Strengthening Your Instincts at Audition Doctor
In an article for Ideastap, Caroline Leslie, Head of Acting at LAMDA, advised those auditioning to “really get inside the mind of your character – think about what they hide and show of themselves, and how they think other people think about them.”
“Choose a piece and a character that fascinates you. You can really tell when someone has chosen a piece that they connect to and auditions almost always work better if the actor has chosen something they love.”
At Audition Doctor, choosing the speech for you is a lengthy yet integral part of the process. Julie Walters has said “In a role, I’m mainly looking for truth and integrity. No matter what it is, even if it’s a comic cameo, there’s still got to be a truth behind it. And I’m not just looking at my character, I’m looking at the whole thing.”
Audition Doctor encourages you to pick roles that are challenging and beyond your reach, however, that will be fully grasped and inhabited by the end of the course of Audition Doctor sessions.
Walters went onto advise: “You want to know who that person is…so I will do my own rehearsals as if I were rehearsing with a director but on my own.” While the line-learning process is often done alone, many professional actors come to Audition Doctor because they desire a more collaborative rehearsal process. Rehearsing alone can be counter-productive if there is no one to tell you which of your interpretations works better and why.
Andrew Buchan recently advised actors when learning lines to “get it in your body, don’t just sit on the edge of your bed because they won’t go in, get it in your muscles.”
Many actors and drama school applicants come to Audition Doctor because they want to get a performance into their muscles, see it up on its feet in front of a professional and to also strengthen their ability to take and act on direction.
Walters said: “I don’t like being over-directed, some people feel that they need to be seen to be directing…All you have is your instincts and they can be interfered with sometimes rather than nurtured and then you begin to doubt them.”
Audition Doctor’s popularity relies on the fact that Tilly only ever strengthens your instincts and simultaneously coaches you to harness any nerves into a truthfully sustained performance.
Audition Doctor sessions, however, are not for those who are unwilling to take risks. In the same interview as Walters, Tamsin Greig urged young actors “to be more brave about failing”.
It is in this willing to not be perfect and to dare to expose her vulnerabilities that Julie Walters has featured in an article entitled “Julie Walters – a heroic talent” in which it says: “She disappears into her characters and gives them hearts so loud you can hear them beating.”
Audition Doctor students have found that sessions have pushed them to do the same and have made them braver and more astute actors as a result.
