Aaron Marcus recounts bombing an audition for a small attorney role, then nailing it when the casting director asked him to try a different approach. The lesson: listen to direction in the room instead of sticking to your first instinct.
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Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and if you're watching this on my YouTube channel, don't forget to click the subscription button and the little bell, the notification button, and that way every time I upload a new video, you will be sent a notification. So, um, here's, here's the real question. Um, I had recently had an audition for, um, it's— I don't want, I don't want to mention any names. It's a big hit television series. Really cool, very excited about getting this opportunity. And so it was a co-starring role, you know, pretty small role. And once again, I'm not diminishing it in any way. I'm incredibly excited. Out of, you know, anybody in the world, I'm one of the people who gets an opportunity to read for a part. So, you know, it's a couple scenes, 2 or 3 scenes, and I'm an attorney. And so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, you know, who Who this character was, what his intention was, what's he— what does he want to get out of the scene, uh, what's he trying to do in there, what are some of the things blocking this guy. So I made some real definitive choices for the audition and go in, and I'm really excited, really happy. Uh, do the read. First, the casting director asked, well, do you have any questions? Actually, I didn't. I, I was, uh, Pretty, pretty— it was pretty clear to me what, what my intentions were, and I knew what I wanted to do. So did the read, and for the first, the first scene, it went well. We did it a couple times, and then the next scene— and once again, I, I can't give out all much in the way of details. First of all, I haven't even gotten the job, and I'm sure chances are I'm never going to get it. That's just way I go into auditions, um, just because I know there's just so many factors that go into booking it, not booking it, um, and all I can do is go in there and enjoy myself. You know, it was fun. It was a Friday afternoon. I had a chance to play. I had a chance to act. It was fun. So, uh, for the second scene which I read, I decided that as the attorney, I'm playing with these people. I'm being really coy. I'm smarter than the cops. I'm smarter than the DA. I— look, I'm going to take care of my client. And it just had this feeling of You know what? I'm a lot more intelligent than you are. I know you guys are trying to do something. It's not going to happen. I'm taking care of my client. So that was kind of how I went in there with this very specific kind of attitude. I liked it. I thought it was different. It's not the way that you would initially read it if you just went in to do it very straight, because I always try to think what, what would be different, you know, what would be interesting. And so that was the take that I decided to do. Did the read and the casting director said, hey, I'll tell you what, why don't you try it again and this time why don't you really just try to defend your client? Which was different than what I did before and there was this split second and I'm thinking that's not really what I wanted to do. It's not going to be very different. It's not going to be As interesting. But in that split second, I also thought, well, number one, I want to make sure that the casting director knows that I can take direction, right? That's, that's crucial. And the, the other thing too is, um, and I was thinking more about this afterwards, uh, and first of all, just so you know, that's exactly what I did. I decided to listen to the casting director. And Instead of going in the direction that I planned to, I decided to take the casting director's suggestion. And look, I still didn't play it as straight as I could have. I still had this little edge to it, but I decided to listen to the casting director. And, you know, when I thought about it later, I thought, well, you know what? Number one, Look, the scene is not about me. It's about the star. Actually, it's one of the stars of the show, so it's, it's about her. And, you know, then I started thinking later, you know what, even though I really liked my idea, I thought it was much more interesting, but maybe that was part of the problem for the casting director because it's not about my character. Now, I'm not— look, I'm not saying that my character wasn't incredibly important. Of course, incredibly important. A writer is not going to give an actor a single word unless it's crucial. So, but the point is, maybe I was drawing too much attention away from the main character by taking my character in this different direction. And so I'm, I'm glad that I listen to the casting director, because look, the casting director has read the entire script. For most of the auditions that I have— every once in a while, like I just auditioned for a feature film and it was, it was one of the major roles, and yes, they sent me the entire script. Most of the time when I'm auditioning for TV or for film and they are smaller roles, I get the sides, a short portion of the script. And look, there's always a lot of information in there Even if you have, you know, 2 sentences, still there's a lot of information on the page that will allow you to make some kind of decision about what you're going to be doing in there. And so the point is, the casting director knows a lot more about what's happening prior, after. And so I decided to give in to— and I don't mean that in a negative way— I just decided to accept The casting director's information, the knowledge that the casting director has. And so that's what I decided to do. Didn't fight, didn't battle, say, well, you know what, I really think the way— didn't get into any of that kind of stuff. Listened, took the direction, made some adjustments. Once again, I still added a little bit of what I wanted to do in there just to make it a little bit more interesting, and finished. And I walked out and I thought, That was fun. That was a good day's work. Had a great time. And now look, I'm in the casting director's office for 5 minutes, something like that, probably. And then I traveled another 4 and a half hours to get back home. So, but I had a great time for those 5 minutes or so. And so that's what I just wanted to leave With you is that when a casting director gives you information, my suggestion is take the advice. And, and I'm not saying, you know, if you really feel strongly about something, maybe you can have a discussion, maybe you can ask. But, you know, the, the point is typically casting directors are seeing a lot of people throughout the day. I mean, this is a huge casting company, uh, in New York, and when I walked in— so you sign in— there were 3 other castings going on for 3 different projects. So these are really big players, uh, in the industry, and they know what they're doing. And so I trusted them. And, and look, the casting director is on your side. The casting director wants you to give the best audition possible because it's in the casting director's best interest to record great Auditions and send it to the director or producers or whoever is going to be seeing it. So, you know, you just have to put your faith in them because they know more about things, about the, you know, the project than you do. And I'm not saying, you know, you can't ask questions, you can't, you know, possibly try to still add in what you want to add in, but my suggestion is listen to the casting director. Make any changes that they ask for. Who knows, sometimes they might have really liked what you did and they still will give you, um, directions to do it a different way. Maybe it's just to see if you can take direction, even though they think, yeah, the way you initially did it was just what they wanted. So anyhow, I, I just thought, um, I wanted to share that, share that with you. Um, hey, if you've ever had, um, an experience where the casting director asked you to do something different, please, you know, leave a comment here. Um, or, you know, let me know if there was one particular thing from this quick tip video that you found helpful. Please leave that here as well. Leave that information here as well. And, and as always, hey, I'd love to ask for you to be a part of this channel. If you can make a donation, that would be wonderful. Any amount would be great. If you just scroll down once again, if you're watching this on YouTube, just scroll down, you'll see the link for PayPal. You can just go right in there and leave any amount that you feel comfortable with. But I'd love to have you be a part of it, support the Acting and Modeling Quick Tip channel, and always feel free to share this throughout your social media community. Look, I'm doing this to, to share information with other actors, you know, in the world. So anyhow, feel free to, to share this with other people. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
