When
you’re shooting a TV spot, you’ll see about 50 people audition for every role
you’ve written. Typically, you’ll watch all of these online, and you, your
partner and the director will mark the ones you like best. These actors (maybe
a third of the people you originally saw) will come in for callbacks, which you’ll
usually attend in person. Actor after actor will come into a small room with a
camera and act out the scene for you.
I’m
shooting with a director who’s very good with actors and dialogue, and I’ve
learned a few things from him in callbacks that are great guidelines for
choosing actors:
- Watch their eyes. Their eyes will give away whether or not they believe in their character and the scene. That sounds very ethereal, but when you’re watching 50 different actors audition for one role, just watch the eyes and it will become apparent who’s into it.
- In dialogue, watch the person who isn’t speaking. It’s easy to look at the person who’s reciting the lines you or your partner wrote. But if you look at the actor who’s supposed to be listening, you can tell if they’re invested in the other character or not.
- Good actors support their co-actors, bad actors automatically shift into competition. We were auditioning for the role of a father and a son building something together. The son was supposed to say, “You’re going to need a new crosscut saw.” When they start adlibbing, the best actors would simply smile and respond, “Yep. You’re right.” The bad actors would say, “There’s nothing wrong with that saw!” And then the sons would reply, “Come on, Dad! This thing’s been around since the Jefferson administration!” And then the Dad would say, “Ah, you kids don’t know quality when you see it.” Bad actors are looking to stand out, and pitting themselves against any other actor in the room is the easiest way to do that.
This
isn’t the kind of thing you’ll learn in portfolio school. So tuck this away and
use it when you start casting actors.
Remember, watch the eyes...
And remember, bad actors avoid competition...