Getting the Job: An Introduction
The same rules apply to actors when it comes to booking work in professional or amateur productions. Unless you are a star, you will have to audition for a part.
Every time you go into an audition, whether for a commercial, a play, a TV show, or a film, you are given an opportunity to show your work. Have fun with it. You are acting because you love it, so act like it. I can’t believe the number of actors I see waiting to be called in for their audition who look like they’re constipated or in pain. Isn’t acting in front of an audience what you live for? So enjoy it!
The most important thing you will ever hear with respect to auditioning is to not need it. This can be hard, because we all want so badly to get that part, but save the angst for when you play a role where the character actually needs something, because it won’t get you where you need to be in most auditions. It will only distract you and the need emanates from you more obviously than you can imagine. Cate Blanchett describes in this week’s Newsweek (January 15, 2001) how a watershed moment in her career came from not wanting a job:
‘”’I went into an audition and someone was being an a—hole, and I thought, ‘I really don’t want this job.’ I wasn’t working at the time, but I thought, ‘I don’t think I could bear to work for you.’” The experience affected the way Blanchett approached her entire career, not to mention her next audition: “I didn’t run at it saying, ‘Like me! Want me!’”’
Blanchett instead focused on her craft and doing the best work possible for the sake of the work and followed her own integrity. This attitude galvanizes people and makes them want to work with you. For “The Gift,” Sam Raimi said of getting actors like Keanu Reeves for far below their asking price, “Once they knew Cate Blanchett was starring in the piece…they knew there were going to be across from one of the best, if not the best, leading ladies in the world.” How did Blanchett acquire this reputation? With the quality her work. If you’re too busy worrying about what people think of you, or second guessing what they want and trying to please them, then you have no integrity or focus, and you will never achieve the type of skill or reputation that Blanchett has.
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