what it's like doing an audition

behind the scenes of the scenes!!!

I had a couple of auditions - most actors call them ‘meetings’ or ‘castings’ to show they’re An Important Part Of The Industry because they Know The Lingo but I tend to call them ‘auditions’ because they are auditions - and thought hey, is there a substack post in this? Let’s see!

Have to caveat this with: the process will be very different if you are Nicole Kidman. I imagine when you are Nicole Kidman, the process is your agent saying ‘would you like to be in this’ and you saying ‘yes’ or ‘no thanks, Nicole x’.

It will also be different if you are auditioning for a theatre/musical - I’m talking about little One Episode In A Gentle Comedy Where I Have 4-10 Lines Max jobs. Or adverts.

Even that fairly specific category features a range of audition processes: sometimes you get offered something out of the blue without auditioning, sometimes you do a janky zoom with seven men on mute who have no way of telling whether you’d be any good because the wifi keeps disconnecting, sometimes you audition five times for the same part in increasingly humid rooms, and sometimes you go in with multiple people so it feels a bit like the Hunger Games but instead of competing to the death, you’re competing for £6k and people texting you saying ‘omg I just saw you in an advert about paint’.

However, this is my broad experience of them in general.

1. You get a self tape

The first round of auditions is rarely in-person, so my agent will email me and the subject line of the email will start with ‘SELF TAPE:’ followed by the title of the show. And I’ll think ‘oh no I wanted to watch The Diplomat and eat buttered crackers’ and then ‘why am I not enthused by this opportunity? Does this mean I’m not a Real Actor?’ and then ‘I’m just nervous I’ll be shit’ which is true.

Sometimes the title of the show is secret so I’ll have to sign an NDA before I’ve seen the script, and when the script arrives it is emphatically explained that this is not the actual script from the show because the show is just too secret. I’d be fascinated to know what would happen if I leaked two lines of incomprehensible dialogue that don’t feature in a show I haven’t been told the name of. Probably death.

Anyway, usually the email details the dates you’d be needed, the name of the project, people who are attached to the project (got one recently involving Armie Hammer that I of course turned down. I may be a bag of dope with skin on it, but I’ve got morals. This is a reference to him calling people bags of dope with skin on them, in case you weren’t aware), the deadline for the self tape and the scenes. The scenes have your name as a massive grey watermark underneath them. I don’t know why I added that detail, it’s not interesting.

Oh oh sometimes, with advert auditions, they don’t write the instructions but instead you’re sent a video of a man talking in an incredibly large kitchen for six minutes about how you should frame your shot, what you should wear, and you have to watch the whole video in case he throws in a crucial detail like ‘we won’t watch any tapes unless you’re wearing a hat’ or ‘please do a heavy Jamaican accent’.

There was one time where, after telling us four different scenes we should film and reminding us to ‘edit them together properly’ (Like, sorry - now we’re doing different camera setups with props and costume and editing? You want me to cut together an entire advert for you in my living room? Absolutely fuck off) he then forgot the name of a sitcom and spent a good thirty seconds going ‘Errrrr oh what’s it called, ummmmmmmmm’ before it became clear he meant ‘Fleabag’.

I was screaming ‘EDIT YOURSELF MATE!!!!!’ so loudly my partner suggested I set some boundaries, so I told my agent to never send me these again.

2. You undergo deep psychological trauma filming the self tape

I film them on my phone snapped into a little stand with a ring light if it’s evening, or in front of my window if it’s day. Sometimes the ring light makes my eyes look like I’m crying, which is great for someone who auditions for 90% comedy 10% comedy drama that doesn’t include crying.

Self tape guidelines often say it should be a totally blank white wall but I’ve got a bit of door in my backdrop because surely they’re not going to be like “she was perfect for the part but we have to say no because of the door”.

Some people record tapes with their partner or friend reading in the other lines, but unfortunately this isn’t possible for me because I would get divorced. If my partner gives me even the tiniest bit of feedback I react as though he’s said ‘you are very shit and bad at acting’ and then need to perform cool-down exercises for five minutes before we can continue.

The reason our relationship has survived is a) he is a (loveable) nightmare doing self tapes as well, so it’s equal and b) I’ve figured out a bulletproof way of taping without anyone’s help. I record the other lines on my laptop and leave gaps for me to say my lines in real life. Does this put more emphasis on speed rather than acting? Yes.

3. You edit the tape

This is the nice part where you get to watch yourself back and think ‘why does my mouth do that weird thing???’ before googling ‘mouth transplants’. I find it very empowering watching myself mess up 23 times and then noticing at the exact moment I finally get it right, that a man walked by my window loudly shouting ‘alright thumbelina’. I don’t know why he said ‘alright thumbelina’, and I don’t know why I didn’t hear it in the moment, but he did, and I didn’t, and I sent the tape anyway because I was exhausted and really wanted some buttered crackers. Is buttered crackers a sex thing? I’m googling it now. OK it’s not, which is surprising isn’t it? It really sounds like a non-specific sex thing.

4. You send off the tape

I wetransfer the tape. Fascinating. Sometimes it’s dropbox. Wow this is exciting shit. I wonder if I should pitch this bullet point to Netflix.

5. You have a realisation you didn’t send a slate

For all adverts, and some not-adverts, they’ll ask for a ‘slate’ which is where you have to stand full-length in front of the camera and say your name, agent and where you’re based. This is horrible because most of the time you’ve moved all your belongings into a massive pile to clear a space for the filming, and now have to clean your whole room just to show a casting person what your legs look like. My dream is to do a slate and reveal I’ve got goat legs. How mad would that be.

