Broadway is intimidating. Don't think it's not.
I hate going into the audition room. I find it the most nerve-wracking, inhumane experience, and I think it's such an inhospitable environment to give an honest account of the character and, I guess, your ability.
I can be such a Little Lord Fauntleroy about what I even audition for.
In terms of the timeline, 'The Force Awakens' came out in December of 2015. I got the role in November of 2015. I was auditioning and waiting to hear back when their marketing machine was everywhere. It's like you're going for something that's so high stakes, and you try to remind yourself, 'Okay, stop thinking about it,' and it's everywhere.
In a way, I don't want to know what's being said in casting offices, because it can get pretty brutal, and I don't want to have to think about the reasons why I don't get one job or do get one job. I can say, 'Oh, my height,' and that'll make me feel better, but I don't know for sure.
Going into auditions, there is a wonderful butterfly feeling in your stomach - an equal balance of being utterly terrified and exhilarated that this is your chance.
I went to school to be an actor in Canada and realized I hated auditions once I left, which is a huge problem if you want to get a part.
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.
As an actor, you always feel like you're not going to work again. You're always unsure about how things are going to work out, and you start thinking you're going to just fade off into the distance.
There've been times where, like when I auditioned for 'Akeelah,' I think in the first audition I was a little bit afraid because it was, you know, I had seen girls in there that I had seen on TV before, and I was like, 'Man, I might as well just walk out of here now because I'm just a newcomer,' and this and that.
When you audition for something, and you book it, you think, 'Okay, well, I got the job, and now I actually have to show up on set and do it.' So, you show up on set, and you don't know, 'Am I going to get swallowed up by these people?'
When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.
I remember my mom being very scared the first few auditions. My parents are very supportive, but they're also very realistic, which is great.
There were two auditions for 'The Social Network,' one with Aaron Sorkin and one with David Fincher. I was a nervous wreck. I was like, 'Okay, how do I hold the paper without my hands making it shake?'
Most actors have to sit by the phone and wait for somebody to call them up to audition and stuff. I don't think I can exist in Hollywood just on that. I think I need to be proactive and making sure that things I really want to do are being developed to the point where somebody wants to make them?
Actors tend to get in their own way, a lot. A lot of times you will do things that will screw up your audition process. I was very bad at auditioning, and I always went in to it saying ‘God I hope I don’t screw this up.’ But at the same time, the directors are saying, ‘God, I hope this person is the savior.’ You have to remember is that the worst thing that could happen is you don’t get the job you don’t already have.
My first audition was the worst I have ever done, ever.
Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right. If they have a preconceived notion about the role and it goes against my instinct, unless it makes sense to me, it often throws off what I'm trying to do. Though sometimes they have an insight that I don't because they've been living with the script. I don't have one feeling or another about notes, but it is always a little bit of a red alert when I get one in an audition.
Auditioning is the most terrifying thing I've ever done. There must have been four or five of them where I completely froze up and walked out of the room. My palms get sweaty just thinking about it.
I can't emphasize the immediate panic that would set in when I had to audition. I can't believe I did it.
A lot of the auditions in L.A. do feel like cattle calls, with hundreds of people. I started to lose sight of what I wanted, because you get so desperate for a job that you stop caring whether it's a good script. You're just pleased to be testing for something - but then if you get it, you're doing it for potentially six years, so it's a lottery.
I went from someone who really wanted to perform from a really young age - that was all I knew - to going on 'X-Factor', which I thought was going to be the most incredible experience ever and it becoming the worst experience of my life.
If I had a project that I had auditioned for and I was getting close to getting it, I didn't want to tell anybody because I thought then I wouldn't get it, but in reality that really had no bearing on whether or not I got a part.
I don't really like to audition, and that works against me. It's bad to be an actor and not like to audition.
In films, I didn't crave the type of attention I had sort of stumbled into in my music career. And I do not audition well. I'm really not good at it. Early on, I did movies like 'Alpha Dog' and 'Black Snake Moan' because the directors didn't ask me to audition.
