The Spirited Actor Podcast - The Spirited Actor Book Review: Chapters 4-6

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Spirited Actor Podcast with me
Tracy Moore. I was a casting director for film and
TV and commercials for over thirty years. I transition to
a celebrity acting coach after I cast a film New
Jersey Drive with executive producers Spike Lee and director Nick Thomas.
I audition every rapper from Biggie's Balls to Tupac, and

(00:24):
I realized the rappers and musical artists they needed help
transitioning to acting. My clients consist of musical artists from
Buster Rhymes to Eve, Missy Elliott, Angela Ye from The
Breakfast Club, and Vanessa Simmons, to name a few. I
also coach sports stars and host as well. I feel

(00:45):
I have the best of both worlds. As a casting director,
I know exactly what they're looking for, and as an
acting coach, I can coach you to be remembered in
that room. Now I know, I know actors want to
get the job. I get that, but being remembered by
casting director that is powerful. And now it's time for
meditation of the day. Our doubts are traders and make

(01:08):
us lose the good we oft might win by fearing
to attempt William Shakespeare. When you allow doubt to enter
your space, it can talk you out of your dreams.
I was really blessed in two thousand and four to
have the opportunity to participate in this competition. The award

(01:30):
for this competition was when you wrote these um concepts,
was you got a deal with Nickelodeon to direct and
produce these interstitials, which were like about three minutes. So
two of my friends, when they first heard that I
was going to enter this competition, both of them, thinking
in their loving way, one of them said to me, Tracy,
don't get your hopes up too high because you don't

(01:52):
have any credits and TV. Another one said to me,
you know, slow down. You know this is your first
attempt at this and it doesn't happen here for a time. Well,
if I had listened to that energy, if I had
allowed that energy to digest in my spirit and my soul,
I probably would have given up, just based on the
fear and just based on the fact that, yes, I

(02:13):
didn't have a resume in television for commercials at that time.
But what I did have is I had faith, I
had believed in myself, and I had a mechanism to
shut down the noise. So I shut the noise down.
I say focus, and I stayed persistent, and not only
did I get the job, but I invited my two

(02:33):
friends to the premier today. I will not allow my
doubts to determine my success. Before we get started, I'd
like to remind everyone to look out for my new show,
Inside the Black Box. I'll be co hosting with the
great Joe Morton. Will be on Crackle Network real soon.

(02:56):
I'll keep you posted. Welcome to The Spirited Actor pod
asked with me Tracy Moore, and I'm very excited today
because your guest today you're very familiar with her. It's me,
It's Tracy Moore. I'm going to be doing The Spirited Actor,
Part two of my book, The Spirited Actor Principles for

(03:16):
a Successful Audition. I just want to give mad shout
out to all the actors who downloaded Part one and
increased my book sales. I appreciate love you. Please continue
to buy the book and support the book. My wish
is for you to continue to take this information and
be empowered by this information. That's what's really important, and

(03:39):
that you are doing your due diligence on your work,
doing your due diligence on your training. And I want
to emphasize this because one of the things, aside from
being my son and my children, that I love is
the fact that my son recently has been just really
binging on some amazing films and classic film. The other

(04:00):
night he was watching seven And you know, when you
guys watch these films as actors, as creative beings, this
is a study ground for you. This is work, and
so I want you to incorporate that and know that
you could have a loved one complaining about the fact
that you're beinging on movies or you're watching these movies,
and you can let them know that this is a
part of your homework and this is a part of

(04:21):
your learning as well. You know, a lot of times actors,
you know, you guys kind of beat up on yourselves
when you're not doing something, and doing something doesn't always
mean you're moving. Doing something could be, like I said,
watching a television show that you want to be on
so that you can understand the rhythm of the show.
A lot of times when you have shows like Law
and Order, these franchises that have a formula to their show,

(04:45):
it's good for you to study and to know what
that formula is for, to know the type of characters
that come on that show in which you could portray.
So the work never stops, ladies and gentlemen, It's up
to you. So I'm excited to take you on a
journey today with the Spirited Actor Principles for a Successful

(05:06):
Audition by myself Tracy Moore. And you can purchase the
book at authors House dot com or Amazon dot com.
And I appreciate, love the fact that you are purchasing
my book and reading my book and studying from my book.
So we are going to begin, ladies and gentlemen. I'm
going to give you a couple of seconds to grab

