I was studying in Pune when I was asked to audition for ‘Navya’ through a social networking site. Once I landed the show, there’s been no looking back.
I think the reason why I’m an actress is because I got hooked on the feeling of studying for an audition, going to the audition, and then getting that phone call.
I’ve been watching ‘American Idol’ half my life, and I wanted to audition since I was 8.
It was a total accident that I walked into my ‘Super 8’ audition looking exactly right for the part.
For every successful actor or actress, there are countless numbers who don’t make it. The name of the game is rejection. You go to an audition and you’re told you’re too tall or you’re too Irish or your nose is not quite right. You’re rejected for your education, you’re rejected for this or that and it’s really tough.
Normally, if I’ve got an audition, I’m punctual, I’ve learnt my lines, and I’ll go looking smart.
I’m just going to continue to think about what kind of films I want to do and what’s out there for me to audition for, and I love trying.
I can be such a Little Lord Fauntleroy about what I even audition for.
You have to have talent. You have to get the audition and then you have to nail the audition.
As a boy soprano in the high school choir, I later sang a solo during the carol service at Canterbury Cathedral, but I was too young to secure the Freddy Eynsford-Hill role in our production of ‘My Fair Lady’ – and far too timid to have thought to audition for it.
Every audition is different, but I get incredibly nervous and insecure and worked up for however long I have to prep – that’s when I get to spin. But you’re not allowed to spin once you enter the room. Doubt really can’t enter the room when you’re auditioning – unless it’s part of the character.
I would audition for all the school plays, and finally, my last year, I got the role as Pinocchio – finally.
My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company’s Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.
I remember auditioning for the Wonder Woman television show and being told that I wasn’t the Wonder Woman type, but if I wanted to play the best friend, I could audition for that.
I hadn’t even watched ’24’ before, and the audition was kind of far away. When I got the material, there wasn’t a character yet, so it almost seemed like an assistant to Jack Bauer saying, ‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’
I did some acting in high school and then a little more in college, and it just was the thing that I felt that I wanted to do more than anything else. And then I was fortunate enough to audition for and get into Yale Drama School right after college, and I spent three years there.
No I didn’t audition, I didn’t even know David Lynch till the week before I started the film.
I always tell actors when they go in for an audition: Don’t be afraid to do what your instincts tell you. You may not get the part, but people will take notice.
When I first heard from my manager, who asked me, ‘There’s this Disney ‘Mulan,’ do you want to audition for it?’ I’d heard that so many people were auditioning. So, I asked myself what I could bring.
One day, I was auditioning for some other thing and my friend was auditioning for ‘Laila Majnu.’ She asked me to come with her so that we could leave together. While I was waiting, the guy who was taking the audition said, ‘Why don’t you give it a try.’
The beauty with U.K. productions is that, most of the time, you get all of the scripts when you audition for them.
I would audition for 50-60 ads in a month and would get nothing. It affected me not just mentally but also physically. I put on 14 KGs in those two years.
I think most actors will tell you the same thing; when you’re not working you put 100 percent into every audition.
I emceed in metro Detroit throughout college, and even when I moved to New York, I would actually fly back on a Friday, emcee on a Saturday, and fly back on Sunday so that I could audition during the week. It was a big part of my life.
After my last audition for ‘Game of Thrones,’ they said, ‘Congratulations, princess.’ I was like, ‘Bye-bye, call centre.’
I was so involved in the regular joy of school that I didn’t do any plays. On a dare, I auditioned for ‘South Pacific’ my junior year. I showed up at the last minute to the audition and ended up getting cast as the lead. I haven’t turned back since then.
I didn’t have a problem with rejection, because when you go into an audition, you’re rejected already. There are hundreds of other actors. You’re behind the eight ball when you go in there.
I grew up on movie sets, so it was something I just found familiar. When I was growing up also, in high school, I would audition for things and my parents let me audition for things – with the thought that I wouldn’t get them. And then I would get them… sometimes, and it would surprise them.
I have been very lucky from the moment I went to my first audition, which was for ‘CSI: New York,’ and I got it.
‘Hedwig’ was the first audition my agent ever sent me on. I still have the slip of paper where I wrote down the appointment. I wrote down, ‘Headwitch and the Angry Itch. Yitzhak. Croatian ex-drag queen billed as the last Jewess of the Balkans Krystal Nacht.’
I had to go to an audition for a rather large West End musical set on a Greek island. I didn’t realise that you had to go with sheet music to give to the pianist. I took a Mark Bolan CD, a small ghetto blaster and then sang along. It was absolutely appalling.
You never have an indifferent feeling after an audition. It’s either gone really well or really terribly.
I live in Las Vegas with my family, and I never realized what my parents would go through to get me to a five-minute audition.
I was fortunate enough to crash the right audition when I was 15, and just took it from there.
When I found out that they were doing a revival of ‘Annie,’ I decided to audition just for fun and see how it turned out. So I auditioned, and I got a callback after callback after callback. And I just wanted to be a part of the show; I didn’t care what role.
When you start out acting, you dream of getting an agent and getting a job. For years, you audition and you get what you can. Choice isn’t something that you have much of.
When I went in for the ‘Orange’ audition, I was just doing what my agency told me to do. Truth be told, I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t even know how to prepare. I couldn’t remember my lines.
I love L.A. Some people arrive with big expectations and are inevitably disappointed, but I can audition in the day, which can be gruelling and lonely, but then gig and be creative in the evenings.
Personally, I need to learn every word on the page before I go in and audition. I have not mastered the skill of holding pages in my hand and acting with pages in my hand. I find that every time I have to look at the page it takes me completely out of the scene.
When I got the audition for ‘Big Little Lies,’ I knew this project was going to be different than anything I’d ever done. That didn’t change the way I approached the role.
I was studying to be a legal secretary when I was called to audition for ‘Ken.’
I was focused on either being a social worker or physiotherapist. That was the direction I was going until I met a girl who wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to be close to the girl, so I followed her into an audition.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I was straight out of grad school, and I didn’t have a single credit to my name. I knew one person in town – another actor whose name is John Billingsley. I just had to audition and audition and audition. I was plugging away for 15 years. So I earned my stripes!
I was born in Toronto and studied with the National Ballet of Canada. I went to school to study dance, slept on the floor, ate nothing, waitressed – and then there was a Mary J. Blige audition.
I went to public school my whole life, graduated high school with my class. Growing up, I’d go to an audition, my friends would go to soccer practice and we’d all reconvene and hang out in our neighborhood. When I would book something, I would never tell my friends. Acting was just fun. I was a kid, I wasn’t jaded.
I don’t think auditioning will ever faze me again after the ‘Grease’ TV experience. It was fierce. There were thousands of people auditioning in four cities. I flew from home in Minneapolis to audition in L.A. I waited in line all day. I arrived at 7 A.M. and wasn’t seen until 6 P.M.
Allison Jones, a big casting director out there, was like, ‘They’re casting ‘The Daily Show’ right now – you should submit a tape.’ I remember leaving school to go shoot an audition.
I felt like I had hit a ceiling in the UK. I wasn’t having many opportunities to audition back home and I felt like my career was coming to a halt. So I came to the US to be a fresh face and start over.
I was so focused at 21, maybe to my own detriment because I didn’t allow myself to have fun. I was constantly looking for the next audition and working to pay the bills.
I guess in the independent market, I’d be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don’t think my name is that well-known, I don’t have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.
