Expert: Phil Nemy - 9/16/2009

Question
I'm an 18 year old African Arabian about to start my first year in university (film and animation). I'm very passionate about acting and directing (animating too!) but sadly I have little experience in acting and I suffer from stage fright (but I get over it once I start). Is there anyway to prepare myself to start a career in something as competitive as acting? and how should I present myself to an audition?

Answer
Taiki,

Thanks for writing. To prepare yourself for a career in acting, which IS highly competitive, first you need training. You need to enroll in the best acting program you can afford. The better actor's training programs can be found in the UK and the USA. Then, if you still want a career as an actress in film and TV in the USA, you will need to move to Los Angeles as 95% of all casting for film and TV is done in Los Angeles.

If you are fortunate enough to be invited to audition, you don't really "present" yourself. You will be given instructions by the Casting Director about what, if anything, you should prepare for the audition. Sometimes you are asked to do a "cold reading" which means you will not be given anything to prepare, but instead, you will be given a scene to read when you show up to the audition. You will be given about 5 minutes to work on the scene by yourself, becoming familiar with the character and what the scene is about. Then you will be asked to play that character and do that scene. Cold Readings are meant to see how quickly and accurately an actor can make committed choices for a character in a scene that they don't know much about.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Phil