Go perform!  Somewhere, anywhere.

Find out what you are made of and if you can hold an audiences’ attention with your character needs and wants.  Do it in an audition room or a workshop, by shooting a web series or short,  sitting down with colleagues reading a screenplay, or in front of an audience in a play reading or play.  Big venue or small. Or just read a play in your house with a bunch of actors.

Warm up  your real acting muscles, create a fully embodied character and let ‘er rip. Those are the times the best actor in you can grow, thrive and be challenged to new creative expression.

It is truly the very best confidence booster. You will find that auditioning while your are in a run of a show, or shooting something else or after a good night reading a screenplay with friends, you have more to bring into an audition room.

With every audition, the “test” nature  of “proving”  or “selling” something is both very tempting and corrupting to the work. We push, we doubt, we criticize ourselves a lot.

Once you are working or shooting,  we tend to relax and focus on that which is truly important ( the story’s given circumstances, the stake in the story and the character POV and need)

Performing anywhere, the week or day before an audition, reminds us what is the true headset of the creative actor, and that is where you are kept honest about your character and performance.

The audience informs you: you can feel their energy. If you truly have their attention, you can feel their stillness and focus. If you are inauthentic or not in action, they fidget and cough and you can sense and hear it.

The post Perhaps the best Audition Tip ever…. appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

Use secretiveness and relaxation to take the “push” out of the work

The post Confidence & Subtlety in On Camera Auditioning appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

“Caryn,

• I guest starred on Homeland in December and they want me back for another episode in a few weeks!
• I just did my first sitcom in NY – Kevin Can Wait – opposite Kevin and Leah. Darren Goldstein  played blind dates for Leah and Kevin and we end up together. I learned a ton.  Kevin and one of the producers actually told me maybe we will see you back….so who knows about that! I  I am glad I got to have that experience.
• My webseries Mommy Blogger just got optioned by Jim Biederman and Marla Ratner. I created, produced and have starred in this webseries over the past year and am super proud of it. I think of what we have shot as “proof of concept” and that’s how Jim and Marla think of it too. I’ve included a ton of actors I love and respect and have great people lined up for the future. The next step is meeting with Jim and Marla’s agents – CAA – and the goal is to connect with a celebrity producer.    When I began meetings with Jim and Marla, honestly I was prepared for them to say “This is great, but networks will want a star and are you willing to sell the idea….” And to be honest I was! I love the idea of being a creator and exec producer of something and I want it to happen. But Jim and Marla INSIST that I play this role, and Kevin Isola play Jared. They are optioning it based on what we made…and who the cast is. Of course Networks will have final say on casting…and we will deal with that when it comes! But the reason they want to attach a celebrity producer is they believe a celebrity actor will agree with them, and that it wouldn’t be funny to have a name actor play my part because its so much about the desire for fame….

• Another web series I helped to create with my group of support friends (one of whom took the class with you! Laura Shooop!) has just been picked up by Scary Mommy. They are giving our group 30k to produce five more episodes and our webseries will become a Scary Mommy production which has millions of followers….it is pretty exciting that a group of friends (I think I told you about our group!) who gathered weekly to help each other with auditions, would be able to create something like this.
• I did record music in Nashville for my website, and
• I did star in a musical at Sacramento Music Circus where my whole family (35 people) came to see me over the past summer. I love Dolly Parton and can channel her and I played the role of Doralee in the musical 9 to 5 last summer. I was so happy to see that as two of my super specific goals in my five year plan were accomplished….and now I have a wonderful relationship with a regional theatre near my hometown that I can envision working at again and again.
• Now one of my goals is to finally create a one or two person show about Dolly Parton because I know I have a gift for channeling her. The world loves her music and her presence. And I want to create a show I can do anywhere where I get to channel her and give that to people.

WOW. Envisioning and list making works.

TriciaPaoluccio.com

The post Her Vision & Goals set in the 2015 class and now! appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

In December last year, with all the film screenings for awards season, there was one performance I had to see twice. It was both inspirational and so inconceivably wonderful; that of Gary Oldman’s as Winston Churchill.

Mr. Oldman was at the second screening I attended and he described to us all his year long journey to capture this portrayal. (see link below for  details of his research and actor preparation)

It involved much preparation and care: he had hired a dialect coach to rid himself of his Americanized accent, having lived in the US for so long. He hired a singing teacher to help him lower his natural tenor to achieve some of Churchill’s baritone notes. He worked closely with a make up artist he trusted, who came out of retirement for this film, to create a believable look that would transform the slight Mr. Oldman into the paunchy, round Mr. Churchill.

