A lot of drama teachers and actors will have you believe that the only criteria we use for audition success is your ability.
A lot of drama teachers will have you believe that the only way to audition success is through scene and character analysis.
In my 30+ years of casting, I would say they are right.
But only if you take out the word “only”.
To succeed as an actor in the long term – that is, to have a career – I believe you need consummate ability and intelligent analysis of character and scene. Your performance career needs these skills.
But being in the audition space, delivering a memorable experience, in an environment of zero creativity and maximum tension, requires a different skill set.
Or am I wrong?
Did you get the job every time you really nailed your audition? You didn’t, did you?
Did you not get a call back after a tragically, confidence destroying, hopeless audition? But every now and then a bad audition does get you a call back.
Your audition prep should not simply be about the performance.
What actor can say their technique or training can realistically get you more work? To book more jobs?
Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can make that claim. The criteria for making a decision to go with one actor or another ebbs and flows. In the course of casting, we may favour a different actor for a role several times before the day comes to make a decision.
One of the main reasons is that the final decision involves so many people. How many producers get a credit on successful TV shows? All of them have a say.
What an actor can strive for though, is to get more auditions.
Because the choice of who gets an audition is usually down to one person: the casting director.
And if your acting class has weaved it’s magic and you are impressive in the room, you stand a good chance of booking the job.
The trick, though, is to get into the room in the first place.
The opportunity.
