Think About Auditioning Like Cooking and Follow This Recipe

If you can’t cook, then you can’t audition.

Contentious statement, I know. Apologies, but stick with me for a moment….

If 10 amateur cooks all cooked the same recipe, whose meal would be best? And similarly, if 10 actors performed the same dialogue—which is exactly what happens in an audition—whose audition is best?

When I started to cook, I could not start without a recipe. And the recipe was treated like a religious parchment. It was to be obeyed.

So three ounces of an ingredient meant three ounces, not three-and-a-half. I would follow the instructions to the letter. And if everyone approached their early days in the kitchen in the same way as me, that means 10 amateur cooks would create roughly the same meal.

And so it is with many actors in an audition.

You follow the sides and the writer’s notes with fervent obedience. You respect and obey every full stop, every character instruction. You think that if you deviate from the sides, your audition is doomed. Like your soufflé, your audition simply will fail to rise.

But if you do follow the sides to the letter, you will be the same as every other actor.

You need to approach an audition (and any recipe) thinking, What can I do with this?

What moments can spice up your version of the character? That is what an actor provides—their own unique angle on the character, just as an experienced chef can do with a simple recipe.

I want you to keep very firmly in your mind that the writer draws a map of the character, but it is the actor who interprets the map, prepares the journey, and then leads the expedition in search of the character!

The best meal and the best audition are the result of using the pages as a starting point, but then allow imagination to find your unique signature—an approach that is yours and yours alone, that adds your singular flair, your own touch.

Let your imagination evolve, rather than be dictated to.

Otherwise you will create the same as everyone else.

The character is your goal, not the delivery. And the sides are a guide to the character.—a tool for the actor—not a list of commandments.

Do not approach the sides as if they are written in stone. Do not be a slave to the writer’s notes on rhythm—their instructions to pause, shout, or be angry.

As you spend more time in the kitchen you try things, you take risks, you learn from the little add-ons that you, and you alone, provide because you are daring, you take risks, you seek new solutions.

And for success in the audition space, you must do the same.

This should be your goal in the audition space. Explore, experiment, do not practice a slavish adherence to the sides. You will find in time, that adding a dollop of joy, a splash of charm, or whatever it is that is your signature, you will find you have created something that inspires, delights, and excites, rather than conforms.

Like this advice? Check out more from our Backstage Experts!