Today I was fortunate to help my good friend out casting her paid SAG short at the Cazt studios in West Hollywood.
As an actor, I jumped at the chance as this offers a unique and unparalleled insight into the other side of the table; a side that actors seldom get the chance to see.
Here are my observations; I hope you like them.
If you have been asked in for an audition, TURN UP! I honestly don’t know why I need to say this, I really don’t. The project received 800 submissions for four roles; that’s 200 per role (see, I can do math too) and 33 people were selected. Out of those 33, 13 didn’t turn up and only two contacted my friend to explain why.
Yes, 33% of the actors for this PAID SAG project didn’t bother to show up and didn’t contact us to say why… Of the other 20 people who did show up, four were late for their time slots. I just cannot express how woeful this is and if you want to be taken seriously as an actor, you HAVE to get there for your time slot and ideally, at least fifteen minutes early. If you can’t make it, and we all get those last minute things that are unavoidable, contact the casting/production office somehow and say.
Two of the aforementioned twenty people turned up exactly on time and were flustered and hot and gave bad readings that I bet would have been far better if they had got here early and had time for a coke and a smile.
Next, if you bring a headshot and resume with you (and we don’t so much in the UK but they love it out here), make sure it’s formatted correctly and the paper is cropped to exactly fit the 8”x10” headshot. Also, and again I honestly don’t know why I need to say this, PROOFREAD, people! One guy had that he was an expert in Marital Arts. Great but we don’t need to know your bedroom habits on your resume, dude. He meant Kung Fu, by the way. A couple of others had put goofy stuff on there in the ‘other skills’ section. Weird stuff that is only on there to prove how wacky and zany you are. Also, everyone had put on their resume that they could do a British accent, many of them said they could do multiple regional British accents and lot of them also said they could do other European accents too. This is great! Just the sort of thing a casting director needs if they want to cast a role from one of those countries. I had an audition for a major network TV show on Thursday for a role that required a British accent. Of the six of us who were up for the role, four of them were American and their accents were just laughably awful. If you put on your resume that you can do an accent, make sure that you can actually do the accent well enough to pass for a native. This goes for other skills, just sitting on a horse a couple of times whilst being led round a paddock does not equate to ‘I can horse ride.’
I know some of my casting director and acting coach friends will agree with this next point. Make sure you do something interesting with what you have. The script for the audition had some great bear traps in it and everyone, everyone, failed to spot them and fell into the trap. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great reads but the significance of one line in particular completely sailed past everyone who read for that role.
For another role, the words even gave away the bear trap. As clear as day, the character even voices the nature of the trap in the lines but again, apart from a couple of people, everyone else failed to spot it. Some of these people had had the script for well over two weeks and seemingly had done very little to research or dig into their role and why their character says what they say.
After seeing the tenth person do the lines “the way they think the casting director wants to hear it,” you kinda switch off a little. Be interesting. Stay true to the words and the character but you have freedom to play with the lines you have been given. Use that freedom because it’s one great way for you to stand out from all the others that have read for the same role.
All in all, it was an incredible day and I am eternally grateful to my friend for being allowed to be on other side of the table for a change.
I would suggest that every actor tries to sit in on a professional casting day at least once so they can really understand what to do and especially what not to do so that when they go in for their own auditions, they can approach them with this new outlook.
It opened my eyes and I am so glad I had the opportunity to do this.
Damien Gerard 