Handling Audition-Room Mistakes

CF Blog | June 14

Mistakes are an inevitable part of life. Even the most prepared and experienced actors experience blunders at the most inopportune times--namely, the audition room. In this video, Casting Director Erica Arvold and Acting Coach Richard Warner discuss beneficial ways to navigate audition-room mishaps. In a nutshell, they advise actors to "Keep going!" But more specifically, they detail two types of errors they often encounter when actors read for a part.

Technical mistakes

Common technical slip-ups can include when an actor stumbles on his or her words, omits a sentence, or mispronounces a name or word. Arvold assures actors that "Everyone does it." With this in mind, she urges talent to focus on what is most important: "It is about the character, and about the essence, and about the story much more than it is about every single word." When actors hold mistakes against themselves and ask permission to restart the reading, it draws too much attention to that mistake and is inefficient. Instead, Arvold encourages actors to demonstrate how fluidly they can recover. "When you have the thought, 'Oh no, I skipped a line,' and then you choose to keep going, I as a casting director see that, and I go, 'Oh look at them! They recovered and they kept going.'" After all, auditions give casting directors a glimpse at how talent will behave on set; actors who keep the momentum of a scene moving forward make work in the editing room easier. Indeed, blunders made during a shoot can be quickly cut out with the best lines salvaged for the final product.

Warner strongly believes that talent should never apologize when errors are made. He views auditions as an improv. "Don't see it as a mistake," he says. "Turn it into something." Challenging actors to use their mistakes as an opportunity to be creative, he states, "It's about making your thoughts fuse with the thoughts of the character." Again, let it roll off your back, refocus, and keep going.

Craft-level mistakes

Craft-level mishaps occur when actors themselves notice they are reading with too much or too little enthusiasm or volume--or they're not fully plugged into their character. Arvold and Warner encourage actors to not stop the reading, but rather to self-correct mid-audition. "It's really fun, and part of the art of casting is being able to witness someone's process and how they get back onto track. And I think that is equally as important as the character development and portraying something authentically and with solid choices. The ability to be thrown off-balance and then find your balance again is actually an important part of the craft," Arvold asserts.

Elisabeth Moss on Using Her Instincts, Music, and Charts

CF Blog | June 13

Celebrated actress Elisabeth Moss has forged her own path in Hollywood, excelling in the craft even though she never received formal acting training. Moss is known for her acclaimed roles as Offred in the haunting Hulu original series The Handmaid's Tale, Detective Robin Griffin in Top of the Lake, and the secretary-turned copywriter Peggy Olson in AMC's Mad Men. The Los Angeles native originally aspired to be a professional dancer, even studying at the School of American Ballet and the Kennedy Center as she progressed as a ballerina. But when she started landing small acting gigs in her youth, Elisabeth's aspirations gradually changed as she foresaw more longevity in the field of acting. Supporting roles in films like Girl, Interrupted alongside Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie encouraged the budding star as well as a recurring part in the prestigious show West Wing playing the first daughter Zoey Bartlet for seven years. Elisabeth largely attributes her acting prowess to instinct. And she recently shared how music and creating charts inform her acting. Here is a glimpse into her acting approach.

Instinctive acting

During an Off Camera interview, Moss told Sam Jones, "I don't feel that different now than I did when I was ten on the set. Because I never had any formal training, so I don't have anything to make it any more complicated or make it any more technical. So for me, it all is instinctive. So if people ask me about acting...I don't really know how to describe it. It's an intangible thing to me." She describes the dichotomy of not being the character and yet playing the character this way: "I find that when I'm acting it's like there's two things going on. Because I'm thinking as the character obviously in the moment...but there's always this other person who's aware of where the camera is, who's looking at the mark, who's ignoring the guy on his phone over there. You know what I mean? Who's doing things that are not the character."

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner once noted Moss' intuitive style. He told the New York Times: "[Moss] is that kind of actress where we don't ever intellectually delve into what is going on with her character. It's almost like it doesn't pass through Elisabeth's brain. It's completely instinctive." Similarly, Director Jane Campion remarked about Moss' Top of the Lake audition, "It was remarkable for being so quiet. She was very simple. As you're watching it, you're thinking, oh, it doesn't look like she's trying. I just found myself really interested in watching this gentle, quiet, obviously interior performance. It was coming from the inside out....She's a little bit like a Mona Lisa. There's a lot that she's not showing you."