He first read for 2 months all he could about Churchill at this historic time, before he touched the screenplay. Before shooting started, he memorized all his script dialogue and Churchill’s most  famous speeches from this time.

He carried an App on his phone with all Churchill’s recorded speeches. He sat in Churchill’s chair in the British “War Room” and observed the anxious marks and scratches left on the arm rails by his antecedent in that chair.

He asked for and was given Winston’s brand of cigars (smoking 12 a day, he ended up with nicotine poisoning and stomach problems halfway through the shoot). He arrived at the very first table read of the screenplay, with the assembled cast, in full Churchill costume and makeup.

I thoroughly believe Gary Oldman will win the Oscar for this performance ( I am not so prescient – the Golden Gloves, the SAG Awards, BAFTA and BIFA have already agreed and given him their highest best male performance in a film this year)

Because he did his homework!  Thus the detail, passion, self doubt and the glory of the Winston Churchill are all there. And I suspect Mr. Oldman loved every scary moment diving into this part.

Speaking to Gary Oldman after DARKEST HOUR screening

*more on Mr. Oldman’s preparation

Caryn West is an veteran acting teacher, director and coach who auditions and acts. She has taught many gifted and well known actors both in LA and NYC and is the only teacher cited on both coasts by Backstage polls and one of the “BEST AUDITION COACHES”. She has run Caryn’s Space for Actors since 1999 www.TheAuditionCoach.com  carynwest@mac.com   Facebook   @CarynWestSFA   West Hollywood / NYC

The post Gary Oldman in the DARKEST HOUR and what he told me… appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

Goals Setting sure, but then …Train and Practice!

Caryn Ski Racing

Long before I was an actress, I aspired to be an Olympian. I made it to the US Alpine Team B team but missed the smaller cut for the Olympics twice (once too young, once too slow).  I was lucky to find  a passion just as consuming in acting. But I got far enough along in the sport and won enough to grasp some fundamentals about excellence and performance mentality under pressure. (And yes, that is Jean Claude Killy the 3 time Gold medalist and first overall World Cup winner. I got to meet and ski with him and my mind was a blur in this picture as he was GOD of the slopes!… He tried acting too! )

Caryn West is an veteran acting teacher, director and coach who auditions and acts. She has taught many gifted and well known actors both in LA and NYC and is the only teacher cited on both coasts by Backstage polls and one of the “BEST AUDITION COACHES”. She has run Caryn’s Space for Actors since 1999 www.TheAuditionCoach.com  carynwest@mac.com   Facebook   @CarynWestSFA   West Hollywood / NYC

The post What these Olympians can teach us… appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

So, I was so happy to see him and hear that he had been working a great deal in the last couple of years and several episodes of a new series in Chicago. By the time the plane landed, he found out he had also landed the lead in a new series shooting in Europe!  As I always ask booking actors, “so what is now working?”  he told me and promised to write me up a little testimonial about decisions he had made that changed his trajectory as an actor.

Mid December, he sent me this:

Daniel McPherson

“Caryn,

It was so great to see you in Chicago, and what a wonderful synchronicity that we had both been filming on exciting shows over there! Even more so that I got the news I had been waiting for while ON that flight! Gotta live in flight wifi!

 

 It was 2012 when we met and began working together. I had just arrived from Australia and after a successful 15 year career in TV and Film back home, looking to make what I thought would be a swift and successful transition into US industry and into my glittering Hollywood career! We spoke also of our mutual love of sports, marathon running in particular, and for me Ironman triathlons.  When I mentioned that I was still racing and training some 25 hours a week, you tactfully but firmly told me that there’s no way that I could commit so much effort to something outside of my career and still succeed in my work the way I wanted to.

 

Of course as a 32 year old Australian alpha male, I was having none of it.

 

That was until about 2 years later, where I hadn’t picked up any work in the US. I was getting close on network tests, but for some reason falling at the final hurdle. In fact, not being able to crack that final barrier to booking a job drove me harder into my training and racing. So much so I went and qualified for 2 amateur world championships and earned the right to my US Pro triathlon license. But of course, it was all just prolonging the agony of not achieving what I wanted in my acting.

 

Soon after, summer of 2014, I had the epiphany.  I was racing an Ironman triathlon in Bavaria, Germany. It was over 100F, and after the 2.4 mile swim, and the 112 mile bike, I was coming up to 13 miles into the marathon run.  My day had started well but the wheels were falling off. My body was overheating, I couldn’t stomach any calories, my vision was beginning to blur and my legs were of course in burning agony. If I was a race car,  I was out of gas and the engine had exploded. The tyres were probably melted too. It wasn’t pretty. As I pushed on and dug deeper into my reserves, mentally and physically, I had a moment of clarity….

