Ever feel an audition slipping through

your fingers,

but

you're still in the room.

My gosh, don't panic

today on casting actor's cask, I'm

giving you the tools to reset in real time.

It's not about perfection,

it's about recovery.

This episode is your one minute

audition rescue kit, and it starts

right now.

Hello.

And welcome to today's episode of

gazing actors gasped.

I'm casting director, casting partner

Jeffrey Dreisbach, with McCorkle

casting group in New York.

How are you?

I hope you're having a good day.

I'm having a good day.

And I love this topic,

because some of us are just

mortified when something takes place.

We

feel like we've totally lost any sense

of our professionalism

when something goes wrong in the middle

of an audition.

And yet people are still sitting there

looking at you, especially if it's a

film and television audition, and you

know, you're being recorded.

Oh my god,

that can do such a number on your head.

And that's what we're going to be

addressing today.

But first, this is that moment of the

conversation where I get to say thank

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To me.

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Now, I'm 376

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And there's a lot of information.

And I hope that you consider going back

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And you can do that by going to the

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Thank you so much.

So, you know, I've talked about the

film auditioning that we've been doing

in a couple of episodes ago.

And it's so true.

It invariably happens

every audition, not every actor, but

every day of auditions that we have in

person, even if they're callbacks,

invariably there's an actor that just

finds themselves in a different place,

and they have to stop.

Most of the time it's because they try

to memorize the scene and then they

just lost their memory.

Many times it's that they just start

too quickly, or they have a different

energy to start than they had planned.

That's

very interesting.

So what we need to talk about is that

there is this audition spiral that

happens for the actor, like when you

flub a line, or you suddenly just have

a mental blank, or you have that

awkward energy

listen.

I want to reassure you that everyone

has a rough moment, especially in an

audition.

Everyone.

What matters to me, and what I hope

matters to you, is

what you do next.

Recognizing the spiral that you find

yourself in in real time

can be a game changer as far as how we

perceive you and how you can recover

a successful

moment.

When something like that happens, there

are physical signs that you might want

to be aware of.

Sometimes suddenly there's this

shortness of breath,

or there's this tension.

Or you're distracted by your own inner

voice

because of the newness of meeting

everybody in the room for the first

time, and there's the reader, and maybe

there's even a camera.

Sometimes your voice is a little bit

shaky, that you're hearing something

coming out of your mouth that you don't

even recognize

or you.

Here's one that I see frequently is

that you just simply go too fast.

That nervous energy manifests itself in

your rate of speaking.

Then, of course, there are also some

mental signs

those mental signs are tough self

critique.

Mid performance,

that panic

when you say, oh my god, I've already

blown it through that loop that we give ourselves

in that situation.

And also, we needs to talk about

how we project what we think it should

be, the audition I'm talking about.

And then the reality of how it actually

is, especially when you start,

so much input is taking place at that

moment that no wonder sometimes

it just pulls you out of the moment.

It pulls you out of being able to

concentrate on the task at hand.

Well, acknowledging it

without feeding it, is the name of it.

Acknowledge it without feeding it,

if you name it silently.

And then just simply reset your focus.

And here's how you do that.

This what I call the one minute reset

technique.

This is a breakdown of a real time,

recovery process.

Stop.

You have to just simply stop.

It's what I call, give yourself a micro

pause.

Break eye contact with the reader.

Or if there's no reader, just simply

stop.

Break eye contact.

Now you need to reset your posture.

Shift physically where you are, if

you're on putting more

pressure, or standing more on one leg,

then the other.

Then shift if your feet are too close

together, spread them apart,

breathe

that

one conscience,

inhale and exhale to settle the nervous

system is absolute gold.

Then

reconnect.

Look at the reader, or the scene

partner, whatever.

If it's in a class, and re anchor into

the want

of the scene.

What does that mean?

What is the character?

What

the opening salvo of that scene?

If you're in a mid scene, then you need

to go back, perhaps

one sentence, and then adjust now, if

you need to,

if you need to, not, this situation

might happen where you don't need to.

But if needed, you simply say,

may I take that again?

And you say that with confidence,

or you simply pick it up naturally.

Those are the two choices that I'm

giving you.

Then I want you to trust, simply let go

of that inner critic and then simply

keep moving forward.

I hope that makes sense.

Here's what not to do during a flub.

Don't apologize excessively.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I had such a rough morning, and I miss

the boss.

And then I forgot to take my orange

juice and my medicine.

And I'm just feeling a little weird

today.

And I'm so sorry.

I hope you don't mind it.

And I never do this.

This is something that never happens to

me.

I've heard all of that.

So

be careful not to make a joke.

Don't try to cover your nerves by

giving a story.

It's not necessary.

But

don't also rush to fix it without

reconnecting.

So it's important that you reconnect.

I think this tip is one that's going to

really be useful.

This is like the solid gold moment of

this podcast, I think, is don't break character

if you say, I'm going to pick it up

again, but you do it in character with

the same intention and energy that the

scene needs.

By taking that breath

reset shift,

doing that in character.

