First or Last

Last week, we saw 158 actors for a series of interactive industrial vids I’m casting for Dr. Paul Ekman (the doctor on whose work the series Lie to Me is based). At one point late in the third day of sessions, the director — Marc Ostrick, more on him below — said, “That’s what you need to write a column about! That, right there!”

What had just happened?

We saw a perfectly talented, exactly right for it, very strong actor in the last 90 minutes of our third day. By then, we had a stack of seven candidates for that role (and another 20 or so in a stack of “not progressing to callbacks,” of course). We only need to bring two or three actors per role in this week for callbacks. So, not only would this actor need to be as good as our top seven, which were already in a small stack, but at this point, better than four or five of them, because that stack was about to get much smaller, by the end of our day.

Marc said, “Tell actors they need to audition first. Because that guy was great, but we already have our frontrunners.”

Then I held up the headshot of an actor from another role’s callback stack. It was an actor who, five hours earlier, was Marc’s favorite thus far. “Who’s that?” he asked. “Exactly,” I said.

“I can’t write a column encouraging actors to be first, because sometimes it’s coming in later that helps your dart knock out someone else’s dart, there in the bulls-eye.”

And sure enough, within the last 45 minutes of casting, we saw an actor for yet another role who did just that.

Does that mean the advice is “go first or go last”? Not necessarily. There’s also the power of being the first one after lunch, or the last one before lunch. Unless lunch was a disaster, in which case being first after a crisis may mean you’re not even really looked at (through no fault of your own, or ours, many times). Or if we just got a call from the producer (or client, in this case) with a change in the specs, or with word that he’s not feeling the actors we sent him in the first round of selects, so now we need something we didn’t include in our criteria during earlier sessions. Again, you have no control over that.

So, I guess that means the advice is this: Be first and you have the opportunity to set the bar, for sure. You also have a very good chance of being knocked out of the running by a full day of candidates we’re seeing do the role differently, perhaps better. Be last and you have the opportunity to stay with us after we’ve forgotten all the rest. You also run the risk of being the 35th actor we’ve seen do it “about the same” as others, by then. And even if you’re amazing, that may not be enough to get you called back.

Further, if you’re on the short list at 11am, that does not mean you’ll stay on the short list past 2pm. There are many actors who end up in the stack for a few moments, only to be pulled out of it within the hour. Constant shake-ups. Ones you cannot control or manipulate, beyond showing up, being talented, and of course fitting the specs for the role to begin with. Always assume you were on our short list (that’ll make you feel better) and let go of the rest.

Come in when you come in, be awesome, and then leave it in the room. We’re so grateful to all of you for showing us — in those moments — that you have the role, that you inhabit the character. It’s a gift you’re sharing, whatever time of day.


Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!


Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001288.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.

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