Quotes About Auditions

#1. I'd say 80 percent of my auditions go very horribly.

Adam Pally

#2. I've had some rank auditions where I embarrassed myself to new heights, which is hard for me to do. I was never good at auditioning. There are a number of actors over the years come up the ranks who are horrific at auditioning.

Johnny Depp

#3. I wouldn't have made it past the first round of American Idol auditions. It was months before our first song was recorded. The guys were like, 'Just seeng!' And I was like, 'I don't know how to seeng! Can't I just play the triangle?'

Malin Akerman

#4. I am now determined to do really weird parts but I think I overdo it in auditions so nobody really trusts me!

Robert Pattinson

#5. I've had so many bad auditions! I tell people all the time, there's differences, what makes an audition good or what makes an audition bad. Sometimes you're just off, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

Jessie Usher

#6. I remind myself: I am the best. I have the best. And I deserve the best. This is one of my personal mantras that I tell myself every morning before auditions, character work, and performances.

Allison Holker

#7. A lot of auditions are not fun; they're just a necessary evil, and, if you're lucky, you have a few moments that are fun.

Kristen Connolly

#8. I have a theory ... Theatre actors are better at auditions than film actors.

Shaun Sipos

#9. I used to wear sweats and a T-shirt to auditions, but my agent would yell at me and tell me I had to look nice and presentable. So I had to drop that habit.

Kellan Lutz

#10. When I was younger, my dad was making a music video for a band in Montreal. I was goofing around and being a ham. An agent was there and she was telling me, 'Hey, do you think you'd want to go out on auditions?' I was like, 'Yeah, what's an audition? Sure, I'll do it.'

Vanessa Lengies

#11. Auditions are just torture. I'm trying to get better at it. It's a very difficult thing to do. You go into a tiny room with a camera with somebody who is doing this with 100 other people, and they're so bored, and then you have to be like, 'Hey! I'm gonna show you what I got!'

Kurt Braunohler

#12. I went on a few auditions for Broadway musicals, and never stopped taking classes, but I didn't take it seriously until I was out of college.

Brendan Dooling

#13. One of the first auditions I had in New York was for a commercial where I had to go in and audition to be a snake charmer ... It was either some bank commercial or something where they wanted a guy charming a snake ... I remember they wanted to know if I actually knew how to snake charm.

Aasif Mandvi

#14. Acting is something I'm interested in, and I'll keep going to auditions, but modelling is my main job.

Suki Waterhouse

#15. As an actor, when you go for auditions, there are certain roles that come along and you think, 'I really want that one,' and Prince Arthur was definitely one of those.

Bradley James

#16. I got started acting by going to auditions that my mom found in the entertainment section of our local news paper. Then, I got a manager and started going out on more auditions.

Tyler James Williams

#17. I'm really bad at tests of any kind, so I'm bad at auditions. I consider myself educated most of the time, but when I'm under the gun, I just fail.

Brady Corbet

#18. I did work hard at auditions, and three years at RADA isn't like a walk in the park. And then it takes a lot of sacrifices, giving certain things up in order to audition, in order to do a play, whatever it may be.

Andrew Buchan

#19. I went to a few really bad commercial auditions because I needed the money, and when you booked a commercial, your life was made: you could eat.

Elizabeth Banks

#20. I used to go in for Disney auditions, and they'd tell me, 'You're cute and nice but just not funny.'

Gattlin Griffith

#21. My auditions for drama school were miserable, but one thing I had on my side, although I had no experience or skill or training, was that I wanted to learn everything.

Rupert Friend

#22. I got to L.A., and they said I had to lose weight, let my hair grow and buy some dresses. I was nailing auditions with my readings, but they wouldn't hire me because I wasn't putting on the glam. It just didn't occur to me.

Kim Cattrall

#23. Oh, yeah, I'm a smoker now.
Well, I'm not, but when Ruby said she was, I just went with it. It was something for us to bond over. Plus, I knew most of the people at the auditions smoked, so it seemed like the thing to do. Also, my mother would have hated it.
All good reasons to take it up.

Leisa Rayven

#24. The stakes are so high because auditions are make or break. You get the job or you don't. The stakes are about as high as they get, for yourself and your own self-esteem.