 

 “What the F**K am I doing here?” I asked myself. Not in the way that athletes ask themselves in times of exhaustion, but asked in a much bigger way.

 

 “What am I doing HERE?”.  As in, why the hell am I 8 hours into a triathlon in rural Germany, when I should be in LA, working my ass off in acting class and auditions to book myself a job that I love.

 

Your words from years before came flooding clearly back of course.

 

I literally waived down the next on-course medic, got a ride in an ambulance to get 4 litres of IV fluid, and began planning my assault on LA over a stein of ice cold Bavarian lager.

 

Over the next month or two, I quit everything that I thought was or may be a distraction from succeeding in my goal of being a regular working actor in the USA. i quit triathlon, in fact i quit riding my bike altogether, i quit TV hosting ( which i was doing back in Australia to pay the bills). I ruthlessly quit everything that was taking time and energy away from my growth as an artist.

 

I changed my training to more weights based training, specifically for roles coming through. I get a lot of cop/soldier/navy seal type stuff, so I got in shape for that. I booked into regular acting classes. I worked privately with different teachers. I read. lots. man I read lots. I still do. I watched everything. TV series, film. I went back and watched old movies with new eyes. I studied actors. I did student films. I wrote stories. I studied art. I put all that time from triathlon training into the growth of my career.

 

And surprise surprise… the results we almost immediate. Within 3 months I had booked my first recurring role in a series. A few months later, the lead in a film. I havent stopped working since.

 

2016 has been a breakthrough year for me, and the direct result of that hard work and focus. As I  write this now, I’m on a flight back from Chicago when I have been working on new FOX series APB, a few weeks ago I worked on my first 100 million dollar film with director Ava DuVernay, and in the new year I head to Europe to start filming a lead role in Cinemax/Sky series Strike Back. 

 

I’m not saying its that simple, there were a a lot of other factors involved, but from the experience I have had over the past few years and knowing just how competitive this industry is right now, it took that absolute focus for me to crack through.

 

If I can offer any advice from my time in LA –  Stay strong, learn from the rejections. Its not personal. Work on the weaknesses that may hold you back. There are so many things out of your control in booking a job, you MUST master the ones that are IN your control. Character, Accent, Physicality, Emotional Accessability, Imagination, all the way through to having the right visa! Its the most competitive time in TV history right now, so you have to work harder than ever before to achieve what your goals. Also, it may not be when you are expecting it, but hard work NEVER goes unrewarded.

 

Big thanks Caryn, and all the best to you and your students for the holidays.

Wishing you a  successful & prosperous 2017!

Dan MacPherson”

Caryn West is an veteran acting teacher, director and coach who auditions and acts. She has taught many gifted and well known actors both in LA and NYC and is the only teacher cited on both coasts by Backstage polls and one of the “BEST AUDITION COACHES”.  She has run Caryn’s Space for Actors since 1999 www.TheAuditionCoach.com  carynwest@mac.com   Facebook   @CarynWestSFA   West Hollywood / NYC

The post Actor Goals for 2017 : A Successful Actor’s Testimonial appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

It happens, even to this teacher!

And yet, they can still can say no.
I wasn’t rejected because I was not right, or not ready, or ill prepared, or did something goofy in the room that confused them. That kind of rejection I strive to avoid, because those are things I can be responsible for. But sometimes, yes, you just guess wrong, they simple having something else in mind or you get typed out quickly. Next.

After my first happy callback, the theater put me in a holding pattern for 7 weeks. I got repeated calls from the CD via my manager that the decision was around the corner. Then 4 days before rehearsals would start out of town and I would have to empty my NYC sublet on impossibly short notice to get there, they cast a “name” whose shooting schedule had cleared up. I learned: that my schedule and considerations matter too and I won’t ever wait to the 11 1/2th hour like that again. Book me in a timely manner or release me! I have a life to plan too. I had let go of my value allowing the waiting to go on far too long. Good lesson.

