Aaron Marcus booked his first NBC role on Homicide: Life on the Street by ignoring what he thought the casting director wanted. He played a country club executive dealing with three murders and chose a business-focused, unconventional read instead of the obvious emotional choice. On callback, he added a touch of feeling and got the part.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you an audition strategy that I used that got me booked on my very first NBC television show. When you watch this to the end, not only will you get a bonus video, uh, whether actors should be doing extra work, but also you're going to have some very specific and hopefully new ways of preparing and doing your auditions. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share my 37+ years of working as a full-time actor and give you information that I found helpful and also some information that I didn't find helpful but will be good for you to hear. Hey, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click Click the subscribe button and also the notification bell, and that way you'll know every time I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. It's really helpful. And please share the link with all of your fellow actors so we can all help each other. This was back in the '90s, the early '90s, and there was a great television show, at least the first couple of years. It started to change a little bit after a while, but the show was— it was groundbreaking really interesting, and it was called Homicide: Life on the Street. There were some just amazing, amazing people working on this project. It was a David Simon creation. It was from his book, Homicide: Life on the Street. He spent a year hanging out— he was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun newspaper, and he hung out with homicide detectives for a year, wrote the book. Barry Levinson, Tom Fontana, Turned it into an NBC television series. The actors on the show— Andre Braugher, Clark Johnson, Belzer, Richard Belzer, the late Richard Belzer, unfortunately. Melissa Leo. There was Daniel Baldwin. I know I'm forgetting some. Carl Secor. There were just some really— oh, Ned Beatty. Forgot about Ned Beatty. Yaphet Kotto was in it once again, at least in the first couple of seasons. All those people were there, and it was really interesting. I got a chance to audition, and here's what happened. There, there is a fancy-schmancy country club, and I was reading for the role of the executive director of this country club. So I'm a money guy. I'm handling finances and budgets and things like that. Now what happened in this particular episode was 3 members of my country club were murdered. That's not good for business. And so when I was looking at the sides— and by the way, on a little bit of a side note, no pun intended— don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever Don't ever try to think about, I wonder what the casting director is looking for? That's what I want to do. That's what I want to give the casting director in the read, whatever I think that casting director is looking for. Don't ever do that because there's, there's no way of knowing what a casting director is looking for. And, and sometimes the casting director doesn't know, just like the director. It's kind of like they know it when they see it. But they don't always have preconceived ideas of what the character should be doing. So I'm looking at the sides and it's pretty horrible. I'm talking about 3 members. I knew these people, they were members for a long time. I'm talking— I'm being interviewed by Kyle Secor and Andre Braugher. And once again, God, these actors, they are so good. And so I read it a million times, and then I started thinking, okay, so the easy approach to doing this would be to be incredibly solemn. I'm talking about members, I'm talking about people who I knew, I knew their families. These people were murdered. This is my country club. And that would certainly would be a A normal way to, to discuss the situation. So here's what I did, and this is what I wanted to share with you. I'm not thinking about the casting director. I'm thinking about, for me, can I do something different that's interesting, that might be fun? And it could be way, way, way off base. I might be in left field on this one, and they might look at it and say, was this person crazy? It doesn't make any sense. That was a possibility. However, what I have learned is that if you physically look right for the part, you give an interesting read. It doesn't have to be the right one because— and when I say the right one, the one that, that they are going to wind up wanting to use during filming. Because one of the things we also have to keep in mind is that quite often we're not given the entire script, so we are making decisions based on a page, 2 pages, 3 pages, 5 pages of material. And if, if the read is interesting and believable and you look right for the part, that should at least get you a callback. And at the— if they have a callback, sometimes they just book directly from You know, from the initial read. But at the callback, that's, that's the time that the actor will get additional information or notes from the director. So here's, here's what I did. I thought it was an interesting idea. I thought, who knows what they're going to think, but I think it was interesting and I thought it was fun. Okay, so I'm, I'm the— actually, so I'm the executive director of this country club. I'm a money guy. And look, I do feel bad that I just— 3 people who I know, that I've known for a long time, were just murdered at the country club. I decided because this guy is a money guy, he's not taking it in an emotional way. Actually, he's thinking, Of course, my heart goes out to the family. It's terrible. But the fact of the matter is I just lost income from 3 families. And I'm worried about crowd control because I'm nervous other people at this country club might think, oh, maybe I shouldn't be continuing my membership. Maybe people who were thinking about coming to the country club might not because people are getting murdered at this country club. So instead of Feeling the sadness, feeling the concern. Look, I wasn't completely cold, but I also wasn't in tears doing this thing. It was— yeah, I mean, they were very nice people. It's horrible. It's a horrible situation. Hey, are we done here with this interview? Because I got to get back. I got to try to figure out how to solve things and not see money Flying out of this country club. That's what I wound up doing. And I got a callback, and at the callback, the director said, well, I've got to tell you, Aaron, you were the only one who took the character in that direction. Do me a favor, read it again, but let me see a little bit of blood flowing through your veins. So what I did was I still didn't get teary or anything like that, which certainly would be very appropriate, but I did back off some of the insensitivity. There was something there, but I, I still was matter-of-fact about this, and I wound up booking the job. It was cool. And so for you, the next time you are looking at the sides and you're trying to think, well, what do I do here? Remember, forget about the casting director and what they are thinking, or the director, you know, what kind of ideas might they have. Do something interesting. Certainly it's got to be in the ballpark, you know. I, you know, certainly I'm not going to be laughing and joking around during this thing, but do something that's appropriate but maybe not the obvious. And if you look the part, it's interesting, it's believable, they like to read Maybe that would be enough at least for them to give you some more information or some direction and some notes for a callback. So I just wanted to share that with you. And look, hey, if, if you have any kind of suggestions, ideas of ways that you analyze the script for an audition, please share it in the comments section so that way we can all learn from each other. That's the whole point of having this channel. Actors helping each other, not competing with each other, just sharing information. Hey, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget to subscribe, click the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, and please share this with your friends. Hey, I almost forgot to watch that bonus video, Should Actors Be Doing Extra Work? Click on the link above and you'll get a chance to watch the entire video. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