Madeline Zima

#25. People think that I can just walk into a room and get a job, but of the 200 interviews and auditions I go through a year, I may get three yeses. I just have to use my sense of humour to get me through.

Oona Chaplin

#26. In North Carolina nobody bothers us; we're all about concentrating on the work or our auditions that we're trying to get a flight out for. So all that crap is not something that I'm confronted with on a daily basis.

Katie Holmes

#27. I never pursued acting with, like, auditions. If anything, I was given roles by people who knew me and liked what I did.

H. Jon Benjamin

#28. My first film, 'Vanishing on 7th Street,' I really just kinda went in for it. Just gave it my all at the auditions.

Jacob Latimore

#29. Instead of being on teams at school, I was preparing for auditions.

Shawn Ashmore

#30. I love the acting process. What I don't like is what's around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox.

Julie Delpy

#31. In general, the auditions I go up for are very sparse, I guess because of my ethnicity. And the characters are very similar: shy, innocent and naive; the connotations that come from the way that I look.

Katie Leung

#32. I know what it's like to audition, so it's important that everybody who auditions, even if I know right off they're not right for it, has a good experience. So I'll never just have someone do one pass at it and say "Thank you".

John Cameron Mitchell

#33. I went to the University/Resident Theatre Association auditions. Deans come and watch you in this theater. You have three minutes, and you have to do two contrasting monologues - at that time, this is 2003 - one classical and one contemporary.

Kunal Nayyar

#34. I used to beg for auditions. Now, they're being thrown at me.

Alex Meraz

#35. I have to go through auditions, and my surname has got me into rooms, but I'll never know if it gets me any jobs. There's a lot of sexism and objectification, and a lot of people put you down.

Oona Chaplin

#36. I went for endless auditions for tiny parts in obscure plays, and never got one job until I was in 'Four Weddings'.

Anna Chancellor

#37. With 'Carrie,' I did, like, seven auditions. I'd never done a movie, so they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to ruin it. I don't blame them.

Ansel Elgort

#38. I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition.

Michelle Rodriguez

#39. I didn't have big movie offers, or any big agents wanting to work with me. I had to go grassroots, start at the bottom and go on 150 auditions before someone finally gave me a shot.

Donnie Wahlberg

#40. Well I started studying to help me with these commercial auditions and I just loved it.

Sela Ward

#41. My mum was no pushy parent. She would drop me off for auditions when I was in my teens at the Lyric Theatre, then give me my bus fare and say she would see me later at home. She wasn't hanging around in the wings geeing me on. I had to do it on my own; it was up to me.

Rachel Tucker

#42. Auditions are an opportunity to play and go in there and bring the character to life. The writers have it stuck in their head and haven't seen it jump off the page.

Jodie Sweetin

#43. Paul Haggis, who's now a big movie guy, cast me as a lawyer in 'Family Law.' When that series ended, I thought that I would be going on more auditions and booking more jobs, but everything just came to a screeching halt.

Meredith Eaton

#44. My oldest step-son wants to direct or produce. As far as being an actor, I've already told them they have to wait until they're 18; I won't take them to auditions.

Elizabeth Perkins

#45. One year you go in for auditions, and everybody thinks you're the queen of comedy, and the next year, you're so 'yesterday,' and it's not because you've done anything, or your ability has changed; you haven't been in work because you've been putting on weight and then trying to lose it.

Sally Phillips

#46. I was 20 when I moved to Los Angeles. I went on probably 600 commercial auditions and couldn't book any of them.

Dax Shepard

#47. I'm always nervous doing auditions - to be honest, I hate it. I always envy the actors who are so cool and cold-blooded when they go in for an audition, especially if it's for a part that you would really love to play.

Daniel Bruhl

#48. I was really awful at auditions. There's something about sitting down and saying into the camera: 'I'm Nina and this is the name of my agent.' That makes me just die inside.

Nina Conti

#49. I knew the story of 'War Horse' very well. I had read the book even before I did the auditions. I'm a big fan of Michael Morpurgo.

Celine Buckens

#50. When I was five I thought auditions were a great way to get out of school!

Logan Lerman

#51. It's not every day people fly you to New York for auditions.

