Hollywood actor and Academy award winner George Clooney, who knows the strange setup of auditions from both sides of the table, gave a valuable piece of advice to actors in a discussion with students on American TV. Auditionees often add more pressure to a situation that is stressful enough by thinking too much about how much could possibly be at stake for themselves. Instead, they should be walking into any audition on the understanding that in the worst case, they did not have the job before this particular audition and they will not have the job afterwards. Also, auditionees should keep in mind that the panel in any casting process actually want them to do well because they are looking for the best possible casting.
Both of these points that George Clooney makes have already been brought up in quite a few posts on this website, but it can be reassuring hearing it also from the horse’s mouth…
In case you have not heard George Clooney’s statement in full before, please find this transcript for reference:
George Clooney’s advice for your next auditions
‘Actors tend to get in their own way a lot, as you will find in your life. A lot of times you will do things that will screw up your auditioning process. I loved auditioning but I was very bad at it for a long period of time. And part of it was because every time I went into an audition, I thought “God, I hope these guys like me”or “God, I hope I don’t screw this up”. And the truth is, having now sat on the other side of that couch, the producers and the director and the writers, they all go “God, I hope this person is the saviour, I hope this person does it right!”, right? Every time you go on on audition, you are gambling with house money, right? From the minute you walk in: you don’t have a job. To the minute you walk out and you don’t have the job: nothing is different. The only thing that could be different is: you get the job. Period. And if you think of it that way, then you will take off all the pressure, and you will just go on to it, going: “The worst thing that could possibly happen tonight on this audition is: I don’t get a job that I don’t already have.”‘
