After I left LA... it was like waking up. And so I moved back east and stopped auditioning.
I learned how to get rid of the Southern accent when I was, like, 11 years old and living in New York for the summer doing modeling and commercials and auditioning for Broadway. The mother I lived with for the summer taught me how to drop my Southern accent.
I was auditioning a lot in L.A., and I was actually getting called back a lot for sitcoms. But I wasn't getting jobs. I even tested for 'Saturday Night Live' and didn't get that.
Anytime I audition for something, it's always a question of whether or not the people I'm auditioning for understand I'm an improviser and I like to do that, and if they like that or if they just want someone who's going to do what's written.
In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre.
I came in the Dawson's Creek era; it was all about tiny guys who looked like teenagers, and I haven't looked like a teenager ever. So I was, like, auditioning to be their dads. At 25.
I can't say I have enough experience with Hollywood to feel that I've encountered racism there. I can tell you that I did about five fruitless years of auditioning for voiceovers where I did variations on tacos and Latin accents, and my first screen role was as a bellhop on 'The Sopranos.'
I began both auditioning with Pearl Jam and recording for Eleven. In the fall of 1994, I joined Pearl Jam.
I like to be in waiting rooms with people as they're auditioning, because their terror calms me.
People were confused by me, and at first I was auditioning a lot for the crazy characters or the victim, someone who'd been attacked. Which is great, because usually those are the best acting roles.
I've been auditioning since I'm nine years old. Honestly, most of my friends I've met in audition rooms because you're always auditioning.
Music is my love and to me acting is more mercenary. I don't pound the pavements for roles: if it happens, it happens. I hate that auditioning thing.
There are several times when I walked into a room and just felt like such a sham. That's the problem with auditioning.
When I first started auditioning I would stutter a lot because I was so terribly frightened.
I look at rap as an opportunity to act. My head is full of different characters - in each song I'm auditioning a character.
I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
It was hard to go into the world and start auditioning as real actors. Having to pay bills was rather scary, too.
Every audition is different, but I get incredibly nervous and insecure and worked up for however long I have to prep - that's when I get to spin. But you're not allowed to spin once you enter the room. Doubt really can't enter the room when you're auditioning - unless it's part of the character.
Auditioning and actually acting on a set are two different things. When you audition, you're in a room and you don't have anything to play with and you don't have anything physically in the room. Whereas on set, you have direction, you have costumes, and you have other actors to work with. It's a completely different thing.
I kept auditioning, with no savings and no money, credit card debt gaining interest. I went on unemployment. I bought ramen noodles at dollar stores. I never had to - God forbid - live on the streets.
And I'm auditioning right now for a movie, and then I have a script that I'm reading right now for a horror film, and I'm meeting for a couple of television shows that I just had yesterday, and pretty much was offered one of them.
I think the most important thing is you have to learn to love auditioning, which I have definitely learned to love. It's going to be a huge part of your career, even if you're right at the top. You're still going to have to audition sometimes, and if you don't learn to love that, that's such a big part of what you're job's going to be.
Auditioning is the worst.
The first thing that I remember auditioning for was a weather commercial in Boston, and I got the job. The idea of the commercial was that you ought to watch the weather in the morning so that you know what's gonna come later in the day.
I do think there are trends in your life once you've been auditioning long enough. I was the angry teenager and then the sweet victim.
A lot of my friends were a lot into theatre a lot earlier than I was. A lot of my friends were kids who were in The Broadway Kids and the kids auditioning for Gavroche in 'Les Miz.' I was never that kid. I was weaned on Michael Jackson. Not literally, because that would have been odd.
After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.
I've had some rank auditions where I embarrassed myself to new heights, which is hard for me to do. I was never good at auditioning. There are a number of actors over the years come up the ranks who are horrific at auditioning.
Auditioning for something you already know and love is terrifying.
While I was growing up all over, in all my different schools, I was always doing theater, auditioning for plays.
I had always done broader characters, but going to UCB and speaking to my own voice was important for auditioning for TV and film.
When I was starting out, I didn't know what the hell I was doing and my person who was helping me out, I didn't even have an agent, got me five or six big auditions for leads in movies in 1986 that I had no business auditioning for. I think I ran out of three of them before I'd even finished.
When I was six years old my friend was auditioning for 'Annie,' and I decided I wanted to audition with her. My mom was worried I would fall flat on my face because I'd never opened my mouth to sing, so she sent me to vocal lessons. I did the audition and fell in love with the entire process of a show.
Auditioning is such an unnatural thing. You're in a tiny little room with, like, seven people cramped together, acting to a casting director; just, none of it makes any sense.
Auditioning for 'Philomena' was such a traumatic experience because I had three callbacks, and I was absolutely positive that I was just an option.
I remember having a feeling like, 'I can't believe this is happening!' Two years ago I was auditioning for The Disney Channel, and now Paul Rudd is saying, 'Hey man, congratulations on your Emmy nomination!'