Samantha Bee

#52. You don't train for only the 100-meter dash and you don't practice only the excerpts. When I prepared for auditions, I spent most of my time each day on scales and exercises to be my best in basic musicianship, and only a half-hour or so on the actual excerpts I'd be playing.

Jim Rogers

#53. When you go to auditions, pretend you already have the job and you're just presenting - almost like you're at the table read. Don't go in with an air of, 'Please like me,' or, 'Please hire me.' You're like, 'Here's my take on it. Take it or leave it. I've got a lot of other things to do today.'

Mary Lynn Rajskub

#54. It's my motor, it's the thing that keeps me going and so when I have these auditions for these big movies, I can depend on myself because I've been working consistently.

Nia Long

#55. The nice thing is that, at least in Los Angeles, I'm known as a character actor and I do auditions for other things besides just cartoon shows.

Dan Castellaneta

#56. When I was 8, my dad asked me if I wanted to audition, just for fun. I did just a little short film, and I liked it. I just kept doing it, and then I started getting bigger auditions for bigger roles.

Kodi Smit-McPhee

#57. By the time I was 14, I was about six foot. I remember going into auditions, and they'd look at how tall I was and say, 'Well, you're taller than the lead actor, so there's no way we can cast you.'

Nicholas Hoult

#58. Well as I said in France I didn't get auditions, and it's very difficult to get an agent in France because they conduct the business in a strange way.

Berenice Marlohe

#59. Sony and Nickelodeon knew they wanted to create a TV show that was a platform for a band they would have for Sony. They knew what they wanted, and it took two years of auditions and screen tests and countless people coming in and out the door until they finally settled on the four of us.

James Maslow

#60. It's interesting - years ago, I had such bad stage fright during musical theater auditions that I just gave up. And now I'm on Broadway.

Tom Lenk

#61. When you go out on auditions for big movies, and you're not a big star, you get used to getting close but not getting the part.

Craig Sheffer

#62. Actors who say they don't watch TV are stupid. I was raised by TV! And it's how I research for auditions.

Rebecca Mader

#63. I don't really want to start my career again, and I don't like Hollywood. If it had happened to me when I was young, yes, I'd be there like a shot, but I wouldn't like to go there and hang out and go to auditions at my age.

Roger Lloyd-Pack

#64. Usually pilot season is very busy, and there are lots of auditions and lots of near misses and rejections. This year, I had two auditions, landed this role and it felt like being home again.

Melinda Clarke

#65. I was going on years and years of auditions and being told I was too this, too that, not enough of this, not enough of that, to the point where I was so afraid and diluting myself into absolutely nothing.

Naomi Watts

#66. Even when I was little and going on auditions, it was clear who was there because they wanted to be there, and who was there because their stage parents were making them be there. There was a major difference.

Wil Wheaton

#67. I came out here to do the acting, and then after a year of auditions and not getting anything, I met these Italian guys and they asked me to write lyrics for them. Then they said, "Why don't you just front the band?" I said, "Well, maybe because I can't sing. I've never sang before in my life."

Malin Akerman

#68. I'm theatrically trained. Before Vine, before any of the social media, I was an actor. I was going to auditions; I was taking the classes.

King Bach

#69. The iPad was my first splurge after I got my first paychecks. I paid off the debt, and I now bring the iPad with me to auditions.

Katie Leclerc

#70. I've been working as an actress and sort of struggling along for ten years, so I've been on a million auditions for a million things I haven't booked.

Allison Tolman

#71. After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.

Casey Affleck

#72. I always say to my wife, don't tell anyone I watch this [shows like The X Factor and Pop Idol], but it fascinates me because I've done so many auditions and been knocked back.

Michael Caine

#73. When I went to L.A., I started modeling, hoping to travel and learn from photographers. It led to auditions to do commercials.

Beth Riesgraf

#74. I grew up in Iowa, and the improv comedy club Comedy-Sportz across the river in Illinois held auditions. They took me even though I was only 16 - you really had to be 18, but they never checked me for ID.

Eric Christian Olsen

#75. I got some pilot scripts and auditioned for a couple other ones, too. It was just a standard audition, where I kept going in to read and went up the ladder, in terms of people who you're performing for during those auditions. Each step of the way, I was happy with that level of audition.

