Auditioning - How Do YOU prep to blow 'em out of the water?

Doc Bernard

Doc Bernard

Indie Arms Member
I must preface this by saying, I am going to be taking notes. Because I get a weird feeling every time before I audition. Basically, I seem to get self-conscious. But in front of a camera on set.........no problem. I am in the moment being the character and adapting my life and his together. And I love "losing" myself to the character's mindset.

I have tried breathing exercises, meditation, jumping around, even a mantra or two. Does not seem to release the tension. I would love to have that same on set centering I get and apply it to the audition.

So what do YOU do?
 
If you're calm when acting, seems an easy answer... pick a persona and act it during the interview! Me, I'd go with Fonzie. Ayyy!
 
When I first started out (not that I'm that far along really) I found myself in a similar position of feeling fairly calm and confident in actual performance, but scared witless in auditions.

In the end I decided I was never going to get anywhere if I couldn't audition confidently - so I went through a period of forcing myself to audition for as many things as I possibly could, short films, theatre, anything (even projects that I could never have done - for scheduling reasons - anyway). The idea was to saturate myself in the auditioning process and take the fear and uncertainty out of it.

It worked a treat - I can now walk into a big empty space, face a table of 10 complete strangers and audition quite comfortably. It took a LOT of work to get to that point, but after making it a point of focus, I made pretty rapid improvements in it.
 
I found a cool article recently written by an actor. It doesn't directly answer your question, but it does go through his thought process when heading into an audition. Might help you pinpoint exactly where your feelings of anxiety before the audition are coming from.

http://connect.castingworkbook.com/blog/2013/08/15/audition-tips-from-mike-kovac/

This actor has also written another article on this blog, about getting the job and going to set. But it sounds like that part isn't a problem for you.

Check it out :) Hope it helps!
 
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