Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My ambition, a long time ago, was to be a film music writer. A compromise then was to be the guy who wrote songs for a band and played slide guitar. Then the singer didn't turn up for an audition, and I was the only one who knew the words. That was it - bingo! Life took a different course.
I don't find imitating other people's music easy at all. I remember being fifth in line for a Rolling Stones tour, early '90s, when Bill Wyman left, and I was hoping against hope that I wouldn't get the call to audition. I wouldn't be able to play a Stones song if you put a gun to my head.
My mom thought I could dance because I used to dance to this Janet Jackson song she'd play when I was a baby. Then she would take me to a Saturday dance school. I used to go every week and got spotted by a scout, who suggested I audition for the role of Billy in 'Billy Elliot the Musical.'
One of my dad's friends from the music industry came over to our house one time and heard me sing, and he said, 'She should audition for this role I have!' So I did! It was a movie called 'The Gospel,' which I did when I was five. That was when I was like, 'I want to do this acting thing!'
I've now been doing this for ten years, and I actually got to skip a stage of going to casting directors, and now I meet with the directors, either for lunch or an audition room, and I still read sides; you're never going to get around that, but I'm not the best person to go on 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 think, so often, people go quick to that nepotism: 'I should be OK; my cousin's a producer. I can get into the movie.' How about audition, earn the part, and feel confident in knowing that the director felt you were the right person for the job versus hiring you because you know somebody?
I was living in Evanston, Illinois and I was taking theater classes down the street, and our theater school was kind of affiliated with an agency, and so I went on one audition for whatever that movie was, 'My Stepmother is an Alien' or whatever it was, and 'Roseanne' was my second audition.
When 'Twin Peaks' happened the first time, I was a stage actor in Seattle. I was called in for an audition for this pilot, and at that time, it was called 'Northwest Passage,' and nobody knew anything. I thought, 'Oh, okay, Lewis and Clark.' And from that moment, I fell down the rabbit hole.
My family moved from Massachusetts to Maryland after my sophomore year of high school, and that's when I got the audition for 'Uncle Buck.' I took the train into New York, and I think I did the test with John Candy. Then I got the part, and it was my first movie and my first screen anything.
I had done another show called 'United States of Cars,' which was a pilot that didn't get picked up. And they said, 'You know, we're doing 'Top Gear,' and would you like to meet the guys?' It was the wild - most wild audition I ever had because I never went to a studio or a producer's office.
I did the plays in middle school. I was cast as a gate in my fourth grade play, and every year I got a bigger role. Then, in 7th grade, I played Smike in 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and the casting director saw me and asked me to audition for a movie. That movie led to me getting 'Moonrise Kingdom.'
In preparing for my recording audition, my mom told me to YouTube the old 'Peanuts' Thanksgiving and Christmas specials to hear how Charlie Brown speaks. So I listened to as much as I could find online to get the voice right. Winning the role took a lot of hard work, but good fortune as well.
I came to New York when I was eighteen years old, and the first audition that I ever went to was this huge cattle call at the Equity building where I had gone two days earlier to sign up - I didn't have an agent or anything. It was for 'Chicago.' There were probably three hundred people 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.
A friend told me about the casting notice for 'Queer Eye.' I was in Chicago and I had a contract with 'Esquire' magazine, so had been coming to New York City regularly and thought I'd catch a cheap flight, crash on a friend's sofa and do this hilarious audition that I had no chance of winning.
I hadn't worked for a year when I had my Prison Break audition and it was the easiest audition I've ever had. I got the script on Friday, went to the audition on Monday and got the part on Tuesday. I was shooting the pilot a week later. I didn't have time to be nervous - it happened so quickly.
I was once up for a part, and the male star was also producing the movie. They were talking about meeting with him or having an audition with him, and then we get the message, 'He wants to have dinner with you.' I said, 'Is that the audition, or is it that he just wants to have dinner with me?'
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.
When I was in casting, we would bring somebody in, have them read their lines, maybe give them a few pointers, and hire them, and then once they go to the set and you have a director who's directing them, that performance may not be anywhere near what you had in the audition, either good or bad.
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 had actually tested first with 'Young and Restless' for the role of Daisy. It came down to three of us, but I didn't book that job. A couple of weeks later, I was told that I had an audition for 'B&B.' I did two auditions, and they booked me. It was a short process, which I greatly appreciated!
'Quick Change' was my first real movie. It was an interesting audition process because there were no lines in the script. Bill Murray's character would say something, and Geena Davis and Randy Quaid would say something, and then it would just say, 'The cabbie speaks.' How do you audition for that?
When I get really passionate about something, the audition process is really strenuous and hard on me because I feel so much for the project, and I become so attached to it. It's hard. It's stressful because you want it so badly, and you're crafting this character that you're falling in love with.
I think especially older people, and I count myself one, in the business - people get to know who you really are. So there comes a time when you can't just go in and audition without everybody knowing exactly how you've brought up your kids, what you said at the meeting, what kind of food you cook.
I remember going to the audition for 'Corrie.' I wasn't an actor - what they're often looking for in these rooms is a character, not what's on the page. They want to see what you are going to bring. So somehow, I got the job on 'Corrie.' For the first time in a while, someone really believed in me.
