Acting coach Aaron Marcus shares how saying yes to opportunities launched his career, including performing a stunt on A Man Called Otto and leading to 800+ workshops. But saying yes without the skills to back it up can destroy your reputation, like a model who claimed she could ride horses and was fired on set.
I've got to tell you about this one word that boosted my acting career, but you got to be really careful. It could destroy yours. And if you watch this to the end, I've got a really helpful bonus video for you. It's the one mistake actors make when auditioning for a comedy. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus. Welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Look, I've been doing this for a really long time, and one of the things that I have found to be incredibly helpful to me is this one word, and that one word is yes. Now, you got to be really careful, and I'm going to share that with you in just a second. The most recent Yes, situation that I was in was when I was cast in the feature film with Tom Hanks, A Man Called Otto. And the short version is they had a stunt double. When I got cast, I was told you're going to have a stunt double, which made sense because my character falls from a train platform face down onto railroad tracks. As a train is coming. I'm not a stunt actor, and so I certainly— I expected that to take place. While we were shooting the scene, I walk over to the edge, I stop. The stunt double who they flew in from Texas did the stunt. I was standing behind the camera because I just wanted to see this guy work, and he was phenomenal. Did it twice, everything went great, he was safe. Looked great. And then later in the day, I was asked, hey, would you be comfortable in doing the stunt? And in a split second, I said, sure. And the reason why I said yes to that was because I'm athletic, and so I, I felt pretty comfortable doing the stunt. But I also— most importantly, the stunt coordinator was there. And there were a couple of other stunt actors who— stunt performers who I immediately had conversations with. And I had a very quick lesson on how to fall, how to prepare, what to do. They were standing on the train tracks waiting for me just in case I missed the— not pillows, but the padding that was down there. And I, and I know why they asked me to do it. It just, it cut much better that way. But they wound up using my stunt in the feature film. And I have found that saying yes to other things have just been incredibly helpful. And by the way, that, that movie is, it's a pretty popular movie, and it has been really good for my career. But even, even in other ways, I remember I was once asked, and this is decades ago, about doing a workshop for— there was an agency, they knew I did a lot of commercial print work at that time, and they asked if I would give a talk to their actors about how to get commercial print work. Never— I'd never done anything like that before in my life. I said yes, and I did it, and that has turned into over 800 workshops, do private mentoring, and then I found People were asking me so many questions, I better write a book. So I wound up writing a book, How to Become a Successful Actor and Model. And I just find that saying yes in the right situation can be incredibly helpful. Now here's the tricky part. If it's something you, you're not an expert in, something you're not sure about if you can pull off Never say yes. I remember having a chance to work on a project and they said, we need this character to sound like he was from London, upper, upper-class type of British dialect. I didn't think I could do it, not in that time period. It's not like I had, you know, 6 months to work with somebody. It was a pretty quick turnaround. I did not want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to embarrass my agent, and I turned it down. I remember I was working with a photographer. This was a commercial modeling job, and there was a model, and this guy was telling me, who got cast in a project, and she was asked ahead of time, can you ride horses? And she said yes. And they got to the set, and the set was a farm. It was a horse farm. And the photographer told the model, okay, why don't you get on the horse? Why don't you just trot around? in a circle a couple of times, get comfortable with the horse, and then I want a full gallop because I want to see your hair flying back. This woman had never been on a horse before, or if she was, probably as a kid and they had her on a pony and was being led around a rink. She was frightened. She was too frightened to get onto the horse, much less ride the horse, and she got fired immediately. They did replace her quickly. quickly. Fortunately, the model who was also being considered lived in the area, but she had her contract torn up by her agent because it was a horrible situation. So the thing is, if, if it's not something you think you can do, say no, because it can really destroy your career. I just wanted to ask if you have ever been in a situation where you said yes to something that you really hadn't tried before, you weren't 100% sure, please share it with us. Let us know. If it's something that you said no to because you didn't feel comfortable doing it, please share it here on the channel so we can learn from you. Use the link up here to watch the video, The One Mistake Actors Make When Auditioning for a Comedy. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. And you can get onto my free email list where I will send you great weekly industry information. You'll even get a special video sent to you. It's the 6 Secrets to Mastering Home Auditions. Anyhow, I hope this was really helpful to you. Oh, and by the way, you, you can, you can sign up on the website howtoactamodel.com. I hope this was great. Hope this was helpful. Can't wait to hear your responses, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
