Learn How I Got Cast In The HBO TV Show We Own This City | How To Audition For TV Shows

In this video, I'm going to be teaching you how I booked a role on the HBO miniseries We Own This City, so that way you can learn some strategies on your own when you are auditioning for TV projects or film projects. And I'm also going to be sharing with you some ways of finding auditions near you. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to my Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel Where twice a month I create videos to teach people who want to break into the acting and modeling industry, or for those who've been in the industry for a while but want to take their career to the next level. So if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the little bell, the notification button. And if you like the video, which I hope you do, Click the thumbs up. Thanks. Okay, so this was a really interesting journey for me to book a role as William Papora on the miniseries We Own This City, which was created by David Simon and George Pelecanos, and it's based on a book from a Baltimore Sun reporter talking about a situation that took place in Baltimore, Maryland. So the very first part that I think is pretty interesting, there's a casting director who is doing all the casting for this project, and she is someone that I'd worked for a number of years ago. Actually, it was quite a few years ago, and I really hadn't heard from her for quite some time. And then— and it's interesting, she— I mean, she will go through agents, but she also will call in people directly. She does things a little bit differently than most casting directors. Most casting directors, at least for, for larger projects, you know, they want talent submitted by agents. This particular one, she's, she's okay with having people— she'll send out information and she's okay, okay with people submitting headshots and resumes on their own. And if she thinks that you're right for a role, she'll call you in. So it had been A number of years since I heard from her. And then I did hear. It was about a TV commercial. And I submitted for that. Didn't book it. Didn't hear anything about it. And then I heard about this project that was taking place because she had sent out information about it. And so I submitted a headshot and resume. And I was very excited because I got a chance to audition for this project. And I was reading for a specific attorney who was involved in, in this case. And then I didn't hear anything for a number of days, and then I got an email saying that I had a callback. And I thought, well, this is great. Now, once again, when you get a callback, early doesn't mean that much. I mean, don't Don't start thinking, oh, I got a callback. Hey, it looks like I'm going to get this. You are still very, very far away from booking a job. I mean, a number of people are getting called back. All that means is that there's an interest in you. They think that you look right for the role. They thought what you did was interesting, and they want you to read again. And so if that happens Hey, that's nice, but don't, but don't start thinking that you've got the job. You're still very, very far away from it. And so anyhow, I did get a callback. And a couple things to keep in mind for callbacks is I always start off— well, first of all, I wear the same clothing that I wore for my initial audition. It's not a superstitious kind of thing. It's simply because they like the way I look. They thought I looked right for this role. I want them to see it again. Sometimes people, actors, make mistakes and they will look very different. They change their hair, they change the wardrobe because they want to show they've got a wide range of looks. Don't do that. What you want to do is they liked what they saw. Give it to them again and start off your callback by reading it the same way you did the first time. Now look, we're not robots. You know, you can't, you know, punch in, well, my audition was a number 63, so I'll repeat that one. No, but you do, and you should know, what was the intention? What are you trying to get out of the scene? What's going on? You know, what's the scene about? Who is the scene about? You know, you should have a pretty good idea. Or, you know, look, if you shot a home audition, then you might still have it if you haven't completely deleted it yet, which isn't a bad idea. Hold on to the audition, you know, for maybe a couple of weeks just to see in case you need to review it. And so you do the audition again, try to do it the same way If they want to see a different kind of read, or if they have some notes for you, listen to what they have to say, of course, and then do it. I did get one note. It was a very, very short note. And so I felt a little differently about it. But certainly when I was asked to do it with their idea, I did it that way. And you know what? They might have thought— and that's why, look, you can't read into what other people are thinking. They might have thought the way I read it is exactly how they think this character should be reading the role. Maybe they're going to ask you to do it differently just to see if you can take direction, just to see if you are able to make different types of reads in an interesting way. Because sometimes on a set, it's not unusual for a director to walk over and, you know, just give you some kind of note, give you a suggestion, and see, you know, and make a slight adjustment. So once again, maybe they love what I did, they