Auditioning for Oliver Stone - Should an actor EVER turn down an audition?

FADE BACK IN:

As a weekend of household chores and family activities winds down, as the UT basketball team gets slam dunked by Memphis, Tommy tries to clear his head and finish his thoughts on the financial implications of auditioning at a distant site…

Is it EVER a good idea to turn down an audition?

Leaving ethical considerations aside for the moment, the answer is probably ‘no’. No matter the level of your experience, you learn something new on every audition. You have a chance to work at the craft of auditioning in a real world situation, you have the possibility of adding a professional credit to your resume, of generating income at your chosen profession and of possibly making a ‘fan’ of a casting director, director or producer.

Having said that I must confess that this is the second audition I’ve turned down in the past two weeks. So…you may want to take everything that follows with a large grain of salt.

Please make sure you’ve read the previous post “Auditioning for Oliver Stone - Economics and Acting”. This is Part II:

CUT TO:

Tommy, breaking this situation down to the numbers:

For you non-Texans, the Google map shows the driving route from my location in Round Rock, Texas to the audition location in Shreveport, Louisiana. Per Google Maps, the trip is 359 miles each way and should take approximately 5 hours and 33 minutes one way or 11 hours roundtrip.

I could leave my house about 5am and arrive at the location with a little time to spare to make the 11:15am audition. The cost would be approximately $150 for gas and food assuming $3.00/gallon for gas on average…which currently is too low a number …and a #5 at Burger King along the way.

Assuming a callback that would require an overnight stay in Shreveport, add another $100 minimum for food and lodging. That’s a hard cost of $250. Because I actually did make this trip once for another audition, I know that the total cost to me, including lost income from my ‘day job’ totaled approximately $900.

Just in case you’re wondering about the cost of air fare, the only flight I could find was on American and the total for the roundtrip fare was a bit over $1000.

We now know the expenditure necessary to make the audition, but what is the potential payoff? If things go like they usually do in these situations, the production company will expect the ‘local talent’, that is the non-L.A. actors, to work for scale + 10%. But wait, you say. I just moved here from L.A. and I have an established day rate. Good for you. Get ready to accept scale + 10% if you really want the job.

Scale, assuming the “W” project is being produced under the regular theatrical contract, is $759 for the day rate. Because the role I was asked to read for looks like only one day’s work, the total compensation, including the agent’s 10% would be $834.90. If the actor got lucky there might be some overtime involved.

By the way, even though the producer is paying the actor’s 10% agent’s fee, the actor is taxed on the total amount, including the agent’s fee. Thus the NET to the actor in this scenario is likely to be something around $600. If these assumptions are correct, the net in my case would be around ($300). That’s a negative $300.

So, from a strictly financial standpoint, this audition for a day player role doesn’t make good sense. Now…IF the part had some kind of juice to it…it might be worth taking the monetary loss. Would it add a great piece of film to the demo reel? Would it mean working with a director or actor with whom I’ve always dreamed of working? These might be considerations that would sway an actor into taking a job that doesn’t seem to make financial sense.

Bottom line seems to be this: If you’re a beginning actor and you’re looking to get on a set and get some credits on a thin resume, it might be worth taking the short term loss for the potential long term gain. If you’ve gotten into the acting game to practice your ‘art’ and doing a three line part for an Oliver Stone film about George W. Bush fills the bill, then knock yourself out and go for it.

For a more…cynical, err I mean seasoned actor, this doesn’t seem to be a situation worth pursuing. Now, If the role I was presented with had multiple scenes and had the potential of at least a week’s work, whether I was turned on by the role or not, I’d be headed down the interstate between Dallas and Shreveport right at this moment, looking forward to the opportunity of auditioning for Oliver Stone.

This has been a glimpse into life as a film actor in a regional market. Other actors might make a different decision based on their own criteria, their own expectations, desires and needs.

Now…it’s time for a cup of coffee…and a salute to those Austin actors on the road to Shreveport seizing the opportunity to read for Oliver Stone. To those actors I say: Drive safely. Read well. Break a leg.

FADE OUT