Actor Growth

First day of the workshop and it was kind of surprising as there was only three of us in the class. Surprising as in the e-mail it looked like there was about six of us originally. There was one lady in the group who I actually saw before from the casting director workshop I attended awhile back. Turns out she works as an assistant for that casting director too.

Now this workshop actually takes place in a studio where a lot of auditions take place and funny enough I saw a fellow actor that was in the same acting workshop I was in. I think he was auditioning for some kind of commercial. For the beginning we simply talked a bit about casting directors and what to do in the room in general.

There was also a lot of conversations about memorizing lines and some facts were brought up such as a person like George Clooney is actually horrible at memorizing lines apparently. I never really watched the show E.R., but apparently if you pay attention there are so many times where he looks down while doing a scene as what he’s doing is actually referencing a script so that he knows what his line is. Funny I thought if that is true.

I did do and audition side from the show from The Reaper as mentioned. The character’s name was Gary and it had something to do with him suckering the devil into giving him all this stuff without actually signing his soul away. This class was a little challenging and interesting I thought and here’s why.

Usually when you go to an audition you don’t really get much in terms of the back story. Therefore, you have to make choices on why the character acts the way they do. My initial interpretation was that this was a filthy rich guy that is a complete jerk as he embarrasses others for his own enjoyment. Therefore, I played it in a very mellow way.

However, the coach then mentioned that this was a comedy scene and that it is all about timing and that the character has to be super energetic and excited. For example, there is one part where the character shoots a paintball gun at the butler. I initially just did it in a subtle jerk type of way but was then was told that what the scene needed was a guy that was having a blast in a very energetic fashion in shooting a butler with a paintball gun. So, I tried that and unfortunately I couldn’t fully relate to why a guy that rich would be so juvenile in his reactions since this sounded like an everyday thing for him.

Upon doing the scene he said that he saw potential for me in doing this scene and to try it again for next week. That got my curious. I then went online to look for this clip and sure enough I found it. From what I see, the actually footage on the show is kind of closer to how I interpreted it. However, I do believe that the coach’s direction would have made it more fun.

That got me thinking too on how subjective an audition could be. And this brings up my confusion as I have mentioned time and time again when it comes to training with people. As you may recall, the last acting coach thought that I did way too much comedy initially and wanted to see a more serious side as he believes that is what I need to do to accelerate my career. He even went as far to say that people that didn’t push me in that direction were afraid of seeing my full potential as I mentioned that people have told me to be more relaxed and energetic.

As you can see, it is like the flip opposite again where in this case I opted for the more serious tone and the coach seems to think I need to be more comedic and energetic in my actions. Very confusing field I must say. So what I do fear a little is that since the coach requested that I do the same scene again that this may turn out to be a directional thing where it’s more about acting out a scene based on a specific direction as oppose to audition strategies and the business of it all.

One confused actor here. lol.

So tomorrow is the day that the new workshop will begin and just today I was sent the audition sides. Funny enough, it is from the show The Reaper where I worked as a background before. I never saw the scene before myself so that is good as that way I won’t be enticed to try and copy what I have seen.

Although, one thing weird is that it mentions the character is about 30 years old. Errr….there’s no way I can pass for a conventional 30 year old normally and so I guess this will be an interesting experience. As they mention, whenever you are called for an audition where the age seems all wrong that’s a sign that they want to see your original take on the character. Let’s see what I can come up with.

So I was talking with my agent recently about my growth and direction thus far as I was curious if he had any input when it comes to myself in comparison to other local Vancouver actors who get seen by casting directors. Essentially, I was trying to find out what other people’s competitive edges were where they would be called for something over myself or vice versa.

He began by mentioning how it would make his job so much easier if he knew exactly what a casting director wanted. However, most of the time they just ask for very generic descriptions for a person such as the age and sex of the actor.

Out of that conversation too he addressed that a casting director usually calls 15 actors to audition per character. As well, he estimated that there were approximately 60,000 male actors here in the BC area. Putting that number into perspective should really make you think how competitive this field is.

He even mentioned that even though I’m ethnic, which puts me in a smaller demographic, there is no way to figure out what characteristics a casting director is looking for unless they mark Asian males only in their casting information.

You know, casting directors always say that if you even make it to the audition room you should be super happy. Many times I don’t really think too much of it, but thinking about those numbers sure puts everything in a different perspective. If here in BC we have 60,000 male actors, does that mean LA has like 500,000?

Now I know what my old acting classmate meant when he said he went to New York and couldn’t even get seen.