Aaron Marcus, a full-time actor for 37 years, shares what actually helps when you don't book a role. He walks through why rejections almost never mean you weren't good enough, then gives concrete ways to move past the sting and keep auditioning.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you why I felt so bad for a great audition that I had. And if you watch this till the end, you are going to learn some great insights into the industry which will help you not feel so bad about yourself, about, you know, the world of acting when things get really, really tough because it's easy to fall into that trap. And if you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. It's a simple way of adding your headshot to your resume in a Word document that you really should do. And I'll talk more about that at the end of the video, but you'll be able to find that towards the end. 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 from my 37-plus years of working as a full-time actor. And I, I just want to give back to you and other people in the industry so that you can have more success and learn from my experiences. Look, 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 the video, give it a thumbs up. That's really very helpful. I had a great audition. This was a while ago, and I traveled about 5 hours each way to the audition and got in, did the audition, Felt good to me. Drove the other 5 hours back and found out I had a callback. That's great. Now, just so you know, a callback, it's nice to hear. You're still very far away from booking the job, but that means you're being considered. So out of all the people who auditioned, now there's— I think there were about 3, 3, 4 people who were being called back. So drive another 5 hours, go back, do the audition. And this time the, the director was there. There were people from the ad agency. It was a TV spot. It was a really fun spot. It would have been very lucrative. I would have gotten a chance to travel to do the shoot. And they were giving me some direction that not only did not feel quite right to me for what I wanted to do, But it also didn't seem like I had the right skills to pull it off in the way that they wanted. It just— look, I know my character. I know what I'm able to do. I know what my strengths are. I know what my strengths aren't. And that's what they were asking for. It just wasn't me. And so I walked out, and eventually I found out I didn't I didn't book the job. Now, as you probably know if you've watched any of my other videos, I always talk about how I never think I'm going to book a job. I don't. And, and it's not because I, I don't think I have any talent at all. Apparently I have some talent. I've been doing this for a long time and I've booked almost 1,300 jobs. But I know that Doing a great audition quite often has nothing to do with booking the job. You know, there's so many other factors that go into getting it and not getting it. You know, here's a great analogy, at least for me I think it's a great analogy. You know, it's kind of like you go to a really good restaurant, the chef is phenomenal, there are great things on the menu, but you're only going to pick one entree, at least Most people only pick one entree. It doesn't mean that all the other things that they are offering at the restaurant aren't good. This is what you want at this time. This is what you want to eat. And, you know, in some ways, that, that's kind of like the way it is for auditions. You know, you go in, you do the audition. A lot of people are going to do a really good audition, and then it comes down to things that you have absolutely no control of. And maybe You know, the director wanted something else to eat that day and not you. And I know that's a little bit weird because— but anyhow, you get the point. And so I didn't get the booking. But here's something that's really important. I felt bad because I didn't get the job. I felt bad because it would have been very lucrative. I felt bad. It would have been a really fun job. But I didn't feel bad about myself. And let me tell you, I know that that seems like, well, of course, why should you feel bad? Look, the first number of years in the industry, I didn't book the job, I, I took it personally. I felt bad. I thought, what's wrong with me? Or I didn't get the audition. I knew some people who were going to an audition, same agent, I didn't get it. And I would start questioning myself. And let me just tell you, it is so important that you understand there is nothing personal going on here. These are just business decisions. And for whatever reason, you were not the perfect person for this role, period. You're a good person. You're still a good person. You know, but it's easy. I know it's easy to start tapping into feeling worthless, feeling you've got nothing to offer, feeling you don't have skills. And look, I'm not saying that maybe you go in and your audition was not very good. Maybe you do need more training. Maybe you do need new techniques to learn and practice. Of course. Hey, look, I still sit in on workshops to try to learn some new things, but it doesn't mean that you're not good. It doesn't mean you're not a good person. It doesn't mean the people in your life who love you still will love you no matter what. And it's really, really crucial that you understand that. So if you feel bad about not getting the audition I get it. You know, we're human. So go out and do something nice for yourself just for getting through the audition. Hey, just getting the audition itself is winning to me because that's a very hard thing to do. But if you want to go out and treat yourself, do that because you got through the audition. You didn't book the job, but so what? You had no control over that. But if you want to feel bad about it, that's okay. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you. Also, I need to make sure that you know there is a great video that I'm offering here. It's a really simple way of adding your photo to your resume. And I think it's really important to have your headshot in your resume. I think it'll be really helpful to you. It's hard to do if you don't have the details of how to simply do it because all of the text will change around on you when you try to insert a photo. Here's a video that will be so incredibly helpful. As a matter of fact, you can find it right up here. Just click on the link up there. You can watch the video. I know it's going to be really helpful to you. Very last thing, don't forget, if you haven't done this yet, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. If you like it, please Give it a thumbs up, and most importantly, share, share this link with your fellow actors just so that we can help build a community of people helping each other in the industry. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you soon. See ya.
