Acting Audition:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Actor Ellen Page WAS “Juno”

How Casting Directors Cast Actors

Watch this audition-on-tape.   It’s Ellen Page and Michael Cera auditioning for “Juno”.

If you ask a casting director, they’ll tell you that actors get awarded roles when they ARE the character.

Now, that may mean:

#1. The actor is so clearly the specific type they are looking for, and so ‘right on the mark’ on how they (casting people + producers + director) envision the character from the script…  that the person in the auditioning room is really just like the person in the script, in real life.

Everyday, every minute, the actor really ‘IS THAT CHARACTER’.

#2. Or it could mean that the actor is  close in ‘type’…but is such a ‘good actor’, that the casting person believes that the actor, during the audition, ‘IS THAT CHARACTER’.

Even if in the car, on the way home, the actor is not the same, at all.  Or, is similar in some ways, in “real life” (as Matt Dillon used to say…)

I prefer #2, myself.

Often, if the actor that is auditioning, really IS that person in life, they may not be able ‘to act’.  Which means that the movie or play will suck.  Why? Well, the simplified answer is that he or she won’t be able to deliver all the different emotions or facets that may be called for, in the script, or scenes.

The longer answer is that, in the finished production, there won’t be any art to the acting.  Nor in the movie, nor in the play, at all. There won’t be anything worth watching.

 (Unless we are talking “documentary”, of course.)

All Actors Use Pieces Of Themselves In Creating Characters.  

There is far too much competition in the acting profession, to try to play something that is so far away from your actual type…It’s just too easy for casting people to find, and cast  an actor who fits what is described in the script, and on the “casting breakdowns”….to play the part.  

#3. It is nearly impossible, without a tremendous amount of acting talent, acting skill, and acting craft, for an actor to “play himself or herself”.

Whaaa??

Yep.

That’s why I blow-a-gasket when people ask me why acting class is necessary.

It’s foolish to assume that “anyone can act”.  Yes, talent is something that is innate.  Using that talent, and having control over the talent…control enough to carry out what is required in a script, takes development. Takes dedication.

Great acting is a blend of the two: talent and developed acting craft.  

You don’t want to be just an adequate actor, do you?  Even to be able to give what is required, in a script, is extremely difficult.  To make it come-to-life, is rare.  It is very high-level acting.

To make acting seamless, well, that’s what wins awards.  (That is, if the judges are smart enough to know that it really is acting.)

Great acting fools experts.  It should.

It fools the viewer, too; unconsciously. How?  When they get wrapped up in the story/the movie/the play….when they stop looking at the effects, the acting, the whatever….when they go from being on “the outside”, to experiencing from within:  within the story, within themselves.

It’s what I call “the great acting paradox”.

Great Acting Is When The Audience Doesn’t See The Acting

Really good, strong, advanced acting is hard to tell if the actor is “playing him/herself” or “acting”.

Excellent acting is imperceptible.

Now, you know. And, you know something now, about acting, that most people will never know.  It is a rare jewel. Keep it sacred, because it is.  And use it well.

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