Debunking The Audition Process

Auditions can be as nerve wracking as a performance, but the best way to come out on top is to be prepared. Anne & Lau are audition experts. When you break it down, an audition is a sample of your performance, and bosses, we know you know how to perform! The best way to start an audition is with copy you feel confident reading and that showcases your acting chops. Making genuine connections with the other actors in the space and casting directors is what keeps you on their mind long after the read ends. Confidence goes a long way in audition settings. Do not shy away from live auditions, and having your 10 favorite scripts on hand will make the impromptu auditions feel more manageable. Want to learn more? Tune in for the full scoop…

Transcript

>> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the business superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to bring back the one and only Lau Lapides to the show. Thank you, Lau, for joining me. I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Lau: I'm thrilled to be here as always, thrilled to be here, Anne.

Anne: Well, Lau, it's been a week.

Lau: And I feel like it's been a month with how much our -- how busy our lives are, right, Anne?

Anne: I know, right?

Lau: I mean, it's like so much.

Anne: But this week you were a part of me besides the podcast, besides the podcast. So I'm very excited to be working with you as an agent. And so you did something that I have never experienced before. You called me into a last minute audition. And I said, oh, okay. I didn't have any script. You called me into a Zoom room. And I was like, okay, is that gonna just be me and the casting director? Oh, that's so lovely for Lau to think of me like that. I'm really excited. Okay. Sure. So I joined the Zoom session and there were like, whoa, quite a few people on there. And I didn't have a script. I didn't know what was gonna go on, what was happening. Let's talk about this audition that you called me into and your process for these things.

Lau: You were such a good sport. 'Cause you could have said no, I know it's not in your vocabulary to say no, but --

Anne: It's so true.

Lau: -- you could have. It would've been totally fine if you said no, but I was really pleasantly surprised to see that not only you, but everyone in that room said yes to coming in the room. Now I'll set it up for you since today we're talking about auditions. This was a little bit, I would call it unorthodox. It was a little bit unorthodox the way we set this up, but that's kind of my middle name and I'm alright with that. I go with that 'cause I like to have a little fire, a little fire in life. So the premise of this audition was that our friend and producer coming in from Switzerland, Lamar Hawkings -- amazing man, amazing, who is very, very close friends with my colleague Joanne Yarrow that I work with at my studio -- invited him in to say, hey, you are doing amazing projects. I mean my friend, Joanne -- who I have to introduce you to, she's fabulous -- she's the voice now the American voice, of La Occitane campaign that he handles. And so I'll send you that. It's awesome.

So I'm like, Ooh, we have a wonderful agency, MCVO. We have a wonderful membership base at the studio, talent inner circle. Why don't I invite some of our really great people with great voices to come in and do a private audition for Lamar? And he was completely up for it. He said, I would love that, Lau. I'm looking for new talent. I'm doing a new animation soon. I'm doing commercial campaigns. I'm doing this. And that. He's very, very busy. He's in Switzerland, but he's actually from the states, originally from Texas. And I said, great, let's do it.

So we set it up for yesterday. Now here's the thing. A bunch of the people knew that the audition were coming because they were in the studio base, the talent inner circle studio base and had RSVPed that, yes, I want to attend this. I'm able to, I've been screened. I'm accepted in, and I'm coming in. Great. But then I had a number of open slots that I said, I've got to get more MCVO people knowing about this and coming in because this is a legit audition, and it's a live audition. It's something I really love to do and love to host.

Anne: That was so different for me. I mean, I felt like I traveled into LA and went to an in-person audition again almost.

Lau: Exactly. That's exactly what happened. And fun fact from the background, 'cause no one ever sees what's going on in the background, I was on vacation. I was up in the Berkshires. Like literally I'm at lunch with my husband, and I'm texting li