Reducing Casting’s Ability to Reject You

REDUCING THEIR ABILITY TO REJECT YOU by Neil Schell

What an interesting career you have chosen! An actor for hire. Or, more appropriately, a character for hire, for stories. No matter how you look at it, a professional actor has to learn to deal with rejection. Fact. Most of the roles you will read for you will not get. This is true whether you are just starting out or are a name actor who is close to superstar status. Most of the roles you go out for and want, you won’t get.

The first step in dealing with this is to confront it. Anything you confront will simplify. Simplifying rejection as an actor means seeing it for the truth of what it really is rather than what it is when it’s not understood at all – a roller coaster ride that makes Magic Mountain look like a kiddy park.

Let’s look at the situation – confront it. You have a producer and a director, at minimum, looking to hire a character for their film or TV series. A casting director is hired who then issues a breakdown of all the characters he or she has to find for their employer. Let’s say they want a 5 hour session in two days from now and they’re hoping to cast 7 characters of the 20 they need.

Typically, in a filming centre like Vancouver or New York, the casting director will receive around 150+ submissions from agents for each character they are looking for. That means they have 950+ headshots to go through! (That’s a hint at how important your headshot is.) Out of those 950+ headshots, they will usually bring in around 42 actors (6 per role).

When you see a ratio of 950/42 you realize right away that the casting director has to reject way, way more than they select. Their biggest job is rejecting. All you have to do is look at the numbers. If you have a good headshot in which your character is clearly evident and you have been appropriately submitted, you are effectively reducing their ability to reject you. There are great long dissertations written about headshots and what they communicate so I will not go into it here. But I do want you to get the idea that your headshot is an important part of reducing casting’s ability to reject you.

Next, let’s say you are one of the ones with a great headshot that clearly communicates your character and you are selected for an audition appointment. Yes! Now a similar situation exists. Those who are in attendance at the audition and/or those who will be seeing the tapes from the audition still have the greater job of rejecting more than selecting. They select one actor and they reject five actors. That’s if they only hold one casting session. When they find the right character, it’s easy for them to reject the rest. But it’s not just the right character, it also has to do with the right person they want to work with – especially if it’s a long shoot.

There is a whole science on how to reduce the “rejection factor” in a situation like this but one simple idea is; The person who needs to reject more than they select (director, producer) finds it way more difficult to reject someone they like. And when it comes to selecting an actor for a role it is not always about your acting skills. It’s not just about liking your acting. It’s about liking everything – your manners, your confidence, your skills and your professionalism.

Here’s a simple everyday example of how you can employ this. Everyone has experienced a time when you were walking down the street and a person walking toward you beamed this huge smile. What did you do? You smiled back. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible to resist doing so. That person was making it very hard for you to reject their smile. In fact, when such a gesture is genuine, it’s practically impossible to reject it.

When you walk into that audition room genuinely smiling (I am not saying you “have” to smile for it must be genuine) and having the complete honest intention that you are going to like everyone you meet in that room, you will make it very hard for them to reject you. It doesn’t mean they won’t. It just means that you are making it difficult. And that is part of your job. Making it difficult for casting to reject you.

And why wouldn’t you like or potentially like everyone in that room? They have managed, through their hard work and determination over years, to get a good concept, a good script, some sort of distribution and financing to go ahead and make this movie or series. What actor can’t admire that? And who can refuse genuine admiration? Practically no one. If you love this industry and the people who make it expand and improve and be the viable industry it is, it will show. It will be seen, felt and acknowledged.

Of course, all of this is in addition to your acting skill set and ability to assume the identity of the character and so on. But it can’t be reduced in importance. For, after all, this is a people business.

NOTE: Neil Schell gives online acting coaching for auditions world-wide. He was a pioneer in doing online coaching to help his students across Canada over 10 years ago. Get his introductory offer and start booking! CLICK HERE

© Copyright 2009 by Neil Schell – revised ©️2016