I was invited by one of the moderators of a child-actor-focused message board (PARF — Professional Actors Resource Forum) to participate in a discussion about auditions that get derailed and how actors can recover, what rights they have in the room, whether casting even realizes how tough we make it on actors sometimes, etc. Most of what I have to say on issues of respect has been covered in previous columns. My thoughts on how to deal with Crappy Reader Syndrome are also here in the archives. We know it’s an imperfect system for evaluating who is best for a particular role, but outside of the growing trend for taped auditions giving us a more accurate idea of an actor’s on-set capabilities, it’s the best system we’ve got.
And sometimes that means we’re running behind. We’ve asked you to prep more material than we’ll ever ask you to show us. We’ll employ readers who don’t give you what you need as an actor. We’ll rush you out in a brusque fashion while telling the actor next to you on the spot that she’s coming back to producers. It is unfair. We know. And nowhere in the Hollywood Rule Book does it say that showbiz and fairness intersect. Sure, some power-hungry folks even abuse this. I do my best to try and demystify what it is that’s happening, create a welcoming room in which actors can do their best work, and answer questions that come up when actors face confounding audition experiences that break their spirit a little bit.
Okay, so as discussions will often do, the one at PARF — about issues of respect and time given in auditions, bad readers and how to recover — took a turn when I explained why a casting director who absolutely does see that the actor is not getting a good shot at his or her audition (due to the cramped schedule, the bad reader, whatever) won’t bother doing a redirect or asking the actor to take a moment and start again. I said, “Bad readers exist. Actors really can’t really police them. But you also have to know that the casting directors aren’t (usually) idiots. We know when a reader is skipping lines, going too fast, causing stress for the actor that is totally not the actor’s fault. We know. And if we believe the actor is otherwise right for the role and just not getting a fair shot at it, we’ll ask for the read again. We’ll take the reins and read. We’ll note that the kid could be good for a callback regardless of the bad read (which isn’t the actor’s fault). We see what’s happening in the room and know where the problem lies. The thing is, most of the time, it wouldn’t matter if the actor got another shot at it. It’s not the read that is the problem. We’ve already decided before the kid opens his mouth that he’s not right for the role. And that’s why we don’t waste the time of having the actor do it again.”
One of the parents on the message board wanted to know — if “we’ve already decided before the kid opens his mouth that he’s not right for the role” — why we’d even bring him in! Great question. And some answers include:
Because he didn’t look like his headshot.
Because we thought he might look differently in the room.
Because we had another actor in mind for his mom at the time we scheduled auditions.
Basically, it’s like asking, “If you didn’t want to eat spaghetti for dinner tonight, why did you even put it in your shopping cart at the market this morning?” Why indeed? There are any number of reasons that things change and actors who were right (or who we thought may be right) aren’t right after all. Or nothing changes except that the dang kid has grown too much since his last headshot session and we can’t know — when scheduling — whether that has happened, etc. All manner of possibilities! Many of these factors, in fact, I covered in a popular column called Shopping for Cereal. But as I elaborated in follow-up questions at the PARF discussion, I realized that perhaps Shopping for Clothes might be a more accurate analogy.
Why, when you’re shopping for clothes, will you bring dozens of items into the dressing room which you’ll never ultimately buy? Because you’re trying to find “the right fit” plus “the right look” plus “the right style” plus “the right color” plus “the right feel” plus… it suits the occasion, it goes with accessories you already own, it feels right. And on and on.
In casting, we’re shopping. And shopping means checking things out that we will not end up buying. Actors (or parents of actors) who get into the waiting room and look around, survey the “competition,” and attempt to calculate a formula behind why ten blondes and five brunettes and two redheads were called in are engaging in the most futile strain of Actor Mind Taffy. There isn’t a formula. There isn’t a master system. There is a need to “try on” a bunch of different options to find the best “fit.” Sometimes that means we’ll do things very much like you do, when shopping.
