I don’t get dressed up as the character to go audition.
I remember being told very early on, ‘Just say what they want to hear in the audition, and we’ll figure it out later on.’ So there have been a few tricky moments. I once said I could ride, when the truth is I’m terrified of horses, but I got the job!
With ‘The Leftovers,’ I was actually super, super lucky. It was my first major audition. When I came out, the casting director was kissing me on the face, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s probably a good sign.’
My first audition ever was for ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ in fifth grade.
I didn’t audition for ‘Fargo.’ It was a straight offer.
I know when an actor goes in to audition, if they don’t get the part, it’s not because they’re a bad actor at all; it’s because it’s not quite the right fit.
I originally went up for a role on the spinoff show, ‘Legends of Tomorrow,’ and that led me to audition for Wally West in ‘The Flash’. I enjoy auditioning in general, but this was a particularly fun process because it was so unexpected.
From what I’ve experienced so far, I’d say the traffic in L.A. is frustrating. You spend a lot of time driving your car for an audition that could last just three minutes.
I changed the lyrics of ‘All I Need Is the Girl’ to ‘All I Need Is the Job’ for an audition years ago. It’s a great ice-breaker – people want to laugh.
Very little gets offered to me. I have to audition and bawl my eyes out. For ‘Broadchurch,’ the scene was Danny lying on the mortuary table. I can’t remember the last audition I had where I didn’t come out drenched in sweat, puffy-eyed.
I had agents in Australia; I just never had any auditions. And if you can’t audition, then you can’t work. I studied there. I did classes there. I learned how to act. Growing up there, I discovered my love for acting, but I just wasn’t getting the opportunities to work professionally.
‘The Falling’ was a big, flashy, bizarre experience. I kept on saying at the time it was a fluke because I did the audition, and I didn’t think anything would come of it.
I got ‘Aurangzeb’ because I gave an audition and passed it.
I have been in auditions where – because – you’re always scared before, but if you let that scared feeling get the better of you or become too much, it could ruin your audition.
I’m in so many videos. There was a period of about two years where I danced for everyone: Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, Jessie J, Taio Cruz. It got to the point where my fees were double the other girls’, and I wouldn’t even have to audition. They’d call my agent directly and say, ‘We want twigs to come in.’
I was on my way to law school when a friend of mine at an extras agency said, ‘Do you want to come to this movie set and get paid $100 bucks a day to pretend you’re at a party?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, summer holiday, let’s do it.’ So I went, and on lunch, the writer asked me to audition for a role, and I got it.
One of the first auditions I had in New York was for a commercial where I had to go in and audition to be a snake charmer… It was either some bank commercial or something where they wanted a guy charming a snake… I remember they wanted to know if I actually knew how to snake charm.
As soon as they sent me an email saying that ‘Stranger Things’ is having an audition and they’d like you to come in, I just thought, ‘Oh boy, this might be fated.’ I hadn’t really watched the show, but I binged it and fell in love with it.
What’s funny is my mom took me to the theater for the first time when I was six years old, and I was just amazed by it. I just said, ‘Hey Mom, can I do this too?’ And so she signed me up for little theater classes, and I remember my first audition for a play when I was seven years old was for ‘The Thankful Elf.’
Simon would not want to audition in front of Simon.
Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera. I thought, ‘Hey, this will be a really fun story to tell my grandkids one day, that I auditioned for a soap!’
I never doubted that I would work, and every time I went to an audition, I went into the room with the knowledge that I was going to get the part. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I didn’t.
I felt that it was cool to even get to the point where I was able to audition on the actual ‘SNL’ stage. Looking back on it, I can’t believe that I wasn’t more nervous.
There’s really nothing but one audition for a Disney Channel movie that separates me from 2,000 other brown-haired, blue-eyed guys in L.A., you know?
When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.
In high school, I did some musicals, but I never took acting until college. I was studying opera, classical voice, and a speech teacher asked me to audition for this play, and I got the lead.
When I was about ten years old, I was brought to London to watch a production of ‘The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.’ I think it was at Sadler’s Wells in maybe 2000. I watched it because my school was putting on a production of it, and it was the first school play that I was able to audition for a speaking part.
I’ve always loved movies, so I tried to get into an acting school. I saw an ad for the Oscar school on the back of ‘The Irish Times,’ and I went along for an audition, very pragmatically, to see if I could do it or not.
I never went on an audition – when they were really looking at everybody.
The last thing on my mind was to be an actor, but I had a crush on a cute girl in the drama department, so the best thing for me to do was audition, help out, do carpentry, whatever it took to get me on that project.
I got this secretive, very secretive email from my agent saying, ‘You have an audition for Marvel, no one’s letting us know what the name of the film is, but are you available on this day? That’s all we know.’ And I went, ‘OK, well, I think it will probably be ‘Thor,’ because Taika’s got it.’
When I started, there were no Indians on television or films, except for Sir Ben Kingsley. I was an actor in high school, college, and I played leads. And when I graduated, I knew that I couldn’t go to Hollywood and audition for shows or films. I could try, but where was the evidence that it was going to happen?
When I heard the BBC was making ‘Little Women,’ I rushed to audition.
‘Hotel For Dogs’ was fun for my family, but it was kind of hard to get in the audition room for ‘Jennifer’s Body’ after that, you know? But I think the roles find me, in a way.
I hate going into the audition room. I find it the most nerve-wracking, inhumane experience, and I think it’s such an inhospitable environment to give an honest account of the character and, I guess, your ability.
I’ve had a couple opportunities where I’ve been on the other side of the audition process as a director, so it’s really reassuring to me that it’s just about who is right for that role and less about if you ace the audition. It’s just about getting to know people, not about who’s a better actor a lot of the time.
Many’s the audition I waltzed into unprepared and wondered why I didn’t get it. I learned the hard way.
I just don’t want to miss anything in the lives of my children while they are still young. It’s why I don’t audition for leading roles at all and why I say no to some of the supporting roles that I do get offered.
It’s very strange – several years ago, I was in the running for the ‘Young Frankenstein’ musical. Kristin Chenoweth was going to do it, but then she backed out because she got ‘Pushing Daisies’ on TV, and then, the next day, I went in for my final-final audition, and I saw Megan Mullally standing there.
In the early days, I just got lucky. I would audition for everything and just happen to land in something pretty respectable, like ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ my first job, which was a complete fluke.
I went through that phase where I shaved the entire side of my head off – I actually love the way it looks, but it doesn’t really work when you’re walking into a room for an audition.
I went to ballet school for nine years, and there was an agent for the whole school who happened to be there visiting one of the performances. She suggested an audition.
Before recording my ‘Homeland’ audition on my iPhone in my bedroom in Streatham, I hadn’t worked or had an audition in the U.K. for nine months.
I just kind of feel like it’s my choice to do what I want to do. And my agent, he’s totally with it. He tells me, ‘You can turn down any audition you don’t want to.’
My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. I like having to audition. It’s nice to do rehearsals. But it’s with an audience that you get to love it!
I came out to America just before I turned 19, got my first audition, and booked it.
I went along to the audition and I had one page of lines, and I didn’t think it went particularly well.
I think what’s universal is the idea of auditioning. It’s something that you do in every kind of job market. You audition every time you go on a date, you audition at a job interview, and it’s always about trying to put the best version of yourself forward and seeing what sticks and what doesn’t.
I remember my mom saying, ‘I will take you to every audition, I will support you, but the minute you stop caring about it, I will stop.’