For DOUBT (at a wonderful theater and with director I have worked before to excellent effect and reviews) at the callback I was one of 5 actresses to read  for over 2 hours with 3 different actors.  Two big juicy scenes. The first footing, I was wedded to an idea in my head of how a confrontation scene sounded and I was not as present to the other actor as I could have been. The director also gave me a very smart adjustment to bring back with the next person I read with. I made sure to breathe more and stay in the moment. I saw their nods and she thanked me with “really good adjustment Caryn”. Eventually, the CD came upstairs to dismiss us and gave me a hug, and hugged the lovely actress sitting next to me who I know and admire. But I was hopeful leaving.

Yesterday, another NO: via email from my equally dashed manager relaying some kind words from the CD’s solicitous phone call to her. Turns out that lovely actress sitting next to me got it.

Well it hurts. I was on a business call when I saw my manager’s email pop up with the last bad news and I burst out crying. The business person on the phone had a daughter who wants to go into musical theater. Through tears, I said “Well, tell her after 37 years, pros still have days like this”. I have learned to grieve appropriately and not dismiss the feeling right away, or it will transmute into something blacker later. I give myself a little mourning period and shared my loss with some of my support system.

The lesson this time? Still not sure, but I have many days like this. We all do. My manager said she was going to look for the play again. The casting director made the effort to call my manager, laud the work I did and say I would see him again soon. So… this time at least I reminded my value to colleagues.

I do know there are no “next times” with any theater, director or casting person if you don’t give it your best, don’t move them in some way,  come from an authentic place or present with a fresh way of doing a role they did not expect. ( In fact, in NYC in May, I was cast in a staged reading in a new play as Mrs Charles Dickens. According to the playwright later, the role was really precast with a English friend but then I came in and they could not deny me the role.  So that time it worked.)  But in the best of weeks or months there are 10 to 30 “No”s by my estimate for every singular “Yes”.

But Success is not measured so much solely by the “Yes”, but by being called back again, and again, for something else by the same people!  Or, they may just like you because you are low maintenance as well as talented. And for being gracious when the cards don’t fall your way.

Its been tough this month for me, but I plan on thank you cards to those who brought me in. Gratitude. God has bigger plans for me. And today,  much of that mysterious plan got revealed too.

As a consoling friend reminded me yesterday while still in the dumps, “Something else big is coming, so don’t leave 5 minutes before the miracle.”

Keep preparing to your highest abilities, and showing up with both homework done and spontaneity! Cause we LOVE this, right?

Caryn West is an veteran acting teacher, director and coach who auditions and acts. She has taught many gifted and well known actors both in LA and NYC and is the only teacher cited on both coasts by Backstage polls and one of the “BEST AUDITION COACHES”. She has run Caryn’s Space for Actors since 1999.   www.TheAuditionCoach.com  carynwest@mac.com   Facebook   @CarynWestSFA   West Hollywood / NYC

The post Rejection-The lessons when they say “no” appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

With 36 professional seasons in the business, I cannot tell you how many times and seasons I have heard “it’s slow right now”.  That does not mean an actor must acquiesce to this recurrent refrain.

Activity breeds Activity: The business has many new evolving trends but has always been very cyclical. The proactive actor must prove the “slow” refrain wrong by staying active and ready, and which renews enthusiasm. So when the tide turns back your way, you can jump in with more glee and confidence.

Find a project, a play reading, take a class, make some contacts.  I myself enjoyed 3 SAG FOUNDATION VO Lab classes in the last week, found a terrific private voiceover coach in Sara Krieger and I have a callback for a play festival tomorrow ( thank you Judy Bowman). To stay fit, I am relearning tennis at all the cool venues around town. Who knew Grand Central had a top tennis court? or NYC Parks and Recreation are issuing summer court permits now.

The “Slow” Refrain never lasts:
Today,  I checked on the ever current and accurately updated www.CastingAbout.com ( fantastic company) and found and astonishing 25 pages of current projects in NYC alone for film, theater and episodic television. Don’t believe me?

March 30th 2016 Casting Landscape:
Here is a pdf of their  25 pages of NYC Projects Currently Casting.
Or access it yourself. They give a special one week free to my peeps at www.CastingAbout.com/CSFA

Don’t stagnate, Get busy! If you need to find out out how to get more info like this, or have your butt lovingly kicked into gear, come to one of our classes below!

The post “It’s Slow Right Now” appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.

Great Reminders from CSFA alum WENDY BRAUN!

Discover the two things focusing on fear will do + what might happen when you face your fear + triumph over it.

Source: Focusing On Fear Will Do Two Things

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Learn how Will Smith first aligned with his super-star status + how Wendy  aligned with him.

Source: Will Smith, The Power of Intention + Me

The post Will Smith, The Power of Intention + Me appeared first on Caryn's Space for Actors.