Casting Stories

This week I thought I would start by spreading a little laughter. 

Everyone probably has them but I thought I would share with you two casting stories I have had this year that are literally table anecdotes. Both these tales are what has happened to me within a commercial casting situation recently. 

I should add here for new actors that not all castings are like this, the majority are pretty normal, but once in a blue moon you want the ground to swallow you up, even if they do make great stories.

CASTING #1

This was pretty recent actually. My agent got me in for a Spanish Beer Commercial. Good money, great company. I was nice and relaxed about the audition as it happened to be my third that week, so I headed along to the casting studio dressed as a hipster barman. Upon getting to the casting I signed in and was given the release form to fill in. I was then told that there was a script to learn and that it was in Spanish. Yes I had to double take too. Spanish!

Within the room was one other actor frantically going over the Spanish lines and I knew that I would be in pretty quick so stopped filling the form in and desperately tried to learn Spanish. I mean sometimes I can barely speak English so speaking Spanish in a casting was going to be a nightmare. I did think about bolting it but then decided ‘hey, I am probably not going to get this so let’s just have a laugh’.

When it sped by to my turn with the CD, I rocked in and decided I am going to have to take control of this room and just be confident because my Spanish was not about to get me this job. I did my ident and then was given the chance to got through the words with the casting drector. My god I felt like I was in school again, standing there phonetically going over the lines and not getting one word sounding right. Eventually after 15 plus takes I got one full take without stopping and the casting director goes ‘great we are getting there, now just make it sound more natural’. Yeah like that is going to happen. I am an actor but I am not a magician.

I never did get a recall strange enough.

CASTING #2

My second story is actually about a successful audition. The casting went well and they seemed to be very happy with my performance. Now I never shake peoples hands in a casting room unless presented but when the director went to shake my hand at the end of the audition, he reached over the table and because I was already near the door I turned to reach back and shake his.

What happened next literally happened in slow motion. 

Reaching for the directors hand I knocked the coffee table just in front of him and the water jug fell over with a Tsunami effect and a glass smashed on the ground.

I have literally never been so embarrassed and rush out the room. I instantly thought that that wouldn’t be successful but later got the job and the director was like ‘I just remembered you’.

Now let’s not go smashing up casting rooms but that just shows that you can never expect what is going to happen in a casting, most are normal though. I hope these made you laugh, bad auditions happen to everyone.

Have you got any funny casting stories?

Joseph

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