(05:27):
some paper or pen whatever you use to document things
so that you can pull some information. I'm going to
give you highlights from these chapters, and then when you
purchase the book you can get the rest of the
information that's in there. And again I appreciate of you
for doing that. Okay, starting with chapter four, arm yourself
with the right props. It is through order that the

(05:49):
greatest things are born, the wisdom of the text. So
one of the things that is really super important being
an actor in terms of you had a tool kit,
one of the things in which you need. The first
thing you need is a photo. That photo is what
is going to be your entry into whether you get
a self tape audition, whether you get a general audition

(06:13):
or maybe a general meeting. That photo is extremely important.
And what's important about your photo one is that you
look like your photo. People of color, it's important that
you find a photographer that lights your skin tone. I've
had several occasions, and this is the reason why I
bring this information to you is because I've had the

(06:35):
experience of it. But when you have your photo and
you take it with someone who doesn't know how to
light you, a dark skinned person can have a photo
that makes them look light skin, and a light skinned
person can have a photo that makes them look dark skinned.
Nothing is the true value of who they really are.
So it's really super important that you tap into. If

(06:58):
you see a fellow act and they have a great picture,
asked them who the photographer was. You know, pre pandemic,
we used to be able to go to photographers and
audit their books and you know, see their work. I
don't know if that's still happening. Everything is probably on
the computer or your phone. But do your due diligence
and find a photographer that's right for you, that understands

(07:20):
how to get certain moments from you and capture certain
characteristics in your phonos. That's really important. And also someone
that you know is not going to put you in
front of really distracting backgrounds or allow you to wear
distracting clothes or earrings or anything that's going to take
us away from going straight to your face. As a

(07:41):
casting director, that's what we want to do. We want
to go straight to your face, and we want to
be in the position to say postal worker, um, nurse, lawyer.
We want to be in a position to be able
to do that. Okay, we don't want you to telegraph
for us the characters in which you feel you can be.

(08:02):
So you want to leave yourself open. You want to
be sort of like a clean slate. You're authentically in
your natural way. Women, we don't need a lot of
hair and makeup. We have hair and makeup on set,
so we can make you look like whatever we want,
even if we have to cut your hair at extensions,
diet whatever, we are able to do that. What we
want to see is the possibility in your hair, you know,

(08:24):
or we want to see you know, if your hair
is straight, we might want to see your hair curly
or you know. We we have the ability to do
those things. Once you're cast c A, S T. Not
casted it. Once you're cast, then we have the ability
to create all of those things. However, in your photo,
you want to look authentically how you look. You want

(08:48):
to be naturally beautiful, and you want to wear studs.
You don't want again anything distracting us from your face.
We want to look at your face and be able
to laundry list different characters in which we feel that
you can be Okay, very very important photo, very important
that you do your due diligence and finding a great
photographer they can capture you. Your resume, do not ever

(09:10):
lie on your resume. Ever, this business is very small
and things get back to people, and you know, you
want to develop trust early in your career, and you
want people to trust that not only are you an
actor when you say you're an actor, but that you
understand the work of an actor. So when you go
on the set, you know set etiquette, you know how
to work as an actor, and when you get an

(09:32):
agent and a manager. Those expectations are there because this
is who you are. You're a professional. You should know
these things and you should know how to do these things. Okay,
so your resume, you want to again give accurate information.
It's important that we understand your height, your weight, your
hair color, and your eye color. Why are these things

(09:55):
important because there are stand ins of the leads, and
so you may be interested into in stand up work,
which is very lucrative because let's say you're on Gray's
Anatomy and you're standing in for one of the leads.
If they work every day, you work every day, and
that is a complete check as a stand in that

(10:15):
you get every single day. If they do thirteen episodes,
you're in thirteen episodes. So if you look in for
something consistent like that also gives you the flexibility of
the set. You're around all the other actors, you're you know,
ear shy in conversation, around video village, which is where
the director, producer, the DP, the script supervisor. That's where

(10:36):
all of them sit and watch the monitor of the performance.
So on your resume, those things are really important. Your height,
your weight, your hair color, and your eye color. As
a stand in. You want to make sure you have
the same height as the actor, the same skin color,
and the same hair color if they aren't going to
put a wig or anything like that on. The Other

(10:57):
things that follow are a working phone number, you guys,
you have to if you are going to which I
believe we're out of this age, but when I first
started casting, a lot of times actors would put their landline.
For those of you who don't know what a landline is,
that's when we have phones in our homes. And they
would put that phone number and I would call that.

