You walk into your audition, focused, prepared, in character and ready to blow away the casting directors before you. It sounds good, but you’ve already made one key mistake that could cost you the role… You never gave yourself the opportunity to turn on.
At Berg Studios, when preparing students for on-camera auditions, we always remind them, “Don’t be the character outside the room.”
As an actor, you need to be able to turn on and off at the right times, so it’s important to walk into an audition room neutral. Being yourself lets casting directors connect to you personally, and then be influenced by where you take them with your in-character performance. Because in its essence, acting is all about acceptance – you accepting the natural journey you’re experiencing within a scene, and the audience accepting what is going on.
For casting directors, they need to see you act. They need to be convinced that you can turn it on when the cameras are rolling. They need to believe that physically and emotionally you can adapt to different scenarios on demand.
By coming into your audition in a neutral state and THEN turning-on your character, you show them change, you show them honesty and you show them your ability to deliver a compelling performance when the cameras roll.