Bad Ju-Ju

I met a casting director from CBS/Paramount Studio last night. It was a good meeting- I got to ask her some questions and she saw me do a scene from one of their 2006 pilots. What was fun about the scene was that I got a chance to take something that was written with a very straight forward point of view and really make it my own. It was fun to see that I had given a script (that she was intimately familiar with) a new twist!

But one of the disappointing parts of the evening was the fact that she was 45 minutes late, and we didn’t get to start our actual auditions until an hour into the session. I can’t tell you how frazzled many of the actors were after waiting that long. I was torn between being frustrated, and realizing that this is all just a part of the business. The nice thing was that she knew she was late, and she didn’t spend a lot of time trying to make excuses. She acknowledged us, apologized, and got started. But I saw a lot of actors really let the lateness get to them, which ends up making it that much more difficult to stay focused. That kind of bad energy just permeates the room and can affect everyone adversely. I just wanted to say, “Hey, guys. You are about to meet the casting director at a major studio in NYC- be happy! Be grateful! Be talented and wonderful!"

UPDATE: In response to a comment posted- I want to make sure my readers know that I am not advocating letting industry professionals walk all over you, and I am not saying that it is ok that they waste our time by being late. What I am saying, though, is that you have a choice when you're in the audition room. You can choose to stay, or you can choose to leave. And if you choose to stay, my hope is that the actor does what he/she can to keep their spirits up, both for themselves and for the people around them.