The Audition Process.

I'm just going to ramble on here about auditions; it's the process that every actor knows and a lot of us hate.

Let's face it there can't be many other jobs on earth where you have to audition all the way through your career; there's only one other job where it can be worse and that's a comedian playing to nobody at all just a producer sitting there demanding that you make him laugh.

I saw something similar once when I went to my very first audition – well it wasn't my very first as I had to audition for drama school: one piece of Shakespeare, one modern piece and a poem.

Every actor will recognize those three requirements and I think I explain quite well how I started as an actor in this 90 second clip from a talk show - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrGBnPB8IN0 - have a look and I'll wait for you.

Getting back to my first audition; I had been at drama school for three months and I saw in The Stage newspaper an advertisement for a pantomime at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester and I decided to give it a go; why not?

By the way I know people on the American continent will hardly know what a pantomime is and will confuse it with 'mime' so have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime which should fill you in.

I was living in Shropshire at the time so Leicester wasn't that many hours travel away and when you are at that stage of your career you will try anything; so off to Leicester I went and I can't tell you how I got there but it took a long time on many trains.

The De Montfort Hall has a capacity of two thousand and is a venue for the Leicester Philharmonic Choir and the Leicester Symphony Orchestra; acts like the Beatles played there and Buddy Holly when he came to the UK played there too and walking in that day I noticed how big the place was; an indoor stadium no less.

Most of the others there for the auditions were variety acts; I came as an actor even though I was only a drama student; trying to run before I could walk.

There was a really good double act auditioning made up of two brothers in suits who did a song and dance and many young girls with beautiful singing voices; one fella came on stage with a newspaper and started to sing 'Old Man River' then he said to the producers out front 'I also do lines.'

'Do you?' they said 'well let's hear some.'

That was where the newspaper came in; he unfolded it and started to read it out loud in a mock Shakespearian voice – 'The Prime Minister today met the cabinet at number 10 . . '

There was no hook to drag him off stage or loud 'thank you' - they just let him finish and thanked him.

Then came the comedian I mentioned earlier; he was obviously a bit like me – no experience.

He came on the stage and started telling a few jokes and of course because there was no audience – only us waiting to audition – there was nobody laughing and this threw him totally.

The more jokes he told and the more silent responses he heard the more confidence he lost till he was a quivering wreck.

I remember the last thing he did was to take a chair from the back of the stage and say 'For my next trick I am going to do a back flip from this chair and land on my head on the floor' and he stood on the chair; then he looked out front, got down off the chair and said 'no I'm not' and walked off.

It was very embarrassing and I was next; 'tell us your name' somebody said and I told them.

'What do you do?'

'I'm an actor.'

“What do you do – lines?'

'Yes I'm going to do a piece from Present Laughter by Noel Coward.'

So I did my piece, speaking to the chair, and when I walked off everybody gave me a round of applause; I suppose I was different from everybody else there but I didn't hear another word from them.

Now that has always made me laugh when an actor talks to a chair during an audition but maybe that's just my sense of humour.

Most of the other auditions I've been to over the years have been with just actors and there is a difference between auditions in London and those in Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles you really do audition no matter who you are – I don't mean people like Brad Pitt or Jack Nicholson but you would be surprised at the well known faces that audition.

In London actors don't admit they have to audition at all even if they're a nobody – like me; they call them meetings and a lot of the time that's all they are.

You chat with the director for twenty minutes and they assess who you are and base their decision on that.

Lots of times you have to read the lines from one of the scenes; one actor I followed in London had writing next to his name which read 'will not read under any circumstances.' Big headed bastard!!

When you arrive at an audition – on both sides of the Atlantic - you are welcomed with the sight of nervous looking actors who look exactly the same as you; so you can see what type you are as soon as you arrive.

In Los Angeles the actors go dressed for the role; especially for commercials.

I went for the role of Santa Claus once and there in the waiting room when I arrived were three fully dressed Santas and they knew each other.

A bit like the singing Hitlers and the dancing Hitlers from 'The Producers.'

Actors in Los Angeles have their 'sides' with them which are the scenes the casting director wants you to read from the script.

Most actors learn those lines and have worked on it for maybe the last 24 hours.

Actors here are entitled to see the sides 24 hours before any audition – union (SAG) rules.

In London, when I was there, you don't get the sides till you arrive and one time, when I went to meet Ned Sherrin for a play he was directing, they didn't let me see the script till I met Ned Sherrin himself – this kind of process gives you the best sight readers and not necessarily the best actors.

It's a pity about that particular play as Ian Dury was in it and I would have loved to have worked with him.

In Los Angeles they want the best actor for each role and go out of their way to help you which is why you get the sides.

The draw back here is you very rarely meet the director on the first audition and sometimes you don't meet him at all.

The casting director 'reads' you and you will get a call back to meet the director at the second meeting.

If you go for a big movie they just put you on tape so you are at the mercy of the casting director who usually don't know how to direct you properly.

I've been to quite a few seminars, organised by SAG, where there have been agents (they get 10% and no more here unlike in London), managers (15%) and casting directors and you do pick up a lot of hints and tips.

Number one: at an audition when you are reading don't fix your eyes on the other person you are reading with; people don't normally look each other in the eye all the time when they speak to each other. Have a look around, if you don't believe me; so there is no need to do it with the casting director.

Also look at the American TV and movie productions and you will see the actors looking around being natural.

That doesn't mean to say you never look people in the eyes but it's unnerving if you do it all the time.

I also know actors who are quite well known and they don't see why they should go in and meet the director as they have worked with them before or they are friends.

Some directors here still want actors they know to come in for casting as they might want them to do something different from what they normally do; maybe you're well known as playing a killer or a heavy and the director wants to see if you could play something light or comedic.

Or the other way around – you do a lot of comedy and they want to see if you could play that nasty streak or even a bit of violence.

Directors have said, at these seminars, that the actors who don't or won't come in sometimes miss out.

What has been fairly consistent over the years at auditions is the seriousness of the Americans, who mean business, and the nonchalance of some of the English; sometimes the English arrive with the attitude that they have something else more important to do; now what could be more important than your next job?

Of course I haven't been to any auditions in London for over fifteen years as I've been here so things might have changed.

At the last couple of auditions I went to there were some young girls waiting, and I couldn't believe that they spent their whole waiting time sending texts on their smart phones – I refuse to use the word texting – but maybe that's natural too.