The 1 Biggest Mistake Actors Make During Auditions - It Might Surprise You

In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you the one biggest mistake actors make during auditions. When you watch this to the end, you're going to learn how to avoid this problem and give yourself your best chance to giving a great audition. And if you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. Is your full-time job keeping you from acting? Here are 8 tips. It's going to be a great one for you. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Actor and Model Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share— and I try to do this every Tuesday depending on my schedule— try to share information that I've learned from being a full-time actor for 37+ years. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button and the notification bell. That way you will know every time I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's really helpful. So here's the deal. Typically when, especially actors who are just getting started or haven't had a lot of experience in the industry, when they get their sides or copy, if it's a TV commercial that they're reading, their main focus is memorizing the lines. And yeah, look, that's really important. I mean, you want to have your lines memorized if you can for the audition. Yeah. Certainly you're going to have them memorized for the job. But that's only one little piece of it, because what happens for some actors is that they focus and spend so much time and attention on memorizing lines that they're kind of oblivious to everything else. They're not really paying attention to the other actor in the scene. They're not listening to the other actor. They're not hearing the other actor. That is the biggest problem and the biggest mistake actors make. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. If I'm doing a scene and an actor says to me— let me think here— Oh, what did you do last night? Okay, so depending on how that is said to me, and also depending on what's going on with your character, what's going on with the scene, what are you trying to accomplish in the scene, what's the other actor trying to accomplish in the scene— I mean, there are a lot of, a lot of possibilities here. But if the actor says, hey, so what did you do last night? Well, one response It could be, depending on how it's said to me, you know, it could be, I went to the movies, got some popcorn, went to a bar after, had a couple drinks, and then went home. Okay, but if the actor says to me, what did you do last night? Well, that's going to have a very different effect on how I'm reading things, how I'm saying things to the other actor in the scene. So it is absolutely essential that you don't just say your lines, but you hear what the person says. And they might change things up. It could really make a big difference in how you say your lines. I'm going to give you— because I always like giving examples from real-life experiences. So When I was working on— there's a miniseries and it's called We Own This City. It's a powerful 6-episode series, difficult to watch. The content is disturbing because it's all true. And I was the attorney representing one of the police officers Who was in court and eventually did get convicted for just doing horrible things. They were a bunch of really corrupt police officers. And so what I'm doing in the courtroom is I'm defending my client. And so I'm giving this talk about how my client is not guilty of extortion. Actually, he was being a representative, a good representative— these aren't the exact lines— of the state. And then the judge says no at the end of one of my speeches, and the way that she said it causes me To say all of my other lines in a very different way, in a very specific way. And if you guys get a chance to see it, it's the very last episode. I think it's episode 6 at the very end of the show. And when the judge says no, because what I'm saying, it's a little bit crazy. It's pretty inventive. And the judge is kind of surprised by the way I'm representing this person. And The point is, when she says no to me, I have to go into it and follow up in a very specific way to match her reaction. And I'm talking about how internally— look, I know this is crazy. I know it's a crazy defense. But I'm talking as if it makes perfect sense. I mean, this is the way it should be. Meanwhile, it's crazy stuff. So the point is, the way the judge reacted to me, and it was just one word, was really helpful. And on a side note, and as you guys know, who, you know, if you watched a lot of my videos, you know that if an idea flashes my head that I think is helpful to you, I will jump around a little bit, just like I do with, you know, my private mentoring or, you know, workshops and things like that. That's just how my brain works. When you are doing the audition with another actor and you have a reader— now a lot of times people don't have the ability to have the other reader in front of them in the same room, and, and I typically don't. I— and actually, this is a really helpful tip for you if you do have an audition, you don't have a reader that can do it in person. What what you can do is send the sides to somebody else and just use your cell phone, put it on speaker, and place it near wherever you're recording it, whether it's a camera, whether it's your phone, whether it's a laptop, and it will sound like somebody's in the room. So it's a little bit trickier because you're not seeing the person, and— but you still need to have some kind of reaction to the way the person is talking to you. But Here's a little tip. Sometimes, and quite often, I am not reading with another actor. And so if that's the case, if you just don't have access to another actor to do this audition, here's what I do. I hear in my head how the other person is reading the lines back to me, and that's based on my interpretation of my character. That's based on what I am trying to get out of this scene. So even if the person is saying lines back to me in a really flat way, I still hear it in the way that I envision it taking place on set. So anyhow, you guys might want to try doing that. You'll find that to be really helpful. But in either case, you have to hear and really listen. to how the person is talking to you. Now, if you are in a situation and the reader is taking things in a completely different direction than what you think is correct, you've got a choice. You can follow that person and then maybe submit 2 options to the casting director. Sometimes they ask that, sometimes they're okay with that. I typically don't do 2 options. I just choose the one that I think is the best for me, but that is, that is an option. Or if you're actually on the set or you're in rehearsal before you're actually shooting— sometimes you get a chance to rehearse, sometimes you don't for film and television. A lot of times things just happen pretty, pretty quickly, but you can always have a conversation with the other actor and you can talk about the scene a little bit and, and share your ideas and listen to what the other person's saying. Once again, Listen to what the other actor has to say and then make a decision on how you want to go with your character. And it's also possible that even before you start doing anything with another actor, if you're on the set, have a short conversation with the director and talk about what your ideas are. Look, they've already heard your initial thoughts because they saw your audition and you are— you presented your thoughts there. But if you're unsure about something or you have a couple of different ideas, typically— and you've got to feel it out— but typically if there's time and you think that the director is open to this, because not all directors are, sometimes they'll certainly listen to a star, but they're really rushed, they're behind schedule, they don't have time. But if it feels right and you think it would be appropriate, yeah, you can always talk with the director and share a couple of ideas, listen to what he or she has to say. And then make a decision. But the biggest problem, you've got to really listen, not just hear, but listen and then react. I promised I was going to share another video with you. And so if you look up here, you will see the link. It might say the actual name of the video. If not, you'll just see an I and you can click on that. I think I got the right side up here. If I didn't, it's on the other side, but I think this is right. And yeah, it's, you know, if your full-time job is holding you back from acting, here are 8 really helpful tips. I hope you enjoy it. Please share this link with fellow actors so that, you know, they can learn as well. If you haven't done this yet, just a quick reminder, please click the subscribe button, click the notification bell. And if you have any suggestions You know, for some audition mistakes, audition problems that you've resolved, that you had for a while, please share it with other people here. That is the whole purpose of having this channel where we have a group of actors who are helping each other. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.