After a recent actor group meeting when we talked about agent meetups, it came up that one of the most common challenges for performers in this biz seems to be the “first meeting/audition” time— the first time you meet an agent, a casting director, et al, where they ask the classic , “So, tell me about yourself…”. You know, where there’s no prepared script, no sides, no lines, just you. Here’s one possible way to do it:

Anyway I think this comes up often enough that there are a number of resources on the topic, several of which are:

• Brian O’Neil (yeah, one of my favorite authors/coaches) dedicated an entire section to “Meet the Agent” in his must-have Business of Acting book, where he illustrates how to prepare and basically demystifies the entire agent interview process
• The Career News recently had something similar to say on the topic of job interview prep:

So I was wondering why that’s sometimes so hard for a lot of performers, who are otherwise well-trained, and maybe it all comes down to (a) practice makes perfect (or at least passable :-) and (b) personal acceptance. For the latter, I’m guessing it might be intimidating for performers… who are probably more aware than most people of our own shortcomings… to casually talk about ourselves w/out the buffer of lines or character between us and the world? Like maybe we think we won’t be accepted, that we’ll say the wrong thing. Well, maybe that’s performers think might happen, but maybe it’s just what the CDs want to see; i.e., us being our un-edited selves.

IMO one of the easiest ways to improve personal interviews— and, just as important, improve most of our on-camera performances— is to try forget being someone else, forget the possibility of not be liked for our past, and forget the expected “rights” and “wrongs”, and instead just focus on being ourselves. I mean, unlike most times in real life, we can and should be encouraged to draw from every aspect of our personal histories in our work, and that process is never more important than at casting. Whether there are deep dark secrets we’re afraid will make us look troubled, or humorous aspects of ourselves we’re afraid will make us look goofy, ultimately there’s no denying those personality traits are exactly what makes us “us”, what will get us cast, and what acting on camera ultimately demands we bring. IMO it’s just that search for honesty about ourselves that makes acting both challenging and liberating (and probably life-long).

So maybe whatever our biggest fears are— if your parents divorce or your early childhood sleeping in cars makes you sad or embarrassed, or your silver-spoon upbringing or recent engagement makes you happy or guilty— we should actively address, embrace, and bring those along, because they are what makes us, and best of all there are roles out there for each of those. Not bringing all of who we are, or trying to become someone we “think” that “they” want to see, actually limits our chances of getting hired. It’s a performers job not to censor ourselves or worry about fitting every role, but to just bring all of who we are (“good” or “bad”). It’s Casting’s job to fill roles that match us (or maybe use a cool feature like CastingTypes™ :). Getting the two together is the process and practice of auditioning, networking, and being ourselves every chance we can.


Note: OK so I think the challenge to be comfortable with this is particularly heightened for on-camera work because, unlike live, ephemeral performances, we know that our recorded work can be reviewed repeatedly (and possibly in slow-motion-freeze-frame detail) for anyone to admire or, more intimidating, to criticize for years to come… actually this meet-the-agent topic also relates to my feeling about on-camera acting in general; i.e., there is no character (just you being), no right or wrong. Of course there are many ways to do it (acting) and don’t mean to imply there’s only one “right” way— I’m definitely in the “whatever works for you” camp. The thoughts here are just totally IMHO based on my own on-camera experiences as well as others’ work. But one of my favorites is Harold Guskin’s “off the page” technique in his book, How to Stop Acting, where he describes a performer’s first reading as a freedom of discovery process. More recently, David Mamet, in his recent book True or False, also relates basically (and I’m paraphrasing) that for on-camera work, there are no external “characters” or technique, simply just ourselves as ourselves in the given circumstances. Some additional, personal thoughts on the whole acting-on-camera thing over here (standard i’m-still-learning-myself disclaimers apply).

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