Casting Do’s and Don’ts: Three Ways Actors Lose the Room

I run castings out of the same building I teach in, which means I get to watch actors I know walk in and do the three things that end an audition before the read has started. They’re not talent problems. They’re habits, and every one of them is fixable by Tuesday.

Don’t talk down the product

You have to find a way to attach something positive to whatever you’re selling. What if you don’t believe in it? Find the thing you can believe in, because the alternative is what I actually saw once: an actor in a soda audition, in the improv, saying, “Man, this is going to stain my teeth, hope that doesn’t happen.” The company that makes the soda is in the room. They are not going to cast the person who just insulted their product on camera. Find the positive, or find a reason to skip the audition.

Don’t make the other actors look bad

The second one is subtler. You get paired up, and the temptation is to make yourself look good, which usually means stepping on your partner, talking over them, playing for the joke. Trust me on this: if you’re not lifting the other person, you don’t look good. The actor who books is the one who looks good no matter who they’re put with, and the only way to be that actor is to make everybody around you look good. Walk in unselfish. It photographs.

Listen, and take the direction the first time

You’ll get direction outside the room and inside it. If you have to ask for the same information again, and then again, we can tell you don’t listen and you don’t take direction easily, and our next thought is that you’ll be hard to work with on set. Because you will. An actor who needs every note three times costs an hour, and an hour on set is an hour of the director, the crew, the client and everyone else standing around. That’s why actors aren’t paid by the hour and shouldn’t be. You are paid for what you do and how efficiently you do it. Save a production an hour and they remember your name.

What casting is actually looking for

Someone who makes the product look good, makes the other actors look good, and makes the director’s job easy. That’s the whole list. Talent gets you in the door; these three are what get you invited back, and they’re the same three things that make you good to work with anywhere.