just want to see if I can, you know, actually take direction from somebody and make that change so that they don't think, you know, I'm just a one-trick pony. So I did that, then didn't hear anything. And then, I don't know, it was like 3, 4 days later, I got an email from the casting director, and I thought Okay, well, there's probably another role for me to audition for. They were offering me a part. It was a different character. Now, it was interesting. It was still an attorney, but it was a different attorney. So who knows? Maybe they already had the attorney booked for the role that I was reading for, and— but they just wanted to see what I looked like, what I sounded like. As an attorney, who knows? So, you know, I was very excited. This is a David Simon project and George Pelecanos project. These, these guys are just really incredible. I don't know if you remember The Wire, which I still think is one of the greatest shows on television, and I felt so fortunate to have worked on that. But they've done millions of other projects, and they're just— they're smart, they're interesting, they make statements about the world, they can change your mind about things. It's a really, really intelligent group of people who put these programs together. So I was really excited. And then in the emails, I'm reading it, they said, just wanted to make sure that you would be available on this date, because it was a one-day shoot. And I looked at it and I looked at my calendar and I realized I'm going to be away on vacation during that shoot date. And my heart kind of sunk a little bit. And I can tell you, in the past, I would have done anything and everything to do both. If it meant flying back in the night before from where I was going to be on vacation, do the shoot, fly back to vacation to be with my family, I would have done that. This time I just decided, just with pandemic and, and we, we canceled another vacation because of the pandemic, I just didn't want to do it. I didn't want to break up my vacation. It would've been complicated. We were about an hour and a half from an airport, and I didn't want to ask anybody to drive. Anyhow, without getting into all the details, I just decided, really, I would have to say probably for the first time in my life, I'm going to turn this down. And I felt horrible about it. I was hoping. Well, maybe there'll be another role for me to audition for. I just don't want to do it. So I thanked them very much for the opportunity, and I let them know that I was not able to do it because I was already booked out. I didn't say vacation, and I think that that was probably a good idea. I didn't want to say, well, I'm going to be away on vacation. I just said, I'm really sorry, I'm already booked out. For that day. And they thanked me, you know, for getting back in touch with them right away. And it was hard, honestly. It was a, it was a really hard decision. There were parts of me, it still was kind of biting me a little bit. I think, oh, did I really make a mistake with this? And so the windup was went on vacation, and in the middle of the vacation, and I was checking emails periodically, Got an email from the casting director and I thought, okay, well great, at least I'm going to have another opportunity to audition. And for a variety— who knows why— they changed the shoot date and they said, are you available on this date? And I was. I was so excited and I said absolutely. So that's when they, they sent me the information. It was a different character, still an attorney, different character, completely Completely different scene. And I got a chance to do the shoot. A couple things I just wanted to mention to you just about, you know, working on a show and how to find shows to work on. As far as working on a show, let me just tell you something that I've learned that's helpful to me. And once again, this might not be of Any help to you at all, but this is a really good thing that I just started doing fairly recently, last number of years. Whenever I'm working on, whether it's a film or a TV show, any kind of bigger project, I don't like just sitting in a trailer. I don't know, it just doesn't feel good to me. I'm not saying I don't go into the trailer, I don't stay in there, But not like for hours and hours and hours. I just don't like doing that. And something that, that's really helpful is for me to get onto the set early so that way I'm not sitting in a trailer for hours and hours and hours, which sometimes happens. And then you have a PA, production assistant, who will knock on your door saying, you know, Mr. Marcus, they're ready for you. And then you walk onto the set, and a lot of times you don't have rehearsal time. You just go in there, maybe you run through it one time for the camera, for sound and things like that, and then boom, you start shooting. So what I always do, I ask— you can't always do this, but I always ask and I try to do it as much as possible. I want to get onto the set early, even if there's nobody in the room. Doesn't make any difference if they're setting up the room. I'll just be in a corner. Doesn't matter to me. I just like being there. I like taking some deep breaths. I want to feel the room. I want to run my lines in the room, even if there's nobody there to run lines with me. And it just feels like a much easier transition to go from sitting in a trailer to doing the scene if I've had an opportunity to— even, even if it's just 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Just to be in