I grew up with my parents in the kitchen discussing the audition my dad had that day or moaning about something or other in the industry, so it was unglamourised and normalised for me from a very young age.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My parents were reluctant to let me start auditioning until I was at least a little bit emotionally stable - I'm still working on that! And so I started when I was fifteen, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of being able to focus my crazy teenage energy into something good.
When I was 8, my dad asked me if I wanted to audition, just for fun. I did just a little short film, and I liked it. I just kept doing it, and then I started getting bigger auditions for bigger roles.
When I was two and a half or three, my mom got a call from someone asking if wanted to go on an audition. I ended up getting the job; it was a commercial for Hasbro. It was my first audition and first commercial. I just had to smile and laugh and dance around.
I went on countless auditions. I begged my parents until I finally was allowed to be in a theatrical play when I was 13. It was the most important thing in my life.
I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the audition process, but there's something that really turned me off initially when I was younger, to auditioning. The idea that I couldn't get to the person that was actually making the film really frustrated me.
My mom had an audition for a commercial when I was about two and a half, and I ran in crying and interrupted her. They thought I was cute so they offered me a commercial role. My mom was skeptical and a bit nervous about the child actor thing, but I was extremely bossy and convinced them I wanted to try it.
My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible.
My strangest auditioning experience was when I was reading for a TV show, and right when I started the audition, the casting director left the room and yelled at me from the hallway to keep reading.
I grew up on movie sets, so it was something I just found familiar. When I was growing up also, in high school, I would audition for things and my parents let me audition for things - with the thought that I wouldn't get them. And then I would get them... sometimes, and it would surprise them.
There are several times when I walked into a room and just felt like such a sham. That's the problem with auditioning.