In Los Angeles they call it the industry. Short for the entertainment industry. As an actor in the industry you have to be prepared to face failure and rejection every day. But most people have no idea what trying to be an actor in Los Angeles is like, so here is a small taste of what it might feel like to bomb an audition…
Before
You get an email or call from your agent who tells you that you have an audition. At first you are really excited because you’ve been waiting for an audition for a while. Then you open the sides (part of the script) and realize how many pages of dialogue you’ll need to memorize before the next day and you are less excited. But that’s ok, its your job (well, it takes more than one job to pay the ridiculous housing costs in LA so it’s one of your jobs) and you are a professional.
You study and prepare all day. You’ve broken the scene down into beats and you’ve practiced relentlessly all afternoon. Your neighbors think you are crazy for yelling the same lines over and over and will probably avoid you at the apartment pool but at least you know your scene by heart. You are exhausted but ready to go because YOU are a professional.
During
You walk into the casting office a few minutes early, which is good because you had to drive from the west side over to Hollywood in traffic and you have to go to the bathroom. It could be just a nervous pee but you doubt it because you’re a professional. You put your phone on silent and hope your boss doesn’t notice you left work in the middle of the day. Oh well, you didn’t move to Hollywood to become a professional waiter.*
You look around the waiting room after you sign in and see anywhere between a dozen and a million other actors who all look just like you (only a little more handsome). You glance down at the sign in sheet and note that so far you are the 67th person that is going to try to get this one part. And five other guys are already stacked up behind you.
You sit down to wait and happen to notice the guy next to you left his resume sitting on the chair. He’s been in A LOT of stuff! Most of these guys have been in more stuff than you. You even recognize a couple of them from TV. You take a deep breath and remind yourself that you ARE a professional.
They finally call your name and you walk into the casting room ready to go. There are five people staring at you but no one introduces anyone. They don’t intend to be rude but you are the millionth person they’ve seen that looked just like you in the last hour. One of them asks if you have any questions and you aren’t sure if you should say yes or no. Saying yes might make you seem like you don’t know what you are doing. But what if you are supposed to have questions? You say no because you think that’s what a professional would do, and YOU ARE a professional.
You take a breath and glance down at the sides in your hand that you spent all day memorizing. You could have set them down but an acting coach once told you that you should always hold them because you want to give the impression you can always do better. And they aren’t paying you to memorize it yet. So you hold the papers and go through your audition.
Before you know it you have finished and the lady who read with you thanks you for coming in. All that work you put into it and they’ve moved on to guy number 68 before you can exit the building. You smile and wish the rest of the actors good luck as you leave.
You. Are. A. Professional.
After
You aren’t quite sure what to think at first. You remember missing a couple of beats you wanted to hit. And you are a little disappointed that you opened yourself up emotionally and they didn’t like what you had to offer and that hurts.
You go over your audition in your head and pick apart everything you think you could have done better as you drive (sit in traffic). You know in your head that they could pass on you for any number of reasons: you could be too tall, too short, or look too much like the directors ex husband. Or the part could have already been cast and you were wasting your time all along. You even had an audition once where they stopped you halfway through and told you that you looked too much like the lead and sent you packing. But in your heart you always figure there was something you could have done better. A professional can always do better and you are pretty sure you’re a professional.
You made the mistake of telling your family about the audition and they keep asking if you’ve heard anything. They mean well but they don’t understand that you rarely ever hear anything and each time they ask it’s just one more reminder that you bombed the audition. Don’t they know that if you did get the part you would be too excited not to call them? But you are professional about it because you’re a PROFESSIONAL!
A week later you still haven’t heard back and you no longer think that you are a professional. You hope your agent hasn’t stopped submitting you for parts. You hope word of your bad audition hasn’t gotten around to any other casting directors. You hope you can still call yourself an actor.
Then the phone rings.
You have another audition…
*My wife would like you to know that I’m not a waiter (professional or otherwise), that I don’t really have a boss (I’m self-employed), and that I’ve never actually bombed an audition in my life. I would like you to know that only two of these statements are true.
