Welcome back!
And thanks for reading! If you’re an actor, you know very well what rejection feels like. The question is, how do you handle rejection? A better question is: IS it really rejection? This week let’s talk about rejection and how to handle it.
REMEMBER:
Just a reminder here that when I use the term “actor” I mean it to encompass all forms of acting including voice, stage, and screen. Yeah, I know I say this every week, but it falls under the heading of “The things that go without saying are the things that most need to be said”. What follows applies relatively equally to all of these forms of acting.
Job Hunting
Acting is one of the only jobs you can have where you are constantly looking for work. Most people spend some time trying to find a job and then when they find one, they work at it for at least a few years (normally) before having to find another. And most of the time they are looking while working so it is relatively stress free. Most of the time. As an actor, finding a job typically means being employed for days or maybe weeks before you are looking for another job. Very few actors get long term roles that last for years.
What is Rejection?
I like to turn to my favorite resource to answer questions like this: The Dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster – my go-to dictionary – here is the definition of rejection:
- a : the action of rejecting : the state of being rejected
b: an immune response in which foreign tissue (as of a skin graft or transplanted organ) is attacked by immune system components of the recipient organism
- : something rejected
Not really much help when they use the word they are defining to define that word. I guess they expect everyone to already know what it means. Let’s turn to the Cambridge Dictionary:
the act of refusing to accept, use, or believe someone or something:
There we go! For an actor, it is the “refusing to accept” part we’ll be focusing on.
Rejection
We’ve all experienced rejection from time to time in searching for work. You just don’t get every job you apply for. It’s normal, but it can still suck. For most people, that form of rejection occurs every few years and then there is a long break. For actors? Rejection occurs almost daily. And not just once for each job. For an actor, each job provides three opportunities to be rejected, each one slightly worse than the last.
Submission
The first step in applying for any acting job is the submission. This is where you see a role you think you may be a fit for and you submit your “materials”. Your materials are head shots, resumes and acting reels (for VO it’s usually just a voice reel). Casting takes a look (or listen) to your materials and then decides if you really could be a good fit for the role. This step is by far the easiest rejection to take because you typically hear nothing back from submissions. Actors get used to this level of rejection very quickly in their career and just move on to submit to other roles. We submit for multiple roles every day.
Audition
Then, it happens. One of your submissions hits and you get the much sought after request for an audition. You pour yourself into preparing for the audition, studying the script, figuring out the “who, what, where” of the scene, the tone of scene and who your character is. Then you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the dialog and actions in the scene, memorize your lines and put on some clothes that suggests the character. You find a reader (if you need one) and head to whatever studio setup you have, record 2-3 takes (honestly, don’t drive yourself nuts doing 10 takes). Then it’s off to your computer to pick the best take, edit it, make sure sound and lighting are good and send the audition off to casting.
Crickets
Even after all the work of preparing for, recording, and editing your audition, crickets is usually what you hear back from casting. Honestly, not even crickets. Silence. The most likely outcome of sending an audition is: Nothing. This rejection is much harder to take. You worked hard, did all the prep, rehearsed the scene, and gave your best performance. And then not even a “Thank you for your time, we are going another way”. It can be discouraging.
Call Back
And then it happens – you get a call back! Of course, a call back means they liked your audition and are considering you for the role. This is a very exciting time for an actor because it means you might get cast! YEA! So, you take another look at the scene, rehearse a little more and then make yourself available to meet with the casting team and perhaps the director or producer of the project, either in-person or more likely these days virtually. It can be nerve wracking and anxiety producing. I mean, you might actually get a job! Then, the call back meeting lasts about ten minutes, and you are done. It’s kind of anti-climactic.
More Crickets
Yep, the usual result is even more crickets after the call back. Sometimes they may ask about availability (this is a good sign!) or even “pin” you (an even better sign) for the day or days you’d be working. At least if they pin you when they decide to go with another actor, they’ll tell you they are releasing you, so you know for sure you didn’t get it. This is the hardest rejection to take since you had high expectations of getting the role.
But….
There’s always a but, right!? AS bad as it can feel to be rejected, the thing is these are NOT rejections. Yes, they can feel like rejection, but there is a much better way to look at casting when you don’t get the role. It may even make not getting cast feel less like a rejection.
Selection
Casting is a process of selection, NOT rejection. The first thing to understand is that, for a given project/role, there are dozens, if not hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of submissions. Casting has a tough job to sort through them all to find the perfect actor for the role. What they are not doing is looking for people to exclude, they are looking for people to INclude. Actors are being selected, not rejected.
The Menu Analogy
Let’s say you decide to go out to dinner at your favorite restaurant (the project). You sit down and the waiter brings you a menu (submissions). Even though you may be familiar with the menu offerings you peruse the menu deciding what to have for dinner. You are leaning toward either a steak or roast chicken, so you ignore the pork, fish, pasta, and salads. Finally, you decide on the chicken and that’s what you order. Enjoy your meal. Have you rejected pork, fish, pasta, salad, and steak? Not at all, you may order one of those next time.
You’re The Menu Item!
When you submit to a role, you become one of many menu items to choose from. Casting looks through all the menu items and selects several they might be interested in then considers only those (audition) they narrow it down to just one or two choices (callback) and eventually decide on just one to order (cast). Just like you don’t always feel like pork or fish or pasta, not every actor (no matter how talented) is right for every role. They were not rejected; they just weren’t selected.
It has nothing to do with…
Their selection of someone else has nothing to do with how talented you are as an actor. Does eating chicken mean steak or pasta are terrible? NO! They just weren’t the right selection for that day. There are SO many reasons a person may or may not be selected that have nothing to do with their talent. How tall are they? Hair color? Eye color? Accent? Body type? Availability? All of these (and many more) are reasons a given actor may not be selected for a role, even when they absolutely nail the audition. They just don’t fit for some reason.
Remember
If you’ve been asked to audition, you were selected. If you’ve been invited to a call back, you were selected. If you’ve been pinned (even if later released) you’ve been selected. And, of course, if you’ve been offered the role you were selected. By the time you get a role, you’ve been selected numerous times! So, rejoice in getting the audition and give them the most attractive menu item you can be, then celebrate the actor who was selected for the role, one day it will be you!