there. So I wanted to share that one with you, and, and, and I was able to, to do that. I was able to get in there a little bit early, and it was, it was just great. And so anyhow, so that, that is how I actually wound up booking it. Like I said, different character, and that's not unusual. As a matter of fact, when— and I'm going back a few years, but for the Netflix show House of Cards, where I had a recurring role, I actually read for a character and I had no idea. They didn't give me any information as to who I was reading with because this person had not been on the show yet. And so I had to ask a bunch of questions. Sometimes you just— you've got to ask so that you have a better idea of what to do In the audition itself. And let me just tell you, any question that you ask a casting director that will give you a better read is a good question. And look, I'm not saying, you know, you might run into some casting director that makes things difficult for you, but every casting director that I've been to, they want— look, they want you to be great. It makes them look good if they can you know, send, send audition tapes of really, really strong auditions. So anything that you ask that will allow your read to be smarter, more interesting, they're going to want to answer it for you. So never feel afraid to ask questions. Now, you're not going to ask, hey, so how do you want me to read this? You know, that's your job as an actor. So don't ask that. But if you're not sure who the other character is, what is your relationship with the other character, those are great questions to ask. But it's your job to make decisions. It's not a right or wrong one. Who knows? Typically, you're not given the entire script. You don't know what's going on. So that's why asking certain questions will be really helpful to you. And just wanted to make sure you knew about that. Okay, so as far as how to find some auditions, let's talk about that. So one of the ways you want to find out about auditions— look, the best way is to have an agent. For larger projects, typically Not 100%. Typically, the casting director is going to ask agents to submit their talent so they can look at your headshot and resume and decide if you have the right look for this particular role. Look, you will find smaller projects that you can easily submit to on your own, but typically it is larger. How do you find the casting directors and how do you find what projects they're working on? So one of the things that you can do is no matter where you're living, do a Google search for casting directors in your area and get the names of the casting directors. Then you can do a search and a great place to do a search is imdb.com. It's Internet Movie Database. You can go there free. You do not have to have an account, a paid account, in order to do this research. And so look up the casting director and see what projects they have worked on, and hopefully they'll let you know if they are working on a current And if so, why not? If you don't have an agent at this point, why not send email, a headshot and resume? The worst thing that's going to happen is they're not going to open it, which might be the case if they're only looking at things from agents. That's a possibility. But you know what? I think it's a good idea to be proactive, and it's not going to be detrimental to you in any way, so submit yourself to them. The other thing too is you can check out and see in your state's film commission website. All states have a— pretty much all of them will have a film commission website, and you might see what projects are coming to town, what projects are shooting in town, and once again, you might be able to find out who is doing the casting. And once again, submit yourself. Look, you might be surprised. They might call you in. They might think you've got the perfect look for this, or they might just delete it and, you know, might go into spam. But in either way, like, I've always been a marketer all my life. I've always been, you know, trying to take more control of my career. I've been doing that for over 35 years. And so I highly, highly recommend you do both of those things— submitting yourself to casting directors, going on film commission websites, you know, to find, find out what kind of projects are happening near you. And I just want to mention again, if, if you guys have not subscribed to this channel yet, please click the subscription button, the little bell notification button. That way, every time I upload a new video, you'll know about it. And if you like the information, please give it a thumbs up. And if you have worked on a film or television show, please leave a comment below. How did you book the job? Was it through an agent? Did you book something on your own? I mean, certainly you might be able to find student films that you can submit yourself to. Maybe you can find a local independent films. If you're using, you know, places like Actors Access or Casting Networks or 800 Casting, you know, you might be able to find some projects. And, you know, if you're going to start off with smaller projects, get some experience, be able to build up your resume, build up your acting reel so you can take little snippets from some of your work— this is how you break into the industry, and this is how you advance your So please leave a comment below. Love to hear how you went about booking jobs or even just getting an audition so you can share it with others. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon.