How To Audition:
1. The first thing you should do is register with a casting agency. The reason for this is that they are the ones who get the auditions. When directors or producers decide to make a film, their first task is to find an actor. They contact casting agencies and tell them what type of actor they want and how much they are prepared to pay.
Each casting agency has a list of actors they represent. Some have only a few and some have thousands, but these lists are not up for public view because actors do not pay to be registered. Casting agencies earn their money by charging production companies for finding them actors.
2. Once you have registered with a casting agency, you should start taking acting classes and/or dance classes even if you already think that you are good enough to go straight into auditions. You will always be able to improve and there is no such thing as too much experience when it comes to acting.(Or any job, really.)
3. If you don’t live in LA or NYC, then I suggest moving there because that’s where most acting jobs are. You can try sending your resume and headshot to other casting agencies in other cities (you can find them online), but the chances of
Auditioning is a delicate process. There are many components to an audition that most people don’t know or understand. When I first started auditioning, I had no idea what was going on. I learned the hard way, and did a lot of research to understand the process.
Having good headshots is imperative. The headshot is the first impression you make on the casting director. If they like your photo, they will call you in to audition, based on how you look alone. If they don’t like your photo, they won’t call you at all. They will also use your headshot to hook their clients on you if they cast you, so it has to be good.
Make sure you have a good resume too. Your resume should list all of your credits: commercials, film, television, theater productions and training (acting classes). It should be formatted correctly and look professional. When you give it to the casting director, make sure it doesn’t look like a cluttered mess of paper. Either staple it together or put it in a little folder with pockets and holes for the pages so that it looks neat and organized when you hand it out.
When you go in to audition, bring your script pages with your lines highlighted in yellow marker
Auditioning is not about walking into a room and saying your lines as if you were in a play. It is more like what happens when you are at a party and someone asks you to tell a joke or a story. You have done it hundreds of times before, but this time it is different.
This time, you know that everyone else in the room is going to be listening carefully to your joke, evaluating it and making judgments about you because of it. This time, the people in the room are not your friends; they are strangers who can make or break your career.
When I was first starting out as an actor, I auditioned for several films and television shows each week for years on end. These days I rarely do. But I learned some things about auditioning back then that I still find useful today:
1)The best way to calm down before an audition is to put yourself in the hands of someone who will take care of you. A good casting director will eliminate all distractions from your day so that by the time you walk in to read for him or her, all you have to think about is acting.
2)Before going into an audition, do something physical with high stakes. If possible, make this activity competitive–
I wasn’t an actor at all. I was a software engineer, and then a venture capitalist. But I’d always loved acting, and after I retired from PayPal, I decided to take some acting classes at UCLA. Eventually I started auditioning for small parts on TV shows and commercials.
Auditions are nerve-racking, but they don’t have to be. Here’s how to handle them:
Be enthusiastic. In most auditions you’ll have only a few minutes to make an impression, so be sure to smile and show that you’re excited to be there.
Be prepared. Make sure you know your lines. It’s bad if you don’t know your lines; it’s even worse if you get halfway through the scene and realize you don’t know your lines but decide to wing it anyway.
Practice in front of people you trust. The director may ask you to read for the part twice, or do it in different ways (softer, louder, angrier). Practice enough that you can do it without thinking about it; that way when they ask for different takes, you’ll be able to concentrate more fully on what they’re asking for than on remembering what comes next.
Be nice. It’s not just that they want someone
Hoffman: If you are trying to do a good job, and you’re not doing that great of a job, then you’re going to be criticized. But the other times, when no one’s saying anything, it’s because they are not invested in what you are doing.
But if you’re doing something that is really good and really interesting and has some kind of depth, people will start to talk about it.
You can’t worry about people not liking it. You have to worry about whether you are giving your best effort or not. You have to be extremely demanding of yourself before you can expect anyone else to be demanding of you.
Hoffman: There’s never been a better time for aspiring actors than now. It’s never been easier—there are so many different avenues open for new talent to express itself.
I’m very excited about the short-films movement on YouTube, for instance. That’s just limitless opportunity for anyone with a camera and a computer and an idea or two.
Take a deep breath. Put your hands on your hips. Bring your shoulders back and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Look straight ahead, take a breath, and relax.
Now square off your shoulders so that they are parallel to the room you’re in. Your left shoulder should be parallel to the back wall of the room and your right shoulder should be parallel to the front wall of the room.
Now, imagine that there is an invisible string attached to the top of your head pulling you up towards the sky. It lifts you up out of your hips and lengthens your spine. You feel taller, but not stiff or tense. Imagine that you are being lifted by a hot air balloon with a rope attached to the top of your head and then it pulls upward with just enough strength to lift you up and allow you to lengthen your spine.
This is called “The Hoffman Process” because Dustin Hoffman used this exercise before he walked into his audition for The Graduate. The casting director at the time was Marion Dougherty (who later became head of casting at Warner Bros.) and she said that when Dustin Hoffman walked into that audition room he had an energy about him that no one else who came in had, even though there were many big stars who came in for this
HOFFMAN: I think one of the things I was seeking was a kind of – I don’t know if the word is respect. But a sense of my place on the planet and in the universe, and what it means to be a human being. And I think someplace in that search, there came an understanding that acting and the theater were somehow necessary to me.
MITCHELL: So it wasn’t just something you fell into.
HOFFMAN: No, no.
MITCHELL: What is it about acting that makes you feel that way?
HOFFMAN: It’s a way to live many lives in one lifetime. You can experience so many different things you might not be able to be in real life, but also [to] observe human behavior and ask questions about why people are doing what they’re doing, what does it mean, where does their journey begin and end. I’m always curious about human behavior. And so acting became a kind of laboratory for me.
MITCHELL: Do you remember the first time you were onstage?
HOFFMAN: Well, when I was 5 years old, we had a little theater group at school called The Nursery Players at P.S. 3, where I