I live in Surrey, but up until the age of eight I lived in London. And the way I heard about this 'Peter Pan' film was there was an open-call audition that I'd heard about, or read about, and I just thought, 'Oh, I'll go along for the fun.' Because I never dreamed in a million years I'd ever get it.
I definitely devote so much more time to acting, but since it only takes a day or two to shoot and get pictures out - whereas for acting, you do an audition, or loads, and you might not get any of them - so I did the modeling stuff because, obviously, if I have the opportunity, I'm going to take it.
My first audition as a little girl was 'Interview with the Vampire' for Kirsten Dunst's part. Back then, they were meeting all different kinds of girls, and I was one of them. There's got to be an audition tape somewhere on VHS. Who would have known that many years later I would be on a vampire show?
A couple months before I got the audition for 'Arrow,' my husband and I had just sold everything we owned, packed our dogs and belongings into a truck, and moved to Los Angles with a prayer and almost no money. When I ended up booking the role, we both cried from joy and gratitude for a week straight.
In late 2004, I left my much-maligned home state of New Jersey for the supposedly greener pastures of Astoria, Queens. I'd finally be in the mix, living off the subway line, able to go from audition to audition during the day and from late night show to late night show in the wee hours of the morning.
I haven't been in a position to have the luxury to pick roles for most of my career, so I'm not practiced in that. Usually, when you want to be an actor, you take whatever comes along. If there's an audition, you go for it. If you get the job, you do it - just to get experience, to act, to meet people.
When I was six years old my friend was auditioning for 'Annie,' and I decided I wanted to audition with her. My mom was worried I would fall flat on my face because I'd never opened my mouth to sing, so she sent me to vocal lessons. I did the audition and fell in love with the entire process of a show.
It used to annoy and frustrate me to have to come in and audition. I would say to my agents, 'Haven't they seen this film and this film and this film? They know what I look like... They must.' Until I directed an episode of 'Roswell.' And all of a sudden, I realized why that was such an important thing.
I actually hated dancing. My mum used to have to bribe me to go by buying me things. A year before I stopped going, I was going to go for an audition with the Royal Ballet. It turned out I was a year too young. Because I was tall, they thought I was older. But before I had the chance to go back, I quit.
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.
When my first play was produced, I had this sudden feeling that I feel powerful. Like, the next time I go into an audition room, and it's me and the same eight girls as always, I will have this thing that no one can take away from me. They can see us all as interchangeable. But I am not interchangeable.
I was given an opportunity to do sports in college and get a degree because of it. I ran track for the University of Texas and was studying to be a petroleum landman. And I was gifted an opportunity to audition for a film during my last semester in college, which I discovered while jogging around campus.
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.'
If there are nine guys auditioning and they're all gorgeous, I have an advantage, because gorgeous guys are a dime a dozen. But if they need someone else - like a goofy guy with bad hair who is just okay - then that's me. And finally, the other 2 percent who audition are geniuses that I could never touch.
When I first started acting I was about nine years old. I had never been to audition in my life and my agent sent me out. It was just a commercial for 'Harry Potter.' That was the first thing I ever went out for and I got the 'Harry Potter' commercial which was really cool, but I didn't play Harry Potter.
I found an agent midway through my year-long run at 'Grease' and just started to audition. I fortunately booked 'South Pacific' six months after 'Grease' was over, and I feel like that was a huge turning point in legitimizing myself in the Broadway community, and getting to do that was absolutely amazing.
I go through periods where I don't shop at all, and then I go crazy and buy everything in sight. I never know what to wear, and I'm at my worst before an audition. I pull everything out of the closet, throw it on my bed. I'll get entirely dressed and then take it all off again until I'm in a kind of frenzy.
My mom had an audition for a commercial when I was about two and a half, and I ran in crying and interrupted her. They thought I was cute so they offered me a commercial role. My mom was skeptical and a bit nervous about the child actor thing, but I was extremely bossy and convinced them I wanted to try it.
'Sparkle' fell into my lap. I had heard a little bit about it, that it was being redone in early 2011. I was just kind of like, 'Oh, that would be really cool,' and not really thinking too much about it, and then it came through my agency. I read it, I fell in love with the script and I went in to audition.
I couldn't believe it! I mean, I'd always dreamed of acting on the screen - my previous background was all theater - but I wasn't sure if the opportunity would ever present itself. Not only was this acting for the screen, this was acting in 'The Hunger Games!' I knew that I had to give this audition my all.
Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Morphing from Latina when I was dressed in red, to African American when in mustard yellow, my closet filled with fashionable frocks to make me look as racially varied as an Eighties Benetton poster.
My sisters are my best friends and my most staunch supporters. They're always there to help me through every audition, through interviews, and through everything. Hopefully, I find some guy that I love as much as them some day. They are the best things in my life, and I would be completely lost without them.
'Sister Act' was my first audition out of school. I was 21 and cast as the understudy. It was non-Equity, so I lived in L.A. on $300 a week. I did that for a month and then came to New York to do a couple of gigs, including 'Hair' in the park, before going to London with 'Sister Act,' where I played the lead.
Young actors ask me for advice. They say, 'Should I get an agent?' I tell them, 'Don't worry about that. Act, act, act. Get into that production of 'The Three Sisters' in a church basement. Consider every audition a chance to act, even if it's just for three minutes. Just do it whenever and wherever you can.'