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Aaron Marcus, with 38+ years in acting, argues your greatest competitor isn't other actors but yourself. He covers audition prep, staying focused in the casting room, and how to handle the mental game of rejection that derails most careers.
Aaron Marcus, with 38+ years in acting, argues your greatest competitor isn't other actors but yourself. He covers audition prep, staying focused in the casting room, and how to handle the mental game of rejection that derails most careers.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you information about who is an actor's biggest competitor. And watch the video and you're going to learn how to best deal with competition. It's going to be really helpful to you. Also, at the very end, I have a great bonus video for you. It's, is work slow? Well, here are 5 easy steps to resurrect your career. I know this is going to be really helpful to you. 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 information with my fellow actors from the 38+ years of working as a full-time actor. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like it, give it a thumbs up. That's very helpful. And please share the link with your fellow actors so we can continue building a great channel of actors learning and helping each other. So many years ago, and actually I did this for quite a few years, I would walk into an audition and I'm looking around the room and I'm thinking, oh wait a second, I've seen that guy on TV shows. Oh yeah, I saw that guy in a movie. Now that guy, he— yeah, I'm not competing with him because he just doesn't look right for the part. And I would spend a lot of time thinking about competitors, and I start feeling competition with fellow actors in the room. It took me many, many, many years to finally learn I have no competition. And I'm not saying that because I think I'm so good. You don't have any competition either. And yes, when you are auditioning, there will be people very similar to your look, people in your category, people with your kind of experience, acting experience. But the fact is You're not competing with them. And, and, and I'll tell you why. Every person in this world has their own story. We've all grown up differently. We've all had different life experiences. We all have been shaped by different things in this world, and we bring something different to every audition. So I've— I found that it really hurt my audition because I'm starting to compare myself. I'm thinking about other people. Those people are irrelevant. They really are. What's important is for you to focus on yourself and forget about the other people. I can tell you what I started doing was I would hide. I would, and I'm not kidding. I would go into a casting director's office and instead of talking with everybody— I mean, first of all, I felt like I was still preparing for the audition itself, just trying to get myself settled and ready and, and looking over the sides again. And then I would literally go into a corner. I'm not even looking at anybody, and I'm thinking, I'm relaxing, doing— taking some deep breaths, going over some ideas. And that's what I would do. Now, I can tell you there are some actors who are phenomenal at being able to walk in, schmooze with everybody, talk with people, joke around, have conversations, and then go in and do a great audition. I'm not one of those people. I really need to isolate myself and get prepared. Now, afterwards, I'm more than happy to talk with people and things like that. And I can also tell you, and I don't know if you ever experienced this or not, I hope you didn't. And if you have, please share it in the comments section so we can learn from you as well. I know that sometimes there were actors who would purposely try to engage with other actors. They would try to throw them off. I remember once being told that what I thought was a local TV spot, a guy told me, oh no, they changed it, it's a national spot. And when I walked in and the casting director said, any questions? And I just wanted to find out. I said, I Is this a national spot now? And she looked at me like I was crazy. She said, no, it's a local spot. The person was trying to throw me off because there would have been more pressure, there's more money involved and things like that if it's a national spot. And sometimes actors will do things to kind of throw you off. Hey, how you doing? Great. Hey, you know, I just worked with this director. I just flew out to this country and did it. And once again, they're just trying to throw you off. So My suggestion is don't compete because you do, you do not have any competition. Like I said before, you are going to bring something unique to the table that nobody else in this world can, and, and I think it's just a real distraction. So anyhow, if you've ever experienced anything with, with competition, please share it so we can learn from you as well. I did promise I was going to share another video. You can see it right up here. You will also see 2 things. One is the little exclamation point. That's where the video is all about 5 ways to resurrect your career. You also might see a thumbnail for a playlist, and you can go through the playlist and see if there are additional videos. So anyhow, that's what I wanted to share with you today. Don't forget, subscribe if you haven't done it, click the notification bell. share the link with your fellow actors so we can continue to grow this channel and have a group of actors learning from each other and helping each other. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
