Because you’re worth it
— L’Oreal
In 1971 Ilon Specht, a young 23-year-old female copywriter at Manhattan ad agency McCann, wrote this iconic pull-line for L’Oreal. It changed advertising, especially for women. I think it is useful for actors too.
Your ability to do a great audition is tied up with your self-esteem.
And if you are a director, your ability to recognise good work is tied up with your ability to collaborate.
I saw an amazing video theatre audition and it made me want to share it and talk about why it is so good. Usually you can’t share auditions in a public forum like this one due to confidentiality issues. But this one is a self-submitted video auditon for a theatre show, so there are no confidentiality issues and the actor, James Kupa, has kindly allowed me to share and discuss it. The show is FRANKENSTEIN, a stage adaptation by Nick Dear of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, produced in New Zealand at The Court Theatre.
Here’s the audition:
I am going to discuss James’ audition through the lens of some performance elements I have written about before in this series of Substack articles. I will also discuss actors’ courage and strong choices. But I want to begin by introducing actors’ GISS.
GISS
This word comes from the world of birdwatching. It is an acronym for General Impression of Shape and Size: G.I.S.S.
Here an excerpt from an article in the New York Times about evolutionary ornithologist Richard Prum who can identify birds instantly as they fly across his field of vision by identifying their GISS:
Birders had recently seen the Hooded Warbler, a small but striking migratory species in the area. Before he even parked, Richard Prum was calling out the names of birds he glimpsed or heard through the car window: osprey, purple martin, red-winged blackbird. I asked him how he was able to recognize birds so quickly and, sometimes, at such a great distance. He said it was just as effortless as recognizing a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
What an amazing skill!
But actually, YOU achieve this remarkable feat of recognition all the time. You recognise an actor’s voice, face or the particular way they move, in the instant you hear or see the first moments of their performance. People exhibit their own GISS, just as birds do.
Casting directors and directors get a sense of your GISS the moment they see you on screen. Sometimes they get an instant sense of actors’ joy from the actor and deep occupation of the character. Sometimes they feel a wave of fear, self-doubt and a slippery, elusive grasp of the character. So, here’s a suggestion of how you can give a strong impression from the first moments of your audition or performance.
LEARN THE TEXT FROM THE MIDDLE
In the early days of television, the producers would never make the pilot first. They would make Episode 4 first, to get the gremlins and nerves out of the way, cement actors’ relationships and to get a flow going. Then they would go back and shoot Episode One, which would feel robust and centred because it had not been shot first up. Here’s what TV writer and director Fiona Samuel says:
This is the way it should be! In 1986 episodes 3 & 4 of THE MARCHING GIRLS were shot first, then episodes 1 & 2 and then 5, 6 and 7. A smart move to help everyone in front of and behind the cameras find their groove so that the first episodes the audience saw benefited from increased confidence and bedded-in relationships.
So, this is what I suggest you do as actors. Start learning the text from the middle of the scene, monologue or audition. Then once you have learnt to the end, go back and learn the beginning. Now, when you begin, the observer will feel you have a good grasp of the character. You will be in the flow. The GISS the casting director senses from you will feel strong and centred right from the first moments.
Let’s go back to James’ theatre audition for the double roles of Dr Frankenstein and the Monster in the stage show FRANKENSTEIN.
The first thing I observe is that James has formatted the audition really well. His grasp of the techniques of film making allows the watcher to relax, we feel we are in the hands of someone who knows what he is doing and who understands the medium and the genre he is working in. I am already drawn in. I already feel confident and curious.
TEXT
James understands the value of action and metaphor. He begins by sharpening the knife and wielding it in an un-nerving way. As a drama-maker he knows how to create tension with the chicken and the knife. And as an actor he can speak out heaps of text and engage in the action simultaneously. This tells me he has learnt his lines deeply, in his body, way before shooting this audition.
CONNECTION
James has personalised the lens of the camera to be his reader. He has created a great connection for us with the character he is playing down the lens. In the first section, in which he is auditioning for Dr Frankenstein, he is talking to the audience as though they are attendees at a medical conference. In the second section, in which he plays the Monster, he is talking to Dr Frankenstein himself. (Remember, the is an audition for the stage, he would not look down the lens for a screen audition)
WHITE SPACE and INTERNAL LANDSCAPE
For James’ first character, his thinking spaces are populated by tangible thoughts and ideas. He understands the science he is referencing and he has visualised and re-created the experiments so that we feel he remembers them vividly. For the second character, he has the courage to bring pure being and behaviour in the space, showing us his fear and rage.
VISTA AND OBJECTS
My favourite part of this audition is that James uses the actual world around him with such confidence. Has he tidied up his kitchen? No. He just uses the environment. He does not try to pretend he is anywhere other than where he is. In a way he is asking the kitchen to join him in creating the character. The way he uses the knife and the chicken to illustrate his scientific ideas supports both the tension and the comedy — and gives the whole thing a visceral impact, the scene is of the body not the intellect. Has he moved the kids’ drawings and stuff out of the hallway? No. He acknowledges that the angle, the light, the arch of the hallway, the stained glass of the front door, are awesome and he lets these aspects of the environment do their work without any fuss. This is an actor existing excitingly inside the real world around him.
Often I see actors try to erase the real environment that surrounds them and replace it with an imagined landscape. This means I am watching an actor struggling rather than watching a human existing. I love that James allows the chaos of his real kitchen to stand in for the laboratory in which Dr Frankenstein creates his monster. The kitchen is doing the work and James is riding the wave.
ACTORS’ COURAGE
Finally, I want to mention the way James has made strong, flavoursome choices all the way through this audition. He demonstrates actors’ courage and actor’s joy in the work. He seems like a person the director would want to collaborate with. If there are flaws, he seems like a skilled actor who could robustly diagnose them alongside the director and actively find solutions. He seems like someone it would be fun to spend 3 months with. He seems like someone who would lift the other actors up. He seems like someone who is not desperate to score the gig but who would create joy and good humour in the engagement.
Did he get the job? Yes he did. What is more I saw the show and he was magnetic onstage.
But of course, not everyone always gets the job.
So, our challenge is to find joy in the journey. Someone once said to me that they like to view the audition process as though they have completed the job itself. All the preparation, all the thinking, learning and doing goes into those few scenes. And then the work is done, let it go.
PUT IT IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER
Writers will often work hard on a draft and then forget about it, leave it alone and move on to another one of their projects, to let the draft slow-cook on the back burner of their mind. Maybe you can do this too. Once the audition self-tape is completed, it is submitted and you can’t change it, put it “in a bottom drawer” and make a time a week or so later to come back and watch it again. Other things will be going on in your life. Hopefully you have another self-tape to work on.
Once time has passed and you come back to watch the tape again, you will bring fresh eyes to clearly see your achievements and the things you could have done better. The heat of the moment has passed now and with the coolness of retrospect maybe you can see the GISS of panic in the first few beats or an opportunity for a tiny reaction or bit of improv that could have lifted the work. You might even watch it back with a buddy and ask for supportive feedback, discuss ways to do it differently next time.
It is worth taking the time to diagnose your own work a little way down the track. It is an investment into your own development.
Because — you are worth it!
