Emily Stride – Commercial Audition

Professional Actress in London

“I went to a commercial casting in January which was a useful learning experience for me. I didn’t get the job and was initially quite disappointed but eventually understood why I should take it on the chin and think positively about future castings.

The casting was for a well known mobile phone network, filming a series of adverts about deals for customers. I arrived ten minutes early (if you don’t do this you’ve shot yourself in the foot. Period) and signed in at the desk, had my headshot taken, filled in the paperwork and waited patiently with the other actors. Standard stuff.

Sometimes you go to a casting where the atmosphere in the waiting room is a comfortable one with a few conversations going on. Maybe some of the actors already know each other and are catching up on work news, networking and so on. But this one, as happens so often, had an atmosphere of slight unease, with the prospective actors eyeing each other up from over their casting sheets. I tend to ignore the atmosphere and get on with analysing what they want me to do. This time it was very simple, no dialogue, just walk to the right spot, look in the right direction and register a certain emotion on my face. Fine. It came for my time to go in and I was greeted by a smiling casting director and cameraman, no ‘client’. The clients are the people in charge of the major decisions for the advert, essentially. They’ll be from the agency shooting the ad, or work for the company selling the product. The video clips of all the actors will be sent to these people, and they will then watch the whole lot to strike unsuitables off the list, and choose favorites for a possible recall or to offer them the job.

So the C.D and I had a quick chat, did the ident (see Alice’s story for a description of this!) and did one take of the action. I immediately felt I hadn’t done enough to register the ‘emotion’ needed and asked the C.D if I could do it again. However he replied “you don’t need another take, in fact that was perfect! It is exactly how I imagined the character would be.” He was smiling and seemed a little taken aback. This was AMAZING!

Well I was completely made up about his comments. We shook hands and said goodbye, and I flew out of the casting room and on to the street, on total cloud nine! The job HAD to be mine, right? He thought I was perfect, and exactly how he’d imagined the role! Well if that ain’t job in the bag.. I texted my agent to say how pleased I was and got on with my day with a spring in my step.

So commercials are usually quite quickly cast (within a few days) and shot (within a month or three weeks), and if you don’t hear back within a couple of days it is usually safe to say you haven’t got it. So when I didn’t hear anything, and the shoot dates came and went I was quite confused! Lots of thoughts ran through my mind; had the C.D been lying about what he thought?! No, he’s a well respected professional and would never do that. Had the commercial been cancelled? ‘I can’t NOT be cast in this.. surely..!’ and so on.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that as the client hadn’t been there, they had watched the tapes remotely. And then they had simply chosen another actress. Their idea of the character clearly hadn’t matched exactly with the C.D’s. This is no one’s fault at all, the C.D’s job is purely to put people he or she thinks are right for roles in front of the client or director, for them to choose. I may have been what the C.D had imagined himself AND thought the client wanted, but eventually for one reason or another they went with another actress. Not my fault either, I just didn’t have the correct ‘look’.

It takes incredible courage and strength to be able to accept these truths about the profession, and to ‘take it on the chin’, not once but many, many times. There will be successes but many more disappontments, and the best thing to do to stay sane is to ‘forget’ about a job you’ve just cast for, try to put it out of your mind. Ha! easier said than done. This is one of the stranger ‘didn’t gets’ I’ve had but at the end of the day I have had a great experience with a particular casting director, and hope to work through him in the future as I’ve shown I can perform well, even if it didn’t work out that time.”

Olivia’s Comment

Emily’s audition story reflects the reality of commercials – everything is geared towards the client’s needs. The casting director works for the client so even if the casting director likes you, the client’s decision is the ultimate one. It comes down to forgetting about the outcome of your audition as soon as you leave the casting. But as Emily’s story points out, it is still very easy to think about the audition over and over in your mind for weeks after wards!

Thank you Emily for sharing this story. It’s very beneficial, especially to emphasise to any new actor that even professional actors with plenty of experience, like Emily, still stress about their auditions and face rejection on a regular basis.