Auditions and Bold Choices

One of the pieces of advice that I see very frequently when referring to actors preparing for auditions is this:

Make bold choices!

Do your homework. Dig into the character’s past. Understand them inside and out, and then make bold choices on how you will present that character at the audition. If you’re auditioning for a role and clearly haven’t made bold choices, you’re not likely to get the role. People will be able to see that you’re not committed, and therefore they’ll have a hard time trusting you with the portrayal of the character throughout the course of the project, whether it’s a film, play, voiceover, or whatever.

Clearly, bold choices are important, and the actors who make them in their auditions are much more successful.

But what do some actors say about the process of auditioning?

They hate it!

I’m not talking about the specific presentation of a character in a moment to a camera or casting director, but the entire process of auditioning for roles of any kind.  Some actors will talk your ear off about how much they despise the audition process.  “It’s so painful,” they say.  “I can’t stand it!” they complain.

Guess what?

That’s also a bold choice.

It helps to remember that the technical details of an audition are just that: technical.  They’re mere bits of data…

• We have to memorize a script (or read it cold).
• We have to meet new people.
• We have to give our all to the portrayal of the character.
• We have to take direction.
• We have to deal with traffic.
• …and so on

How do we respond to each of these bits of data?  In short, we react.  What does it mean to “react”?  Some see any reaction as involuntary, something outside of our control.  In some cases this is true, such as the reaction to touching a hot surface.  That kind of reaction is built into our brains as a safety mechanism.  However, many other types of reactions are not involuntary, even though we frequently believe that they are.  Part of the medieval Latin meaning of “react” is very telling: “done again.”  And what is it that we’re doing again?

A bold choice.

Some have made the bold choice that meeting new people is an uncomfortable experience.  When they later meet new people, they “react,” and that discomfort choice is done again.  Others have made the bold choice to be angry in heavy traffic.  What happens when they’re caught in heavy traffic?  That anger choice is done again.

The audition process is what it is, and we actors (most likely) can’t change that process to suit our tastes.  What we can change is how we feel about it.

Many years ago, I discovered a quote from Mildred Barthel that quickly became one of my favorites.

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

The concept behind that statement can apply to a lot of different feelings, so to rephrase it in the context of auditions, “How we feel about auditions is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.”

Therefore, if we want auditions to become experiences that we enjoy rather than dread, what do we need to do?

Make bold choices!