That becomes part of the reset, and

it's done with intent.

When that happens,

I promise you,

the people on the other side of the

table are going to go, wow, that was an

amazing recovery.

That's what you want,

that's what you need.

Rather than drawing attention to you,

reset you

internally,

but externally, stay in character.

Ok, somebody write this down.

I just made you all a lot of money

right now.

And I could just stop the podcast right

now.

but there's more,

yeah, there's more.

We're going to talk about some mindset

tools that you can do to turn your flub

into fuel.

I'm going to give you that right after

this.

Ok?

Let's talk about some mindset tools.

We're going to turn a flub into fuel.

You know what directors notice, presents

more than perfection?

Ok?

Write that down.

Well, please, just remember that

presence

is more than being perfect or

perfection.

You should know that a reset moment can

show professionalism,

it doesn't show weakness.

And that is based on how you react to

the situation.

See, the bold actor, isn't the one who

never stumbles.

It's the one who recovers

gracefully.

And that's just simply about the

reframing of it.

That's what we've been talking about.

When you can say to yourself, this is

my moment to surprise them with how I

handle pressure.

How do you handle pressure?

That's giving me insight into the way

in which you work.

Not the apologist,

not the person who is embarrassed,

not the person who draws attention to

themselves and their weaknesses.

We all have weaknesses.

We all are human beings for god's

sakes.

But how you react under pressure is now

a statement that you are making

to the rest of us.

And that can leave us with a really

positive attitude, not a negative one,

you see.

I think

if you are

fully embracing that concept,

then you can go ahead and make

educated choices and decisions

about that

moving forward.

And I think if you practice, that makes

the recovery even more easy.

If you build reset reps into yourself

tape practice, for an example, that's a

great way to get into the habit of

resetting when you need to.

For example, if you're doing a

monologue or even a scene, it doesn't

matter.

But then you stop

and reset just to see what that feels

like.

That will help build a level of

confidence in your work, so that if it

happens in front of us live, you're

going to know exactly how to manage

that reset.

I think you should run Scenes where you

intentionally mess up

and then keep going

again.

That kind of

Ooh, good word.

That kind of conditioning is really

useful and valuable.

For those eventualities that are going

to be taking place.

Simply practice recovering

from, whether it's an interruption or

some kind of a distraction taking

place.

Let me tell you, that happens on zoom

very frequently,

where the sound drops out, or the

connection isn't the greatest in the

world.

Then suddenly we can't hear the actor,

and we stop the actor and say, could we

go back a few?

You need to be aware that that is not a

mistake.

It's a situation.

That's my favorite phrase of all times.

There are no problems.

There are situations.

Think about that.

Reframing

the situation

is so much better than identifying

whatever takes place as a

problem.

You know, confidence grows

when you prove that you can recover

that inner.

Confidence, that let's just see what

happens kind of mindset

brings you into another place in terms

of your acting choices as well.

It's amazing.

So let's

talk about a couple of final takeaways.

Let's talk about

a great audition.

I think

the way I look at auditioning

might surprise you, but

I never think of an audition as being

perfect or not a great audition.

Isn't flawless,

it's

fearless.

It's your

choice.

And your choice is rather on how you

are playing the part.

And if something goes wrong, you're

still

making choices.

I want to encourage you to see

those mistakes

as momentum,

not

a stop sign.

It's always about moving forward,

taking a beat, recovering, and then

moving forward again.

I think you should end your

and your audition

with grace

and with a thank you,

and not necessarily live mentally in

that place, so that you have ammunition

to beat yourself up with when you leave

the room.

I can't tell you personally, as an

actor, I used to beat myself up

mercilessly for something that went

wrong.

Rather than embracing it as a

challenge, I looked at it as a disaster.

So in your next audition, if something

goes wrong, something goes sideways,

please

try this

smile internally

and say to yourself, here's my reset

moment.

Then you're going to show them who you

are

by recovering

and moving forward.

An audition, ladies and gentlemen,

an audition is not an event,

it's an opportunity

to show those folks who are interested

how you're going to play the part.

I thought this was really useful today,

wasn't it?

I hope you found it useful.

Let me know if you could leave me a

review.

A thumb's up.

I appreciate, especially iTunes.

If you're listening on iTunes, I would

love for you

to print out a statement that would be

so helpful.

I have to say, early on, a few years

ago, in the podcast I got one star review.

I did.

I was freaked out.

But then I looked at the one star

review, and the review said, really good,

that's all.

It said, really good.

And I got

one star for being really good.

What the hell?

Apparently the person didn't know how

those reviews work.

So anyway, my point is, if you liked

what you're hearing, if you've been

liking the podcast so far, it's very

important for me to know that you're

out there.

And there are all kinds of ways that

you can do it.

You can even email me if you like

casting actress cast a Gmail diacom,

don't forget the websidecasting

actor's, cast dot com.

Ok.

Enough promo stuff, ok.

Thank you so much.

I hope you had a good time with this.

To day, I'm looking forward to seeing

you the next time.

My name is Jeffrey Dreisbach, and this

is casting

actor's Cast!