Why do you take the same dress in two different sizes into the dressing room? Why do you take in a style of dress that you know generally doesn’t flatter your figure but maybe this time will be different? Why do you take in something that looks great and then dislike how it looks on or how the fabric feels against your skin? Because you’re shopping. If you don’t enjoy the process of being brought into the dressing room when there’s very little likelihood you’ll ultimately be purchased, then you’re in the wrong business. Because shopping — until you’re a couture gown sent over to our home before Oscar night — involves being shopped for. (And even then, you may not get worn on the big day.)
One of the follow-up questions in the discussion involved frustration over that “number of blondes in the waiting room” element. Basically, if casting knows it’s a brown dress that will get the job done, why are any red dresses brought into the fitting room? Ah! That’s easy. Because if we actually knew for sure that it was a brown dress we wanted, that is all we would try on. Further, if we knew we wanted a specific brown dress, we wouldn’t even go shopping. We would call the designer and place the order.
Let me put that in actor/casting terms. If we knew for sure that we only wanted blondes, that’s all we’d see. Period. But because many roles are not about hair color but instead are about essence and type and chemistry and talent as well as look, we often consider actors outside of the physical type described in the breakdown. That’s why you’ll see a room full of lookalikes and be the odd man out. It doesn’t mean you have any less or more of a chance than anyone else, in booking the role. It means you have something that the casting people want to see. That’s all.
If we know which type actor we want to such an extreme that we know the one and only actual actor we want without even seeing him or her, we make an offer. When we’re really sure what we want, there’s no need to shop at all. We “call the designer” (an actor’s agent) and “place the order” (make an offer). So, the shopping analogy works all the way up to the “name actor offer” stage of the process, really.
But until actors are at the “couture gown being requested from the designer” stage, they will need to be “on the rack” so that we can — you guessed it — shop for them! Casting directors are personal shoppers, basically, for the buyers (producers, directors, ad agencies, etc.). The buyers give us a list of criteria and we go out and find choices to bring back to the buyers. Of course, as I’ve said in previous columns, some take offense over the dehumanization of the actor, in this sort of analogy. Fair enough. But sit in on one casting session post-mortem with producers and it will be abundantly clear that — in the minds of the money guys — the actor is a product for sale and no one is worried about making sure everyone leaves every casting session feeling good about the process.
Which is why columns like mine exist. Those of us who write for actors do so with a goal of demystifying the process and giving a little more perspective to the actors on a process they know little about, from the other side. Once you develop the ability to not take personally things like a session running behind, a reader rushing you, the waiting room filled with people who look nothing like you, overhearing another actor getting praise that you didn’t receive, and everything else about the casting process, you will have more fun with the experience and that will — not surprisingly — make you a more castable actor.
Of course, you are not a garment. You are a human being. Which is why you have the choice to develop the ability to not take casting personally, to let go after every audition, to enjoy the process (and even laugh about it), and to welcome the opportunities rather than to curse the ones that got away. Absolutely, you don’t have to choose to detach from the process. You can spend hours, days, even a lifetime trying to get into our heads, trying to break down the odds based on who’s in the waiting room, trying to decode our every sentence (“What did she mean when she said, ‘That was great,’ to me? Did she mean that was great? Or did she mean I have no chance? Am I going to get a callback? When can I stop wondering? When can I let go?), and basically not getting any closer to the answers you seek.
When can you let go? The second you choose to do so. I recommend making that the instant you are thanked for your time in the audition room. Take yourself (the dress) and put yourself right back out on the sales floor so that the next shopper has a chance to see if you’re her “right fit.”
Reminder: I’m looking for your feedback on casting director workshops and going fi-core with the unions. I had received several requests to cover these issues in a more in-depth way, but I’ve received very little email from my readers, weighing in on “how it really is” out there, on these topics. So, if you were thinking about piping in, please do! Your first-hand experiences make my opinion-driven articles — which are based only in my experiences — much more well-rounded and relevant. So, thank you! And I look forward to hearing from you.
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/000996.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.