Trust Your Casting

Let me paint a picture for you…

It’s the end of the third week of rehearsals. You have just finished the first full run of the play. You step off stage and begin to weep. Through the tears streaming down your face you catch a glimpse of the director; She’s frantically scribbling notes in her terrifying little black book. The other cast members are quietly taking their places in the semi circle of death. You want to run. You want to scream. You want to buy a one way ticket to Mexico and erase all memories of the theatre with fish tacos and margaritas.

But you don’t – because you trust your casting.

Whether it’s week three of rehearsals, day one of a shoot, or a fifteen minute ADR session, it’s normal to doubt your casting.

Overcoming that doubt is the important thing. Here are my tips on trusting your casting:

It’s not your job.

The best way to begin to trust your casting is to realise that casting isn’t your job. The process of casting is complex. It begins with the imagination of the key creatives and ends in the nitty-gritty business of agents, producers and financiers. There are many people involved in casting but you are not one of them.

Once you have won a role, your job is to act. Full stop. .

Look around

One of the reasons we start to feel self conscious in a role is that we are surrounded by strong performances. That makes sense. If you are watching a scene from the wings it’s hard to imagine your work is equally as engaging. But 99% of the time it will be. The quality of the performances around you should give you confidence. Trust your casting. Look around and know that you are an equal in a company of exceptional actors.

It’s too late

Guilt is worthless in the context of casting. It’s too late for the role to be re-cast, so stop worrying about it. Feeling guilty for ruining a production is more likely to ruin a production than anything else. So next time you lose faith in your performance, remember it’s too late. Pull yourself up by your character’s bootstraps and get on with it!