Aaron Marcus shares a modeling shoot story where a co-actor pulled away during a romantic scene because no one asked about physical contact first. His rule: always ask the other performer beforehand if they're comfortable with hand-holding, arm-around, cheek-kiss, or any touch, whether on a job or audition.
Welcome to another Acting and Modeling Quick Tip with me, Aaron Marcus. I want to share with you an experience that I had that did not go very well, and it was very uncomfortable. I learned from it, and it will never happen to me again, and I want to share it with you so that it never happens to you. So I was doing a job, and actually this was a modeling job, And there's a woman who is playing my wife, and we're supposed to be in love with each other, we care about each other. And so in this particular scene, we're sitting at a very romantic restaurant, and I put my hand across the table and I'm holding her hand and I'm telling her how much I care about her and love her and all the— it's a lot of really sweet things. And in the middle of that, she just yanks her hand away from me and said, what are you doing? And I went on to explain to her that I'm acting. I was not trying to come on to her. I was, you know, not trying to do anything. We're supposed to be in love with each other, right? She goes, yeah. I said, and it felt right to me that I should be saying nice things to you because as a commercial model, I use my acting skills, and as long as the photographer is okay with it, I'll talk during the session. Uh, either With the other actor or actor-model, if that's the case, or sometimes I'll just think the words to myself. But in either case, it did not go very well. So what I learned from that was— and I just used this the other day as well at a go-see— whether it's an acting job, a modeling job, doesn't make any difference if you're auditioning with somebody or it's an actual job, I always Ask the other talent, are you comfortable with me putting my arm around you, touching you, maybe kissing you on the cheek, whatever feels right in the moment? And I just want to make sure you're okay with that. And that's what I do, and I've never run into that problem again. I've also never run into a problem with somebody saying no, but I, I really— I'd like to let people know ahead of time so they're not surprised, they're not taken aback by it. And so whenever you have Any kind of scene where you are supposed to be showing that you care about somebody, and whether it's putting your arm around her, holding her hand, whatever it is, or the guy, always ask ahead of time. Just ask if they're okay with that, and you won't run into any kind of crazy problem with somebody pulling away from you in the middle of an audition or a job. If you're watching this on YouTube, please give it a thumbs up. If you're watching this on Facebook, please like it. If you have any questions at all, just go to facebook.com/howtomodel, and I'm more than happy to try to answer things for you. You can also reach me directly at howtomodel.com, my website, or at aaron@howtomodel.com, and that's A-A-R-O-N. I'm Aaron Marcus. I can't wait to talk with you again soon.
