Have you had a REALLY bad acting audition?
Sep 19, 2019Have you had a REALLY bad acting audition?
So you really screwed it up?!
Made a great big mess of that massive important audition? The one that was going to change your life? Or you sent off that self tape and it was just...bleugghh!
A few survival tips and hints...
1. Are you sure you really screwed it up?
So many times I've heard actors say, “I was soooo bad - How come I got the job!?
I’ve also heard them say, “Why didn’t they hire me? I nailed it, I was brilliant.”
You see, so many elements of the final casting decisions have no relation to how you read or tape. Maybe your flaws are what they love...
EG - The director liked your nervyness, casting director loved your vulnerability - Producer adored your arrogance...
Pls don’t waste time beating yourself up. It’s highly likely you did just fine.
2. Let it go.
If you’re sure your audition was horrendous - don’t beat yourself up. We all have bad days - well I know I do - "if only they'd have called me in yesterday!!! I was on fire yesterday..." Be kind to yourself...
Even if it was your first audition for the "awesome" casting director of X MEN 9 or GIRLS 8 and you really blew it - they wont remember a few months down the line - really.
3. Analyse it.
Instead of beating yourself up - see how you could have improved things a little...was it your nerves? How could you be more confident next time? Did you get enough sleep?
Dancing a little too late...partying too hard the night before...we've all done it...
(I call it being a Viking! AArrghhh!!!)
What can u do next time to stay even more centered?
4. Were you a bit out of practice, bit rusty?
Maybe it’s time to get back into it? Maybe read a few scenes with a few friends for fun...actors hook up all the time for free over here
5. Was it the part?
Some roles you just can’t connect with, even if you’ve learned the lines and figured out your intentions. So be it.
Let it go. Move on. Past is over and done with, isnt it?
What next?
Ask yourself : What would I LOVE to create next?
Let me know
x Nick
Can you beat my worst audition?
Here it is on you tube - leave a comment wont ya?
No thanks for your time: the worst movie auditions from A-list stars
La La Land reminds us of the brutality of the auditioning process – something that even Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts can remember
Every actor has a bad audition story, a recollection of how they managed to mangle their one big chance at stardom. These stories are so ubiquitous that, in La La Land, Emma Stone’s character gets to act one out for us. And the most effective way that Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali has thought to beat La La Land at the Oscars is to appear on talkshows and discuss the time he screwed up a Game of Thrones audition by sitting on the wrong type of chair.
At least a bad audition is a private affair, which means that the public at large will never get to see just how violently you buggered up your shot at fame. Or at least, they were private affairs – until the invention of YouTube. Let’s go digging.
Chris Klein, Mamma Mia
We’ll begin with the most notorious of bad auditions. The casting of Chris Klein in Mamma Mia wouldn’t have ruined the film – it did a pretty good job of ruining itself – but it certainly would have changed the story somewhat. In his version, clearly, the character who’d go on to be played by Dominic Cooper would be a slimy, over-confident serial killer with a genuinely chilling Mandy Moore fixation. Which, to be fair, does actually sound better.
Want a GOOD audition or self tape? Click on pic below
A universe exists where Brad Pitt played Brian McCaffrey in Ron Howard’s Backdraft. And in that universe, Brian McCaffrey is a fully checked-out space cowboy whose method of delivery involves saying a number of words he doesn’t understand in a manner dictated by a tiny, invisible goblin whispering on his shoulder. In this version of Backdraft, everything burns down forever and Brian McCaffrey stands in the middle of it all, blinking.
Scarlett Johansson, Jumanji
Scarlett Johansson is one of our finest actors. However, this was not always the case. Auditioning for Kirsten Dunst’s character in Jumanji, Johansson struck upon a weirdly Charlie Brownish cadence and mined it for everything it was worth. “I’ve got sixty-seven dollars and eight cents,” she says in a way that makes you think she’s just missed another kick of the football. If she’d gotten the part, Jumanji would have included a scene of her slowly trudging along a street accompanied by Christmas Time Is Here, pursued by a lion.
Matthew Fox, Lost
Matthew Fox was a great Jack. He had exactly the right level of empty-headed neediness to play Lost’s ostensible protagonist. However, he also auditioned for the role of the slick conman Sawyer. And he auditioned poorly. Infinitely less laconic than Josh Holloway, Fox’s Sawyer was a wobbly-headed ball of misplaced intensity and bulgy neck veins who was singularly impossible to love. In fact, Fox would later put all these traits to work as the serial killer in 2012’s Alex Cross, which you didn’t see because life is short and time is precious.
Julia Roberts, Seven Minutes in Heaven
Even though it stars Jennifer Connelly in one of her first roles, Seven Minutes in Heaven is a bad film. Perhaps the reason Julia Roberts didn’t get Connelly’s part is because she didn’t realize this. Her audition is full of slow-burning resentment and overt sarcasm, when in fact everyone in the end product looks distracted and bored, as if they’re reading their lines from cue cards placed slightly too far away. Julia Roberts didn’t get this part because she tried too hard, which is to say that she tried.
Meryl Streep, King Kong
And finally, Meryl. Although no filmed record of this audition exists, it’s a story she’s told before. It is the mid-1970s. Streep goes for Jessica Lange’s role in King Kong. The audition is being held in the offices of the tastelessly gaudy producer Dino De Laurentiis. She enters the room. De Laurentiis immediately says, in Italian: “She’s too ugly.” Streep replies in Italian, to let him know that she could understand him. The moral is that only a genuine moron would ever mess with Meryl Streep.
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