the production company before you get to the audition and you can use this information in your application. It shows you care about the project and the CD too.
Don’t…
Go blindly into every role – there are lots of fake auditions out there and it could cost you dearly. Also you won’t suit every role – learn your casting type.
Do…
Read what the CD wants – they might want a cover letter, CV & headshot but they might just as easily just want a link to your Instagram profile (yes I’ve applied for roles like that).
Don’t…
Send a blanket cover letter – make them personal to the role and project.
Be negative about the project or genre; if it’s not be your thing then ask yourself why you are applying for the role in the first place.
So, you’ve got the audition – fantastic! You have been a fantastic opportunity and probably beaten hundreds of other actors/actresses. That is a great achievement already! What now?
Do…
Send a quick email thanking the Casting Director & confirming your attendance. This is a great start; you are saying you will be attending and thanking them for the opportunity too.
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Photo: nbparks.org
Frances McDormand on “Being the Other” Actress
McDormand points out that one of the reasons why she pursued more character-based work is because her “look” didn’t seem to fit any roles. She says, “I was too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blond, too dark — but at some point they’re going to need the other. So I’d get really good at being the other.”
For example, McDormand’s character in the acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri isn’t the type of character an actress McDormand’s age would traditionally play — in fact, McDormand views the character in a masculine light. She reveals, “I really played it like a man. I completely based the character upon John Wayne and John Ford movies, because that’s a two-hour arc. Those characters can come out of nowhere, they don’t need a lot of background, you don’t have to explain why they’re like that, they just are the way they are.”
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Eddie Izzard on Learning to How to Be an Actor
The actor admits it’s something he had to work at, and cites his role in Circus as his turning point:
“I learned, there’s a film called Circus, I was offered this rather flash character. It was a great script, which I don’t think we landed, I don’t think it was handled right, and came out not as good as it went in. David Logan wrote it. Everyone was lying to each other, there was so much lying going on, I loved it. My character had four scenes, one of which was cut out, and of the three scenes, I filmed one of them, and that was bad, I did a bad job of that. I did the second scene, which I was OK in, I think, and I went back and they did an assembly, and they showed the assembly to cast and crew, I saw my first scene and I thought, ‘I don’t believe me, I’m not doing anything, I’m not committed to anything, there’s no attitude, I’m not driving anywhere, I’d better get it right’.
So the third scene I did, which I think comes out – might have come out second or first, it might be the first scene that you see – that’s where I learned how to act. That’s where I began to turn. And after that, The Richesreally helped me, because it was 45 minutes of drama shot every seven days, that’s an incredible speed, so you’ve just got to get on the rails and do it, and in the end, for most things, the more we do something, the better we get at it. So I just had to keep going back when some reviewers, logically, I haven’t read them all, but I assume they would have been – I think I read some of them – going ‘this is not so good’. I do know somebody said “Why is he trying to be a so-so actor when he’s a brilliant comedian?” That was an interesting quote, and the answer is because I used to be a so-so comedian.
I’m so-so at everything that I start, most people are, but if you have enough stamina, you can get to be OK, and you go ‘ah, that’s OK’, and then you go, ‘ah, quite good’, and then ‘good’, and now I’m happy with what I did as Bertie, I’m happy with what I bought to the table.”
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Please Yourself
Samuel L. Jackson Teaches Acting
Idris Elba on Acting
Believe or not, Elba claims that he “winged” it since he had been just coming off a year where he trained to become a professional kickboxer. Elba explains, “I winged that performance, if I’m honest. Right after I won my professional fight — thank … God — I went to Toronto to work on it. I only had 12 days before I had to go to The Mountain Between Us. When you’re fight-training your brain is completely mush because you’re tired all the time, so I was literally going, ‘This is going to be the end of my career.’”
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