Oh maybe I should send it to the advert guy who does the long videos! As payback for all those hours spent watching him talk crap in his fancy kitchen! Genuinely considering this.

6. You begin The Creation of Narratives Vol 1

The Creation of Narratives begins the moment I send the tape. I find it incredibly healthy to make up long, protracted reasons in my head as to why I won’t get the part, why I am bad etc.

After ten years of auditioning, I’m better at not letting it dominate my life; I distract myself with other work (to show I’ve still got control babyyy) or by trying to put the dog’s nose in my mouth while saying ‘why does the lady have a winegum on her snout’ (to show I still have joie de vivre).

7. You get a yes or a no

Just kidding, you never get told no unless you email your agent begging them to please find out either way so you can stop Creating Narratives Vol 1. You just don’t hear back. If it’s a yes, I’ll get an email saying ‘RECALL:’ and the name of the project, which usually means I go into a studio somewhere in London to do the same thing again but with the director in the room so they can see what my legs look like. Again, desperate to turn up with cloven hooves. Really passionate about it.

8. You have an in-person audition

The time of your audition is irrelevant as they are always running 12 minutes late. You’ll sit in a waiting room with other people who are hotter than you, and who you are convinced are better at acting because they are wearing loafers.

When you get in the room, the director, producer, casting person and maybe some other people will ask what you’re up to and you’re meant to drop in other cool jobs you’re doing at this point. This is something I only realised recently. I’d just been going ‘Yeah I’m good have you watched The Diplomat it’s surprisingly great telly’ or whatever, which must have made me seem like a proper amateur.

Someone will then film you doing the scenes, and someone will read the other lines. You will honestly - and I mean this - have no idea if you got the job. Once, a director said ‘Wow see you on set’ and I didn’t get the job. My agent was furious about this, and it’s rare, but it does happen. Another time, I thought I’d done so badly I cried afterwards and got the job. Sometimes you can get a Feeling, but this Feeling is often so far off-base it’s not worth listening to.

If it’s an advert, they’ll ask to film your hands (?) and also to tell them ‘any conflicting adverts you’ve done recently’ which I once said ‘no’ to before realising, on the day of filming, that I had indeed done a conflicting advert, thereby causing a Big Incident. In my defence I really did think it was an advert for paint, rather than a mobile phone provider. Despite the scripts and emails saying SMARTY MOBILE in huge letters.

9. You begin The Creation of Narratives Vol 2

After a recall, when you know you’re at least In The Mix, the harder you tell yourself not to think about the job, the more your brain feeds you little thoughts about getting the job.

Ooh imagine! You could write one of those all lower-case ‘pleasure to do a bit of acting in this’ Instagram caption, underneath some candid behind-the-scenes photos you took while in your trailer when the show comes out. You could add the name of the show to your bio on Spotlight (a sort of online CV intranet every actor has to pay for and, if I’m honest, I don’t understand why). You think about casually saying to friends ‘Oh I’m shooting this week so I can’t make dinner sorry’. You think about the show getting nominated for a BAFTA which you of course aren’t invited to, because you only had a small part in one episode, but you could repost the nomination on social media and add three hearts or something to show you were a part of it.

At this point you email your agent again to ask if you can get a definite no, just to stop the Creation of Narratives Vol 2 and they say ‘Absolutely!’ and you think ‘god they must be so fucking sick of me’.

10. You get a yes

Wow! This feeling is incredible! YOU’RE A REAL ACTOR. I mean, you were a real actor before, but we all know acting is sort of like that tree falling in the woods thing. If an actor isn’t acting, are they even an actor? If an actor falls in the woods, was it even a tree?

For me, the joy becomes slightly tempered when I realise the shoot dates are over the only holiday I’ve booked in five years. This happens 100% of the time. Also, I start to engage with the fact I have to be on camera and begin worrying about whether I’ll be crap etc, but to be honest that’s just how my brain works. I’d have the same anxiety if I was an Italian tomato farmer, thinking ‘god what if this next yield doesn’t ripen and everyone thinks I’m a shit farmer’.

11. You get a no

It’s a nice no and you’re absolutely fine with it actually, you didn’t even need the job and it doesn’t really affect you at all in any way so that’s good isn’t it.

Translation: it succcckkkkkkkkkks.

You feel like you can’t talk to friends about it because they’re either actors, in which case you don’t want them to secretly feel sad they weren’t asked to audition for the job (and if they did, what if they got it? You don’t want to bring them down with your cloud of gloom!) or they aren’t actors in which case they’re like ‘Oh that’s a shame. Today at the school I work in, one of the pupils whose parents are both drug dealers bit me because funding cuts are making it dangerous to do my job’ and you feel quite rightly like a massive tool.

Actually, it’s quite good talking to non actor friends about this stuff, because it really does put things in perspective.

12. Your skin thickens

While rejection always feels crap (your skin can only thicken so much, and it will always be made of skin. It won’t suddenly become steel after the four thousandth ‘no’) the crapness definitely doesn’t last as long as it used to. I used to get really down, but now I’m so used to the feeling that I just crack out the Help Me Cope With Audition Rejection Toolbox.

I also buy something for myself every time I do an in-person audition, just to yell Well Done For Trying Regardless Of The Outcome into my soul. New trousers, perhaps. Socks. Last week, post recall, I went to Waterstones for a book but ended up buying a miniature version of one of those inflatable garage people for my friend whose birthday was in January. All good options.

Anyway, there we go. That’s what it’s like. Gosh this post was quite long, wasn’t it? If you made it all the way to the end, well done! Have an inflatable garage person.

(Oh and obvs didn’t get the job - got an email yesterday. THAT’S WHY I’M DISTRACTING MYSELF BY WRITING THIS SUBSTACK)