(11:18):
A family member would answer and I'd be like, Hi,
can I speak to Mark? And they're like Marks down here,
and I'm like, well, can you take a message? They
didn't know how to take a message, or they wrote
the message now wrong. In that case, I would always
emphasize to make sure your household was in sync with
your work. It's important. Details are important, and it's important
that they taked out the proper message for you. But

(11:39):
now you have your cell phones and so people can
call you directly leave messages. Maybe there's still messaging services.
I don't know, but however these messages are being taken down.
You should make sure that they are taken down accurately,
and you should make sure that the proper phone number
is on your resume for representatives to get in touch

(12:00):
with you or casting directors. The other thing that you
will do is you will list your credits. So we
can start with theater. You can list your theater credits. Um.
When you're listing any credits, you want to list the
production in the first row. In the second row, you
want to list the role in which you had. And
then in the third column you either want to list
the director or the theater company. Right. So for instance,

(12:23):
let's say you did a mid Summay Night's Dream and
you were one of the lead characters, and you performed
at BAM in Brooklyn, which is a very known theater.
You want to put things that people's eyes are going
to recognize and they're going to be able to understand
the level of your performance, and you know where you performed,

(12:46):
so you will list out in theater and TV and film,
you will do the same. You never want to list
as an actor. You never want to put extra. You
want to be able to name the extra role right.
So it could be a pedestrian, it could be a coworker,
but you don't want to embellish as if you were
a contract player, but you do want to give it

(13:06):
a name, so it just doesn't say extra. And then
we can see the progression of like let's say pedestrian
to day player to supporting and then eventually you don't
even have to put that extra on there. You're just
putting your speeping role parts on there. After that, you
have commercials. A lot of times you'll see on a
resume conflict by request, and so basically that means in

(13:29):
the commercial world, if you did a commercial for a
T and T, you may not be able to do
a commercial for her T mobile. These are tele communication
companies and everyone has their different policies. Same with maybe
Pepsi and you can't do Hawaiian punch. So those are
the conflicts. Upon the request of the casting director when

(13:52):
you're being considered, they want to know if you have
any conflicts with Ford and you can't do Toyota or
land Roverer. So that's what's there. And then after you
have that, you have your training. You want to list
all of the training that you have. You don't want
to go as far as high school unless like your
younger person but you do want to talk about training.

(14:13):
If you went to Syracuse that's a great school for acting,
or if you went to Juilliard, American Academy, Harlem School
of the Arts, any of those type of training programs,
we believe that you had, you know, training, and you
were part of a series of classes or in these
conservatories to your programs for your programs. Once you put

(14:35):
down training, after that, what follows is dialect. You might
have dialects that you do, but please, ladies and gentlemen,
do not put down dialects if you cannot be consistent
with that dialect, if you come in and out of
that dialect, it is so uncomfortable for the casting person.
One but two, it doesn't show continuity. And if we

(14:57):
can't trust you with continuity, then that's not often and
we be people who can authentically have a Jamaican accent
or a UK accent. Finally, the last thing you want
to list are your special skills. And your special skills
can specifically be anything that is as unique as eating
fire to horseback riding to having formal wear or having

(15:20):
a car. A lot of times what happens with actors
is that you know they will be paid additional pay
if they have E. M. S uniform or a nurse's
uniform or a specific car. So you want to list
those things. You also want to list qualities about yourself
that maybe you speak another language, maybe you're a writer,
maybe you are a great baker, maybe you're a great screamer, whatever. Specifically,

(15:46):
those things that are going to attract a casting director's attention,
or maybe a specialty that they need for that film, karate,
martial arts, anything like that. Put those things down. But
these things that you listen special skills. You have to
be just as great as you are as an actor
because you never know when a director. And I've had

