Aaron Marcus booked a regional TV commercial after an audition where the director gave confusing direction referencing Plato and American history. He asked clarifying questions, trusted his instincts, and performed anyway. The director later said he was the only candidate who succeeded, crediting his willingness to engage with the feedback.
Hey, in this video, I'm going to be telling you about an amazing thing that happened when I gambled at an audition. And stick around to the end. I also have a really important video for you to watch. It is the new self-tape rules that SAG-AFTRA negotiated in our last contract. 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. So I had— and this is a number of years ago— I had an audition for a TV commercial. It was a regional spot, meaning that it's not just being played in one particular city, but it was a number of states. Wasn't national, but still, I mean, pay was pretty good, and I prepared for it. It seemed a little unusual to me. I was I was really having a tough time figuring out what I wanted to accomplish, what my character was trying to make happen in the commercial. And so I did have a few quick questions for the director who was present at the audition. They didn't have callbacks. It was just the casting director and the director. So I went in and I asked a couple of questions and I don't know if this has ever happened to you, whether it has to do with acting or not, just with people in general, where the person responding to you, they're talking English, they're speaking in English, but you just don't understand what they're saying. And not that they were talking too fast, or they were just talking in a way— at least this happened to me. I just didn't understand what the director was saying. He started making references of Plato. He started talking about American history. He was saying all these esoteric things, trying to explain what he was looking for in this character. And I, I should have booked the part just for the way I responded to him. Oh, oh yeah, yeah, okay. Got it. You know, I understand that. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. I appreciate it. And in my head I'm thinking, I have no idea what this person just said to me. Clueless. And so now I'm feeling a little bit stuck, and I thought, well, do I try to take some information? If I could figure out some part of what he was saying and then, you know, use it in the— I just decided, you know what, I'm I have no idea what this guy's talking about. I'm going to go back to my original idea, which— and, and once again, I was kind of lost with that as well. It just wasn't clear to me. So there were a couple of sections where I just said the words. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what they meant. I didn't know what was going on. It was such— it was, it was a difficult audition. And I remember walking out of there just thinking, Well, I can forget about this one. Not that I ever think I'm going to book it, but this was so clear that I was clueless. And here's the crazy thing that happened. So I get a phone call from the agent and she said, hey, good news, you booked the job. And I just— and I didn't say anything to the agent. I didn't have that kind of relationship. And I just, oh, oh, that's great. I'm really happy about that. And here was the best part. I show up on the set, the first thing the director does, he walks over to me and I'm getting a little nervous because I'm thinking, uh-oh, here's somebody who's going to be speaking a foreign language to me again. And he said, Aaron, I got to tell you, we auditioned a lot of people for this role. You were the only one who got it. And I looked at him And I said, oh, I'll tell you, your information was invaluable to me. Thank you very much for the feedback and answering my questions. And then I went on and I tried to do what I did at the audition. Once again, most of it I was clueless. They liked it. It was just bizarre. Sometimes that stuff happens. So I'm just kind of curious if you ever experienced trying to get information during an audition and just Felt like you were getting nowhere, didn't understand, please share it with us. I'd love to hear what happened, what took place, and what happened after the audition. That would be wonderful. Love to learn from you. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe. That's always great. Click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. And please share the link with fellow actors so we can continue to build a great channel with actors learning from each other and helping each other. I did promise I was going to share the link right up there for the new self-tape rules that SAG-AFTRA negotiated. Hey, let me tell you one of them, and you'll learn more about it in, in the video. But we, at least union actors, we cannot be required to memorize the audition— the words to an audition. Which is great. Look, I always try to memorize them, but if I can't, I can't. I just hold the sides with me. But they can't force us to do it like they could in the past. Anyway, that's just one little piece of it. Anyhow, this was fun. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
