An Actor's Love Story, Part 2 - Casting Director Workshops
I’m writing on my new blog every day for thirty days straight. This is the sixth one.Casting directors cast the majority of roles for movies and TV shows. Their offices are usually in charge of casting several TV shows, several movies, or a combination of both. And there are a lot of roles to cast. There are probably a dozen small roles for every episode of a TV show. These are roles that the average person might not think twice about, and those are the roles that I’m fighting for. The waiter. The college student. The neighbor who always knew that one guy acted funny and isn’t surprised he murdered his family. These roles might only have five lines. And the competition for these glamourous roles is fierce.How do I get these roles? Well, it’s illegal for actors to have access to the majority of TV and movie casting calls. I haven’t really researched why, and in this career, I bang my head against enough immovable walls to care. But let’s assume I do have access to these casting calls. I submit myself for a handful of roles that I know I can knock out of the park. Casting directors will only bring in people who’ve had a substantial role in a movie or TV show. But what if I don’t have one of these roles on my resume? It doesn’t matter, they won’t waste their time on me because they’ll rarely strike gold with someone who doesn’t have credits. Wait…what? Then how do I get one of these roles? The answer? Casting director workshops.A casting director workshop is where I pay $40-$70 to perform a short scene I’ve prepared in front of a casting director, then they give me feedback, then I walk out the door. An actor pays $40-$70 to meet a casting director for five minutes. You’re a good actor? Great. Hopefully they’ll remember you after seeing twenty other people and after having had five other workshops this week. Hopefully they’ll need your type for a role they’re currently casting before they see another hundred actors of the next several weeks.There is a silver lining. I have a talent agent, and my agent has legal access to the casting calls. She can pitch me for roles with the confidence that the casting directors I’ve seen will in fact know me. Wow.
Like I said, I bang my head against a lot of immovable walls. Sometimes it’s nice to remind myself why I act.Growing up, my Mom and I would sometimes spend time together by watching TV in our living room. I specifically remember watching the TV show Lost with her. I remember her getting very dissatisfied with how crazy the storyline became over several season. But I never cared because I loved the characters. At its heart, the show was always about the characters and their relationships with each other.I remember I had a very strong connection to the character Jack. Jack was at times helpless. He was scared. He was angry. And he was a leader. He kept his head down and did what needed to be done. He helped everyone around him as much as he could. And he fell in love with a beautiful, strong woman. Years before I ever considered acting, I remember watching Jack and wanting to be Jack. Well. Becoming an actor that can play the character Jack is a lot easier than getting my MD, surviving a horrific plane crash, and dating Evangeline Lilly.
So for these casting director workshops, I prepare a scene to perform. What does prepare mean? I find a very short TV or movie scene that I like, and then I memorize it and study it. Well I found Lost back in my living room with my Mom. I found Jack back then when I was in high school and I felt helpless, scared, and angry. And now it’s time for me to put my head down, ignore the fact that this industry is so unfair, and find the courage to move forward and get back to work.The scene I use for these casting director workshops is a scene from the first episode of Lost. It’s a scene between Jack and Kate, who fall in love throughout the series. It’s a scene where Jack talks about fear. It’s beautiful and meaningful and it brings me to tears. I act because of scenes that I love. And hopefully that love will carry me through to some sort of success.I attached the script below. You can watch it on youtube here.