(16:07):
this experience where a director said to me, just because
he's seen on that actor's resume that they can speak French,
he says to me, tell them to do all of
the dialogue in French. Now, neither one of us can
speak French, but he just wanted to see if they
could really do that. So don't put anything on there
that you cannot stand by a hundred and fifty percent. Okay,

(16:31):
I give you some other tips and some ideas in
this as well, but this is chapter four. To arm
yourself with the right props, the right props that are
going to get you into the doors and get you
seen by the people that you need to be seen
by at make decisions and cast and give you jobs. Right.
So we're moving on to chapter five and chapter five

(16:52):
is the first impression, is your only impression? Trust to
your hopes, not your fears. Dave at my home. So
a lot of times when I have conversation with actors
about the audition process, they are a bit frustrated, and
especially now where we have Zoom and we live in Zoom,

(17:15):
we don't have that interaction that we had years ago
as casting directors. And I think a part of the
challenge now and being a casting director is to create
that synergy when you have table reads. Because the table reads,
you have the whole cast on reading and you have
your executives and your writers and the director on as well.

(17:36):
So it can be a little difficult trying to pull
that energy out and get that energy out right. However,
this is what we have and so we're not back
fully in live auditions yet. Carefully we will come back,
but I don't know. But what we know is that
we are dealing with self tapes. Now, how do you

(17:59):
give your best performance in that first impression. Well, I
want to say first of all that a lot of
you are familiar with one of my spirited actor O
g s Julisa Capri and Julisa is amazing. And I
can say this for myself because I've had the pleasure

(18:19):
during the interviews with Joe Morton for Inside the Black
Box to be able to do these interviews at my
home and Julisa's come over and set up the background
and lighting and taught me things with makeup and just amazing.
It just brings a total comfort in the space to
do your work right when all this stuff is put together.

(18:40):
So you need a comfort, and the comfort is having
the right equipment to do your job. So what do
you need, Well, you need a background, you need the
right lighting. You need the stands and the tripods and
other additional lighting that is going to help your situation.
And so in knowing this, it is important that you

(19:01):
invest in yourself and invest in the things in which
you need. Jo Lisa also took me to the Max
Store to show me the makeup that I needed and
specifically for my camera and the lighting in which I had.
All of these things and educating yourself is really going
to up the ante on your confidence and your performance.
So one is making sure that you have the proper

(19:23):
equipment and the proper tools to do yourself take. The
next thing, I've had conversations with fellow casting directors and
they've all agreed that you should do as many takes
as you feel you would get in the room. Now,
first of all, you're not gonna get anywhere from five
to seven to ten to twelve takes. That's not happen.
It's rare, but that's not happen. You know you will

(19:45):
get at least one. I suggest that you do anywhere
from three to four takes, because when you've done your
due diligence, have done your homework and prepared, then you
don't need a thousand takes your explosive, sizzling, not ready
to burst and film this dynamic performance. Okay, but you

(20:06):
should not think to yourself, oh, well, you know, I'll
quire about four to six pm to do myself tape.
Well that's great those two hours, but within those two
hours you're not going to do fifteen twenty takes. You're
not gonna do So you're gonna have to learn also
to trust yourself, and in trusting yourself, you will know
how to decide which take is better for you and

(20:30):
which take you a hundred and fifty percent stand besides
and champion and believe you did your best that you
could do, Being that you only get one impression. This
impression needs to be great. We talk about you when
you're talented, and we talk about you when you're not
prepared and you came in the work to the room

(20:52):
to do the work, or you sent in yourself tape
and you had not done the work necessary for you.
I just want to stress and specifically in this chapter,
it really is about your work ethic. It's about investing
in the equipment, is about trusting yourself and your instinct
to know when you have given a great performance that

(21:14):
you are proud to submit and happy to submit, and
then you move on after that. But it's important that
you understand you're not going to be doing this all
day and all night and having your parents up, or
your sister or your brother, or your babysitter or none
of that. If you do the work before, you don't
need to do all of that. You will have dynamic

(21:36):
takes within those three to four takes, Okay, so that
is your first impression. Also, the other thing is is
that now with self tapes, where do you have the
space for us casting directors to see your personality? Right?
And what I mean by that is that in your
introduction in your slate is where we hit the opportunity

(21:57):
to see you and to see your performance. So it's
shouldn't be an act. It should just be you, yourself,
relaxed and Hi, I'm Tracy Moore and I'm reading for
the role. I live in New York City. This is
where we can get your personality because I honestly believe
that the audition process is fifty percent talent and personality.

