Next! To be an actor requires nerves of steel
Want to understand how the big stars of the entertainment world are not the same as you and me? Enter the word “audition” in the search box of YouTube. Here you might find Will Ferrell’s audition for Saturday Night Live, the break every young comic in America prays for. When Ferrell got his chance, he played a businessman who lay on his office floor and pretended to be a cat. This was a high-wire performance, particularly since the audience at the time consisted of two technicians and the producer, none of whom laughed. Auditioning takes nerve most of us will never be called upon to display.
The grand unfairness that is showbiz is here in full effect: Paul Newman and James Dean auditioning for East of Eden in 1954; a 1965 clip of two guys who ended up in the Monkees lining up with two guys who didn’t; Francis Ford Coppola’s home taping of the then unknown Al Pacino in 1970, made to persuade the studio that Robert Redford shouldn’t play Michael Corleone in The Godfather; and the nine-year old Henry Thomas emoting so hard for the role of Elliott in ET that Steven Spielberg, off-camera, says, “OK, kid, you got the part”.
Nowadays you no longer have to go anywhere to audition. The smartphone has transformed auditions, much as it has transformed every other area of the business, by placing in the pocket of every would-be actor a camera good enough to “self-tape” something that can be sent to a casting director. Tom Holland’s was one of 7,500 such tapes that were viewed by the casting people looking for a new Spider-Man. At the same time technology has flattened national boundaries, making it possible for Millie Bobby Brown to persuade the producers of Stranger Things in an online audition that she was as American as they were.
In due course all these auditions find their way on to the internet, providing the rest of us with innocent entertainment. That and a reminder that although it’s never been easier to get an audition it’s never been harder to get the part.
See David’s pick of the week, Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson, top left opposite page