Aaron Marcus shares a contact lens problem he faced during auditions and how he solved it. Bring backup glasses and a contact case to auditions, and always confirm whether you'll be reading from a teleprompter or handheld pages before you arrive.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and I've been making my living as an actor and a commercial model for over 26 years. Perhaps you've seen me on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, West Wing, The Wire. Actually, I've been booked 1,182 times so far. I've also written the book, How to Become a Successful Commercial Model. I do online coaching, and I'm also the founder of howtomodel.com. And I also travel the globe doing acting and modeling workshops in person as well. I had a very interesting experience today and I wanted to share it with you. I don't know if you're familiar with teleprompters, but basically what happens when you're reading from a teleprompter is you look— actually, it looks like you're looking into the lens of the camera, but you're actually seeing the words right in front of you. So the great part is you don't have to memorize the lines. You have to be very familiar with them, but you don't have to memorize them. So I always love getting jobs where there are teleprompters. Now, for distance, I wear glasses, so if If I'm doing a job where I'm using a teleprompter, unless they want glasses, typically I'll wear contact lenses. So when I'm wearing my contact lenses, I can't see things close up. So I had this audition today for a teleprompter job, and as I'm driving out, I was thinking— I just wore my contacts— and I was thinking, you know, maybe I should have brought glasses, maybe I should bring my contact case. And I thought, nah, I'm already halfway there, I'm just going to keep going. So I get out there and I assumed that I would be reading off the teleprompter for the audition. Well, that wasn't the case. They just wanted me to hold the sides, the words to the script, in my hand. Well, that made it very difficult because I'm trying to hold it far enough away that I could see the words because once again, when I wear contacts, it's hard to see things up close. The wind-up was I read it, I didn't feel great about it, and I asked the director there if I could try it again. And this time I took out one of my contacts because I can generally read if I only have one contact in. And then I went out and read it again, and of course I didn't have any solution, I didn't have anything with me, so I just had to throw a contact away. So anyhow, even if you are getting a phone call to audition for a teleprompter job. Bring contacts out with you. Maybe you can find out ahead of time if you're going to be reading off of a teleprompter, and if so, then you can run out and pop them in, and that way you don't have to throw your contacts away. Anyhow, I hope this was helpful to you. If you have any questions at all, you can always email me at aaron@howtomodel.com. You can also join a wonderful group of actors and models on my Facebook page. It's just facebook.com/howtomodel. And you can also follow me on Twitter as well, and it's @AaronRMarcus. Anyhow, it was nice talking with you, and hopefully we'll talk again real soon. Bye.
