Hello From the Other Side: 5 Things the Director is Thinking During Your Audition
The audition table is the border between worlds. So much time and energy is spent trying to guess what the director and casting professionals might think, might be thinking, might have thought about your audition (Likely too much time and energy, at least for me). As someone who has been on both sides of the table, here is some insight into what might be flitting through their brains.
Their reaction to the first 15 seconds of your audition. The first beat makes a huge impression. That’s why having strong, specific moments before loaded and ready to go is so important. From the way you start, they have probably made some sort of immediate assessment of how experienced you are, whether you might fit the tone of the show, and possibly what you’re like to work with. Not that this completely make or break, it’s certainly possible to recover from a flat start. But a strong start is a nice leg up.
They want you to be the one! It’s probably something you’ve heard before, but it’s true. Directors and casting professionals aren’t the enemy. They want you to walk in and kill it, they’re rooting for you to do well.
How you fit with other auditionees. So much of casting doesn’t necessarily hinge on talent, or even how well you read that day. Throughout the audition, at least some part of their brain is trying to Tetris a cast together, and calculating where you’ll fit. Often I’ll have a couple possible cast groupings forming in my mind during auditions–If we cast this person, then we can’t use that person, etc.
How are you in the room when you’re not acting? Any impressions you made when you walked in (or slated or entered the zoom room) may still be kicking around in their heads. This is why it’s so important not to “pre-apologize” (or really ever apologize) for your audition. Be kind, courteous, confident and genuine.
What’s for lunch? Half the time, that funny look on their face might be nothing to do with you. It could be an unrelated distraction, a concern about the conditions of the room, a note they forgot to give you, or a thousand other things. Directors and casting professionals are people too. It may not be that serious.
Regardless of what anyone is or isn’t thinking during the audition, our job as actors is the same. Remember, you don’t have to put yourself in the head of the director. You don’t have to see the big picture. You just have to show what you do best, and don’t think about anything but your performance!
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