Body and Soul

I taped ten auditions this week. Some were voiceover, some were on-camera, and one was in my underwear.

In the commercial, a wife and husband stand on their new neighbors' porch, ready to make first contact. But there's a twist: they're naked. They wait, pie in hand, until the neighbor opens the door. "You drink it naked too?" the neighbor asks. Confused, the husband replies, "No...we're nudists. Pie?" The wife holds out her pie and the neighbor, disgusted, slams the door.

Now, you'd think taping an audition in your underwear would be difficult. You might picture the casting associates giggling at your love handles or squinting at that weird mark on your left shoulder as you do the requested slow 360 turn. Is that a keloid? they might wonder. But you'd be wrong. I've done it a few times. Skin isn't the scary part. Truth is.

Anyone can get naked. Drop your pants, hit record, and you're on OnlyFans. But it takes guts to reveal a real part of yourself to someone else. If you show your body and someone hates it, it stings. But bare your soul and watch someone cringe? It makes you want to erase yourself. Think of how uncomfortable it feels to say "I love you" the first time. Even writing that sentence makes me wince. But that's the stuff that matters. That's what makes people feel.

Wiff and I recently saw Nicole Henry at Birdland. After she finished Miss Otis Regrets, she wiped a tear from her eye, and said, "Sorry. Sometimes you don't know how these songs are going to hit you when you're singing them. Sorry." It's an emotional song and she brought emotion to the performance. But why does vulnerability feel like a faux pas, even when it improves the performance?

The next day I had a voiceover audition and thought I'd take a risk. What if I got vulnerable? In the audition, the character reminisces about a recent breakup. The direction was to play it as if he was reading a journal entry aloud. So I conjured up a few tasteful man-tears.

As I edited the audition I thought about removing those little cry breaths—you know, the kind that really sell it—but decided to risk it. I was nervous. My cursor hovered over the submit button. What if they rolled their eyes? What if they forwarded it to their friends and said, "Get a load of Daniel Day Lewis here." Or worse, what if they never asked me to audition again? I clicked the button and closed my laptop.

But you know what happened?

I didn't get the part.

And that's okay. 

Because the point of vulnerability isn't to guarantee a booking, or love, or anything. It's to take the first step toward making a connection. It's showing up at someone's door, offering pie, hoping they don't slam it shut.