Age Range and Auditioning

Every actor has a range of what they can play on camera. Some actors are 30 but can still pull off going for a 22 year old, others are 30 reading for 40, it varies. I've even played an 8 year old boy.......
Ha! In voice over of course. ;)

The roles I go for are anywhere from 16 to 25. That's not to say I can pull it off all the time but that's generally the age range I read for. I used to get super frustrated when I was 16 or 17 and the roles that I really wanted were going to 25 year olds, even though the characters were MY real age. I was tired of playing 14 year olds at 18 and even though I looked (and still do) young for my age (I'm 92 in real life... I like to think I look pretty good for my age) I didn't want to be playing the "little girl" anymore. In my experience, most 14 year olds were just boring, naive characters with very little depth or story line. The first character(s) I played that were even remotely challenging was Amy in The Screwfly Solution followed by Jesse in Phantom Racer These girls were both 15 but despite their age they were not the stereotypical teenage girl I'd usually audition for. Amy was a brat, Jesse was rebellious and there was a ton of stunt work and physical scenes I had to do for Phantom so that was fun for me.

I went through an awkward stage for a while where I was too old looking to read for 14 year olds but too young looking to read for 20 year olds. Yesterday, I had an audition for a 23 year old and later that afternoon I had one for a 17 year old. It's kind of bizaare that you have to read for two completely different types of girls in the same day. Now, I'm horrible when it comes to giving advice on how you prepare yourself for these kinds of situations but I guess you could say it's all about your mentality and how the words sound coming off paper. For me, it's more challenging to act younger than my age. I often fear that if I try to play too young my acting will be horrific and I'll be mad and so on and so forth. I try to avoid those types of situations and stick with what is most comfortable for me.

Write me your questions! I'd love to hear ideas of what else to write about. I kind of run out of things to think of to blog about and as I mentioned in my first post please share your questions/comments/ideas and I'll write about them.

over and out,
B