Stop doing self-tapes. Start auditioning.

Y’all, real talk. If we were in the room auditioning in front of a Casting Director, we’d get one take. Maybe two, if they wanted to see an adjustment. That’s it. You’d walk out with no chance to rewind or “fix” it.

Yet I constantly hear about actors spending hours on their self-tapes... restarting take after take after take.

And I get it. It’s an unfair time for actors to be growing their confidence. With cameras in every class and self-taping being such a huge part of the job, we’ve been conditioned to watch ourselves instantly, analyze, and then try to fix. But that’s not acting. That’s micromanaging.

The history of acting was never built that way. For generations, the process was simple: you try something, you get feedback, you make an adjustment, and you keep playing until it feels right.

Self-taping flipped that upside down. Instead of play → feedback → play, most actors are stuck in perform → judge → fix. And that’s where the hours get lost... you’re not building instincts, you’re burning yourself out.

Don’t sabotage your play with constant self-judgment.*

*: This is true for readers, too. If you’re reading for someone and stop them after a word was flubbed or after you thought they “messed up,” you are reinforcing cut and paste perfection over chaotic truth.

So here’s the shift: go in as an actor first. Trust your gut. Let yourself be alive, messy, surprising.

Only look back after it felt good in the room. (If even then.)

And when you do watch, don’t judge yourself as the actor... put on your director hat.

Ask: Which tools served me? Which didn’t? Where was I alive? Where does it not translate?

Then, back in front of the camera, trust the 99% of the tools that are working fine and lean into the feedback the “director” just gave you. That’s the cycle. Actor → Director → Actor.

And if you need a gut check, here’s one: if you’ve taped a single scene more than 5 times without it feeling good in the room, stop. Reset. If you haven’t found it by then, there’s something you missed. It won’t do any good to keep reaching for it. Go back to the source material (the text) and see what connective tissue isn’t there for you.

(For this reason, ALWAYS record on the first run through. This is possibly the last time you’ll truly hearing the text and figuring it out moment by moment.)

Casting doesn’t want perfect. They want truthful. The take that books is often the one where you stopped performing and just trusted yourself. The one where it wasn’t polished, it was alive.

Get back in the room. Do what you need to do to be prepared, walk in and crush, and then do it one more time if you need to.

Because that’s the art of auditioning.

-J