Tim Kang

#76. There's always very high tension with dance auditions! You're in a group, watching the people in the front of the room, hoping you'll get something, anything that will relieve a bit of the stress.

Sarah Hay

#77. I don't get a lot of choices in movies. It's not like I'm Brad Pitt and I can walk in and go 'here's the film I want to do' and everyone runs around. I don't have that. I stand in line and do auditions. I'm there with 80 other guys trying to be that guy. Every once in awhile I luck out.

Henry Rollins

#78. I've been doing American auditions for a while, and it always felt sort of like sending these audition tapes off into the ether. So just hearing anything back from anyone was kind of startling.

Xavier Samuel

#79. Auditions are hard. You should see what most of the women look like when I audition for things - they look like they should be on the catwalk.

Mayim Bialik

#80. I've been acting since second grade, and I just remember when I first moved to New York and I was living in Washington Heights with three other actors in this tiny apartment and busting my butt to get to the subway, walking to, like, five auditions in a day.

Anna Camp

#81. So many actors are lively-minded, creative people who just tread water in this awful way, waiting for the phone to ring and doing their hair for auditions. It feels like a bit of a dreamer's life - as opposed to a sensible ventriloquist's life.

Nina Conti

#82. I was modeling with an agency in New York and a manager with the agency introduced himself to me one day and he said he had auditions for someone my age. He asked if I would be interested in doing some.

Alexis Bledel

#83. If you're an English actor and turn up in America, they don't have an opinion about where you sit. They have no idea what auditions to send you to, so they send you to everything.

Eddie Redmayne

#84. It just so happens that when I was, like, 19 or 20, I got a couple of auditions and got a couple parts with good people. Of the thousands of auditions where you don't get the part, I've done a couple of jobs where you do it and you're like, "Okay, this is good."

Paul Dano

#85. Auditions are so much fun. A lot of people dread auditions; they think they have to do it in order to get the job. I don't really mind if I don't get the job, as long as I get to do something interesting in the audition. It makes me feel more creative as a person.

Chris Geere

#86. I prefer to discover new talent by holding open auditions.

Chika Anadu

#87. Most of the auditions I went on, I passed up the projects because I just wasn't interested. When I read A Knight's Tale, that was that. I knew I wanted to do this movie.

Shannyn Sossamon

#88. It's a guy thing, playing the guitar. Being a female and trying to go to the same auditions as the guys, it's pretty hard.

Orianthi

#89. After that I got an agent and went on like a million auditions. You win some, you lose some.

Kel Mitchell

#90. I'm down to act a little bit - go on a couple auditions or make one of those three-second cameos with one line.

Charlie Puth

#91. We chose the actors thru a series of auditions when we started the show.

Craig McCracken

#92. You aren't allowed to ask at auditions, legally, a person's race.

David Henry Hwang

#93. I am sincerely grateful to everyone who did not let me pass my auditions. If I had gotten in too easily, I wouldn't have worked as hard. Thanks to them, I've gained more strength and I've learned what it means to never give up.

IU

#94. I can record auditions from my office in my home.

Jason Marsden

#95. I have been reading scripts, going to auditions and looking for the right opportunities.

Kevin Richardson

#96. I'd been auditioning for parts for years. I never got any better at it. I'm crap at auditions. I know there are people who can walk into those rooms and make those lines sing on the page and get the job immediately. I wasn't one of them. I'm still not one of them.

Jamie Dornan

#97. I got into musical comedy because of Shakespeare, not because of singing. They needed someone to understudy Richard Burton. I was also going to musical auditions because the agent I had insisted I go to them.

John Cullum

#98. They were looking for actors - real actors - who could play instruments. There was a lot of improvisation and scene work involved in addition to the music. The auditions went on for a long time.

Micky Dolenz

#99. When I went to auditions, if I didn't know the lines, I wasn't getting the job. If I knew my lines, if I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I got the job. And it was always like that - if I'm working hard, I get the result that I'm looking for.

Shameik Moore

#100. I'm always polite in auditions, but I wasn't like, 'Oh, please give me the job,' for 'Robin Hood' because I didn't think I'd get it. I got told about the audition just a few days before I went to India to film something else. I must have been a bit cocky with it.

Jonas Armstrong