(22:18):
So where do we see the personality? Because we we
have to like you, we have to feel good about
you because in most cases, we're working anywhere from Florida
to eight to ten to twelve weeks with you, depending
upon the budget. Okay, So it's really important that you
give us a glimpse into your personality in that slate
and then you morph into a whole different character and

(22:40):
perfectly the character that we're looking for. And casting directors
want to see your personality when you are inside a
live audition, we get a chance to fill energy and
synergy into all that. Right. However, on these self tapes
we don't have that. So again in your slate, and
it doesn't have to be over the top and crazy bubbly,

(23:02):
it's your authentic self. We need to see you. That's
really important that you understand. We also need to see
you and these auditions see the person that we're gonna
be working with. That's important, okay. And one of the
things that is very important to me with actors is
that once you've done your audition, whether it's a self tape,

(23:26):
whether it's a live audition, and you have given all
that you can give, let it go. It is not
your job to hold onto all of these auditions and
you know when are they going to call and check
your phone and your text And that is not healthy.
And you need to start training yourself to let these

(23:48):
things go. Because what I can tell you in my
experience and my observation that there is a role out
there for you, and that when you are consistent and persistent,
things will come to fruition for you. Lastly, find your
comfort zone. Nothing chapter six, Nothing can dim the light

(24:11):
which shines within you. That is so true. Your light
is your light, and you allow you a lot to shine.
Never ever ever dim your light for anyone. The tips
that I can tell you and chapter two, finding your
own comfort zone is finding a place where you can retreat,
where you can go within your spirit, where you can
go within your soul and you're protected, and you're at peace,

(24:33):
and you know that all is well because all is well.
And so that is how you can create the sanctuary
for yourself where nothing else outside comes in and disturbs
your peace, nothing disrupts your groove that you stay a
line in the unison with you, your authentic self. You're enough,

(24:55):
You're beautiful, you are perfection. All of these wonderful mantra
is that will uplift your spirit, uplift your soul, and
continue to remind you of who you are. You are
a powerful, powerful, creative being. And when you do your
due diligence, when you are armed with the right training

(25:18):
and you can stand on the solid foundations, your confidence
will soar. Other people will want to be around you,
and the working actor that you choose will be ignited,
and then the rest is history. I just want to
thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to share
with you my book Principles for a Successful Audition The

(25:40):
Spirited Actor Principles for a Successful Audition by me Tracy Moore,
and it can be purchased at authors House dot com
or Amazon dot com or Barnes and Noble dot com
as well. We are going to be back with the
Spirited Actor Podcast with me Tracy Moore, and I'm going
to give you some love. That's what I'm gonna do.

(26:01):
I'm going to share some more love and now it's
time for give love. Some people in your life wait
for manifestation of your dream before they congratulate. But what
I don't understand is did it occur to them that
you kind of needed the support during the journey, You know,
on those nights when you feel like I don't want
to write anymore, or when you feel like you're stuff

(26:24):
and you're not going anywhere, or when you just need
those words of encouragement to just keep going. And why
not think it's going to be successful? Why believe so
early and so quickly that you're going to fail. There's
noise in this world. There's noise in our family and
among our friends every single day that has the power

(26:45):
to deter you from your dreams. But the truth is
you always and will always have the power and making
decisions for your life because no one is in your head,
no one is in your thought, no one is conducting
anything in your mind without you. Take control of your
life in this moment, in this present moment, and baby steps,

(27:09):
but talk to yourself, spend time with yourself, journal with yourself,
and continue to encourage and influence yourself on your journey
even when nobody else does. Don't forget to look out
for us on our new show Inside the Black Box.
My co host will be Joe the Legend Morton. It's

(27:31):
going to be The Spirited Actor Podcast on Steroids. Will
be streaming on the Crackle network. I'll keep you posted.
Thank you for joining us on the Spirited Actor Podcast
with me Tracy Moore. I look forward to our next
Spirited Podcast. Thank you,