As actors, you may get last-minute self-tape auditions where you have to find a partner, take care of all the technical side of taping, learn your lines and honor all the emotions before you tape. You can feel afraid of making mistakes or the wrong choice, not understanding the character or forgetting your lines. And if it’s an in-person audition, you may feel all the stress of the audition room and the need to do it “right” so you can impress the casting director. All this pressure of the audition process does not feel fun at all. And you may have noticed that the bigger the opportunity, the more pressure you will feel since it can change your life.
It can be very frustrating to come from a place where you’re very passionate about acting, you’ve trained a lot, you get ready for the audition and then when the opportunity comes, your instrument closes down because of all that pressure. Inevitably, this can be really painful. So you may think that there’s something wrong with you and that you need to take another acting class so that you can fix this problem and stop feeling pressure. However, the next time you audition, you feel the same pressure again.
When you watch my training below you will discover that the root problem is not the fact that they send you the sides at the last minute, that there’s a lot of lines to learn or that you don’t have enough time to do it. What’s actually happening is that you’re approaching the audition process as an audition process as if it were a test at school. In other words, you focus on doing it “right”, booking and being liked by the casting director. The second you do that, you’re in your ego and try to manipulate the outcome. You stop being present and abandon yourself as an artist.
And art is about being fully present, right there, in the moment, open to everything that flows through your instrument so you can serve the purpose of a song, a painting or a character moving through a story. Art does not happen from new methods or techniques to control how the next moment is going to be so that you can succeed. More specifically, acting is about devoting yourself to the character and their circumstances so you can make their needs more important than yours. Once you do that, the casting director can see you because you’re actually there.
The fact that you’re not able to show up fully open is not your fault. Since you were a child, you have been trained and conditioned to be good, appropriate and please others so you can be validated and fit in. Of course, this disconnects you from your uniqueness and truth. The work to do is to undo all that conditioning so that you can get back to the free, unique and full version of yourself.
Watch the training below to hear all my thoughts on this topic.
After you watch the training, I'd love for you to join in the conversation happening in our private Facebook Group THE INSTINCTIVE ACTORS' SOCIETY. You can get answers for your specific situation directly from me and connect with HUNDREDS of like-minded actors across the globe, so we can move things forward faster together.
If you're not already a member, be sure to request to join ASAP here.
See you there!
Jo Kelly
Creator, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two ways I can help you:
Get your FREE training on how to STOP TRYING TO BE A GOOD ACTOR SO YOU HAVE A CHANCE AT BEING GREAT
Get on the waitlist for my program, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom, and stop struggling to access your natural, authentic talent in the audition room or on set. You'll learn how to reset your instrument to be 100% instinctive and free in just 33 days.
GET ON WAITLIST: tobeornottoact.com/waitlist
