Actor-coach Aaron Marcus says casting directors don't know what they want, so stop guessing. Make bold choices that interest you instead. He got a callback by playing an ice-cold club director with a bloodthirsty edge, and that difference got him the role.
Hey, I'm giving some out-of-town workshops, so I'm shooting this quick tip video from my hotel room. Look, have you ever gotten an audition and you start trying to figure out what, what do you think the casting director or the director is really looking for in this kind of read? So I want to share with you how I completely changed my philosophy of that. And also watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. It's the dumbest thing an agent has ever said to me. It was just unbelievable. 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. Look, at the beginning of my career— and I don't know if this has ever happened to you— but I used to get the sides for film and TV, uh, audition, and I started thinking, I wonder what they're looking for. And I wonder what they want me to do with this character. And, and I did that for a while. And as I got more experience, took a, took a lot more classes, did private sessions with people, I, I very quickly learned it's a horrible way to do your audition. And, and by the way, if, if you have ever done anything like that, please share, share your experience here. I'd love to hear it. Let me tell you why trying to read the casting director's mind is a really bad way to do the audition. The main reason is because quite often they don't know what they're looking for. They want to see something that grabs their attention. And look, for most of us You know, if you're auditioning for smaller roles, you know, you're not sent the entire script. You don't know everything that's going on. You're going to be sent the sides, the short portion of the script that you're auditioning for. Might be a page, might be 3, 4, 5, you know, 6 pages. And we have to make decisions based on what we're reading with— once again, without knowing what else is going on Previous posts you're seeing and the other characters and things like that. But here's the deal. If you physically look right for the part and you give a read that's interesting, even if it's sent in the wrong direction, that should be enough for you to get a callback where they will give you notes and have you read again. Because see, the way that I go into auditions is I want to have fun. That's my number one goal. I truly don't believe I'm going to book the job. And the reason why I say that is because I know there are so many factors that go into booking a job, and it's not based on were you the best, did you give the best audition out of anybody. There are just too many factors that are way out of your control. The only control you have as an actor is to give a performance. So my goal, I want to have a great time. So what I do is I'm not thinking about the casting director. I am thinking what would be interesting for this character. Sometimes I might go to one extreme, I might go to another extreme that doesn't quite make sense and then figure out something more in the middle. But I never, at least not anymore, for decades, I never try to figure out what the casting director wants. I'm not trying to read the casting director's mind because there's no way of doing that. So anyhow, that is exactly what you want to do. You make decisions. That's the fun part of auditioning. You get a chance to play. You get a chance to experiment. You get a chance to do things that You think are interesting, whether it's right for the part or not. And I can tell you, there was one audition, and once again, I was not thinking about the casting director. It was a show many, many years ago, was on NBC, and I was the executive director of a fancy-schmancy country club, and members of my club were getting murdered. Oh, my gosh. And so I thought, you know, it might be really interesting. Instead of being sad as I'm being interviewed by the police officers, the homicide detectives, I actually was a little bit annoyed. I had no feelings whatsoever for my members. I was pretty ice-cold. And it's like, yeah, yeah, we're really going to miss the people. Anything else? Basically, I'm thinking, anything else? Because I've got a lot of work to do. Got a lot of damage control here because my members are getting murdered. It's going to be harder to get new members in here. And once again, didn't think I was going to get it. I did get a callback, and I will never forget, the director said to me, you know, you really took this in a different direction than other people. I said, oh, okay. And he said, look, why don't you read it again, but this time, why don't you have a little bloodthirsty Flowing through your veins, not just ice. And I backed it off a little bit. So I guess that's, that's just a great point of don't try to figure out, don't read their minds, don't try to read their minds because you can't. It's impossible because like I've said before, a lot of times they don't know. Hey, if, if you haven't subscribed to the channel, don't forget, just click the subscribe button, click the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up. That's really helpful. And you can also get onto my email list by just going to howtoact.com/list. How to act. The model.com. I send out great weekly information, and I think it will be really helpful to you. I did promise I was going to share a bonus video. You'll see it right up here. I'm telling you, it was the dumbest thing an agent has ever said to me. It was just unbelievable. So anyhow, I wanted to share that with you, and I'm Aaron Marcus and can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
