13254: Content: The More Personal, The More Universal

Raw transcript:

a bit of counterintuitiveness today. Um,
it it may surprise you to note that if
you want your auditions
to be more effective, to land better, to
be more potent,
to appeal to
uh a larger audience,
making it more personal, making it more
unique and specific to you might be a
path that you want to consider. We’ll
talk about that in this episode of the
VO Heroes podcast.
One of the mistakes that uh voice
actors, onstage actors, on camera
actors, writers can make when they are
crafting a character is to try to appeal
to the biggest number of people, the
widest audience possible by making their
approach more general. you know, I can
gather this part of the audience and
this part of the audience if I just add
this to it and that to it. And yet what
happens is
if you try to be everything to everyone,
you end up being less than you could be,
if you took another path. And here’s the
path that I urge you to take. And I want
to hand you a virtual permission slip
for this that you can put in your wallet
and refer to from time to time. One of
the things that we talk about in Vio
Heroes and in other things that I teach
is bringing you to the party. When
you’re doing an audition, you may see uh
an audition or request for a clip. There
may be a breakdown associated with it.
We were looking for this kind of person
with this kind of background with this
kind of approach with this kind of, you
know, sort of like uh aspects, right?
And you think to yourself, well, what
aspects do I have that are like that?
How about throwing that out
and for the first audition, for the
first take, just bringing you to the
party and then going and checking with
the breakdown to see if you hit all the
notes that they were looking for or most
of the notes that they were looking for.
Here’s the thing.
The more personal you make your
auditions, the more
authentic to you, not authentic to what
you think they want, but authentic to
you.
I kid you not, the more powerful it’s
going to be. The phrase is the more
personal narrow,
the more universal, oddly enough, the
more specific and personal you make your
auditions,
the more likely it is that the impact is
going to be greater. The authenticity is
huge, the the reality is huge, and it’s
so much easier to be you, right?
As long as what you’re doing serves the
story, but doesn’t necessarily hit all
the points in the breakdown, but it’s
you, it’s your authenticness.
Oh, the power in that is incredible. So,
if you’re approaching an audition and
they say they want a specific type, but
you’re not quite that type, that’s okay.
You be you, boo. You do you, boo. The
more personal, the more universal. You
will see it happen all the time. I can
tell you that with my audition for um
Eric Doyle on Heroes.
I took a risk. I’m like, I’m up against
these big huge actors. I got no chance
in hell of getting this. I’m just going
to be me and if it doesn’t work, it
doesn’t work. But if it does, great.
And I just like I just made it like all
all the all the things that had me
pissed off and and and frustrated and
and I just poured those into the
character who just wanted to be normal.
He was not normal. He was this he had
this set of things that was happening to
him that he couldn’t control but he
could control others. And that’s how all
this came out. But it was all about the
things that I was, you know, stressed
about and effed up about and and and not
necessarily what was in the breakdown.
And it just it happened to work. I’m not
saying it’s going to work all the time.
It’s going to work for everybody. But
the more personal you make it, the more
unique to you, the more you bring to the
party, the more you vulnerably share
with others about what’s what’s in your
heart, the more you make it about you,
the more powerful, universally powerful
it’s going to be.
I hope I hope I haven’t confused you,
but in fact have given you uh some
freedom when you approach your auditions
to do it your way. Yeah,
if this resonates with you or if you
have questions about it, let me know in
the comments below on vioheres.com.
That’s where we have the conversation.
Uh you can hit the like button, you can
subscribe to the channel, you can get
notified when a new episode comes out.
Feel free to share this with another
actor or voice talent or writer who
needs to hear and have the permission to
just be themselves to bring them to the
party. Share it with them. I’d love if
you’d do that. I’m David H. Lawrence the
17th. I thank you so much for watching
and for listening and I will see you in
the next episode of the Video Heroes
podcast.

(from YouTube)