Actors, Let’s Talk About Breakdowns
Be honest.
Do audition breakdowns cause you to break down?
Casting breakdowns used to make me crazy.
Do I pay attention to every single detail?
Should I ignore them?
It seemed like no matter what I did, I was wrong.
If I stuck too closely to the breakdown, I found myself indicating at something outside of myself. And every waiting room would be full of people who looked exactly like the breakdown.
But when I ignored it and brought myself entirely, I could tell that I was missing some big piece of the puzzle.
Occasionally it would work out, but more often than not I’d miss out on the callback and kick myself for my out-of-the-box choices.
So what are we supposed to do with them?
Let’s take a look at a real breakdown for a soap that came across my desk a few months back.
[JULIE] 28 to 32 years old. She is a beautiful and dynamic woman. She is driven and successful. She also has a huge, open heart, and occasionally can be stubborn. This is an ONGOING RECURRING ROLE.
Seems straightforward, right?
But the sides that came with the breakdown read the total opposite!
In the scene, Julie asks her longtime boyfriend Henry about moving in together. He had brought it up sometime back but never brought it up again.
On the second page, the stage direction reads “Her vulnerability coming out” as she expresses how terrified she is of moving in because of her parents divorce. By the end she’s asking if Henry would even be comfortable letting her have keys to the apartment.
My client and I agreed: none of this reads dynamic, driven, successful, or stubborn! In fact, it reads the opposite - passive and weepy.
But here’s the trick… they were dummy sides.
Dummy sides mean they were made up for the audition. Meaning Julie isn’t actually going to do that scene.
So making your choices based on the dialogue… is a trap.
For that audition, the key was filtering that scene through the lens of a stubborn, successful point of view.
Bringing up moving in together became playful and flirtatious.
When the script called for vulnerabilty, the actress allowed vulnerability but also let Julie be annoyed that it was happening at all, and play against it.
When she brought up something as simple as having keys to the apartment - kind of inherent to moving in together - it was facetious and poking.
By the end of our session, Julie had gone from passive and weepy to dynamic and driven.
So that’s it, just play the breakdown and ignore the sides?
Not so fast.
Here’s another breakdown from a similar show:
[SAWYER] 18-25 years old, all ethnicities, male. He is handsome and sexy. He is charismatic, confident and dynamic. THIS IS A SERIES REGULAR ROLE.
If we’re meant to play the breakdown, then all we need is a confident male model because there is nothing else here.
Besides, words like handsome and charismatic aren’t playable. And if someone tried to do it that way, it would play like if Zoolander were auditioning for the role.
So what the f#ck are we supposed to do?
To start, remember that the breakdown was written by casting (not the writer!) and they didn’t write it for us actors.
Nope, they wrote it for your reps so they know who to submit from their roster!
If you were asked to self-tape for a role, casting already agrees that you fit the breakdown or they know you’re an outside the box choice.
So playing the breakdown would just be indicating at things you inherently are or never were.
That means there are times to play the breakdown, and times to let them go and trust that bringing ourselves is enough.
I think it works like this:
For anything with dummy sides, play the breakdown.
For co-stars, meaning very few lines and a role that is more about function than an emotional arc (e.g. Cop #2), play the breakdown.
For Guest Stars and Series Regs, be very skeptical of playing the breakdown. With roles in these categories, the breakdowns usually summarizes the character’s plot and actions in the episode. If you play these, there won’t be any depth and your audition will play like everyone else’s.
Instead, read the script, write out your given circumstances, and see what parts of you that activates and lead with that. Then you’ll answer who the role becomes because you’re the one playing it, which is the whole point of most auditions anyway.
I hope this relieves some stress and makes your process simpler. When work is simple and clear, the bookings follow.
Your Coach,
Brian Norris
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