Feeling Empty? How to Find The Joy To Audition (And Yourself) Again

By: Eddie Ramos | April 1, 2022 3:15 AM

Have you struggled to find the joy to audition at times? Auditioning can be a tedious process that leaves many actors feeling dejected and helpless. I have certainly felt this way many times in my career and went through a particularly tough time recently. I tried to figure it out alone but it was actually my girlfriend who helped me get out of my funk. She said you have to “do it for you.” Let me try to explain what she meant.

Why Auditions Can Leave You Feeling Empty

➡️ You’re too focused on the results, not the journey

➡️ You’ve made booking the job define your self-worth

➡️ Your auditions have become stale because you’re trying to figure out what they “want”

➡️ You need a moment to rest and reevaluate

It started a few weeks ago—I was coming off a really stressful week and was experiencing long periods of emptiness and lack of motivation. That week I had five back-to-back auditions, two callbacks, multiple coaching clients, and I was being harassed online. Admittedly, it felt like a lot to handle at once. To make matters worse the callbacks didn’t go my way and I wanted just wanted to call it quits.

Read More: Words Of Advice: 5 Famous Actors On Going In Multiple Times And Not Booking The Audition

I kept asking myself what I did wrong and what I could have done better? I was overanalyzing my callbacks days after. I was unsatisfied with the results of the week and ashamed I had wasted all those perfect opportunities. Opportunities to make money, to get back to where I was once, to feel important… to even like myself again? All these thoughts came up when my girlfriend pressed me to dig deep one night. She’s an actress too, who reminded me that we’ve all been there. Dejected. Tired. Helpless. Overthinking everything. Then she shared a story that changed my entire outlook on auditioning. Here’s what she said.

”Can You Pass The Butter?”

There once was this actor whose line in a play was “Can you pass the butter?” One night he goes on stage and says to his cast-mate, “Can you pass the butter?” As soon as the words leave his mouth the audience bursts out into laughter which confuses the actor because he hadn’t intended for it to be a funny line. The next night he repeats his line again “Can you pass the butter?” and again the audience can’t contain their laughter. He looks out dumbfounded as to why they keep laughing. The third-night same thing happens. He goes out the fourth night and this time the audience lifts from their seats with raucous laughter. The actor goes backstage cheering and high-fiving his castmates. On the fifth night, the actor delivers his line “Can you pass the butter?” and nothing. The audience doesn’t laugh. He’s shocked but continues on. The following night the actor goes on stage and delivers his line again “Can you pass the butter?” But again the audience is dead silent. After the play is over the actor rushes backstage fuming and asks one of his castmates why the audience isn’t laughing anymore to which the castmate says, “It’s because you’re asking for the laugh and not the butter.”

Moral of the story: Don’t ask for the job, do it for you. ⭐️

Finding The Joy In Auditioning Again

🎯 Define why it is you want to be an actor

🎯 Don’t audition to book the role, do it because you love to act

🎯 When you find yourself dreading an audition stop and ask yourself why that is

🎯 Associate positive things with auditioning, treat yourself to something nice right after

After my girlfriend reminded me of this story something immediately clicked. Since January I’ve been experimenting with going out on every audition I get. I used to be much more judicious with my audition process, but this year thought I would switch up my process and say yes to everything. My basic thinking was the more swings I take, the more chances of hitting a home run. What started as a new goal for growth and experimentation morphed into an obsession to reach a finish line, in other words “book a job” so I could prove my hypothesis right. And this hell week really proved how far I was straying away from joy.

In order to continue my personal mission, I was going to have to get personal with my auditions again. It’s been two weeks since I had this paradigm shift and I can say this is what was missing from my auditions. Although I haven’t booked anything yet, I’m confident something is coming and more importantly I feel good about myself and looking forward to every audition I get now.

Have you found yourself dragging your feet to do an auction or feeling unmotivated to act? Share your experience below! For more articles like this follow The Modern Actor blog and check out our latest product here.

Start your free InboxHollywood trial

👉 Get business prospects and email addresses

👉 Optimize email productivity for actors

👉 Save email templates for future use

👉 Identify time-sensitive data