Even though my auditions have seemed to hit a slump recently, this week I had 2 auditions! One was for a music video (which I know I didn’t book because it would have shot yesterday) and one for a short film (which I won’t know if I booked for at least another week or so).
In the room for both auditions, I felt great about the work I did. In fact, in the short film audition the casting director and her team were laughing so hard at my audition and said that I did exactly what they wanted. Even if I don’t book this job, I know that they will remember that I do good work in the room.
At the music video audition, they were bringing people back in groups of 5. I think that was because they were getting backed up and wanted to try to get through everyone as quickly as possible. After I signed in, I stood off to the side (it was very crowded in the waiting room plus I was so sore from my workout that I was scared that I would sit down and not be able to get back up). There was another woman standing right next to me so we started to chat.
If the audition requires a lot of lines, I’m usually not chatty in the waiting room. I spend that time working on my lines. But for this audition, we had to lip-sync to a song. I practiced the night before as well as in my car driving over so I felt comfortable not working on it while waiting. The woman I was talking with ended up being super cool. She and I chatted about random stuff and she told me how she only found out about the audition about an hour before (I on the other hand found out the afternoon before). I told her that if she wanted to look at my printout of the lyrics she could borrow them.
We waited about 30 minutes and then I was called into a group. The woman I was talking with ended up being in the same group as me. We all went into the audition room and I went first. We only had to lip-sync to the first verse and chorus and then my audition was over. I was dismissed but before I left I gave my new buddy my print out of the lyrics so she could practice before it was her turn (there were 3 people in our group ahead of her). And when I walked through the waiting room, I let other women know that they didn’t have to worry about the entire song, just the first verse and chorus.
Everyone thanked me and I headed back to my car. I felt like the audition fairy for helping out. I like to help out my fellow actors. I don’t feel like my chances are any worse if I help someone else out. Either they want me or they don’t want me.
After that audition I posted on social media that I felt good for being able to help people and some friends said that it will come back around to me soon since that’s how karma works.
At my second audition this week I ended up standing up again in the waiting room (for the same reasons again) and there was a woman standing next to me. She asked me if I was part of a particular actor group and I told her I wasn’t. Then she realized that she knew me through my friend Ace. More specifically, she saw the blog post that Ace had shared on Facebook and twitter.
We both laughed about how it was such a small world that we had a mutual friend. And we also thought it was funny that we hadn’t met before because she and I are very similar types.
This audition ran long. There must have been too many actors scheduled too close together plus the casting assistant was letting people who crashed the audition cut the wait and go in before people who had audition appointments and had been waiting. The wait ended up being a little over 45 minutes, but that’s ok. I had a new friend to talk with in the waiting area.
Her audition was before mine and when she was done, she walked over to me to give me a heads up about what happened in the room. When we signed in, we were all told that there were no sides for us to read. We didn’t have to worry about any lines. But in the room, she was handed a page of the script and had a few lines to read.
I’m so grateful that I was given a heads up about this! While I wished I had time to feel comfortable with the lines before going in the room, at least I walked into the room knowing that I was going to have to read the page and memorize the lines super quickly.
It turns out that my friends were right about karma coming back to me. On Tuesday I was the audition fairy for someone and on Thursday someone was the audition fairy for me.
This just reminds me that doing good things for other people is important. It doesn’t matter that technically I’m helping my competition because I know that if I’m who they want, it won’t matter what anyone else does in the room.
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Audition Horror Stories (or Sometimes I Like Things To Be Boring)
Making My Acting Bold (or Feeling Great From An Audition)
