What to Wear to Auditions

Ding. The audition notice lands in your inbox, you get excited, and about four seconds later you think: what do I wear? Good question. It has a short answer and a story, and the story is the part my wife is going to enjoy.

What to wear to an audition, in three rules

1) Wear something you feel confident in

Rule one, and if you only keep one, keep this one. If you feel like you look good, it comes through your eyes and into the camera or across the table before you’ve said a word, and that alone puts you ahead of half the room. Confident doesn’t mean expensive. It means the shirt you’d reach for on a day that mattered.

2) Hint at the character. Don’t wear the costume.

Auditioning for a police officer? Black pants you already own, a black shirt, done. Don’t go buy a uniform. It won’t get you the job, and it tells everyone in the room that you thought the clothes would. The clothes are a suggestion. You are the audition.

3) Give them the feeling they’re selling

Every commercial is going after a feel. Warm. Sharp. Trustworthy. Fun. Figure out what the spot is selling, because it’s never really the product, and dress toward that feeling. Here’s the story.

Leeann had an audition for a GoDaddy spot. She came out in an outfit and asked what I thought, and I made the mistake of answering as an acting coach instead of as a husband. “Honey, it’s not sexy enough.” Which she heard as something else entirely. So I tried to explain: if you want a husband’s answer, ask for the husband; if you want the coach, the coach says this isn’t what they’re going after. There was some back and forth. She changed. She came back, asked again, and this time I said, “Perfect for the role.” She went in. She booked it.

The outfit didn’t book it. She did. But the outfit stopped getting in the way of what they were looking for, and that’s all clothes can ever do at an audition.

The short version

1. Wear something you feel confident in.
2. Hint at the character, never the costume.
3. Deliver the feeling they’re trying to sell.

Hit those three and you walk in feeling right, which is most of the battle. Then the work you did before you got dressed has to take over. If you’re looking for the version of this for a specific role, the commercial mom has her own post, and if you need a headshot to go with the outfit, here’s where actors in Arizona get them.