Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Korean Film Festival Los Angeles offers opportunity for actors to meet casting directors. For free. How can you say no? I didn’t.

In conjunction with Backstage’s Actorfest, the film festival held a day of panels, workshops, and meet-and-greets with casting directors and Asian talent agencies. Most of those who received time slots -- two to three minute sessions -- with casting directors were newcomers to the entertainment industry. Indeed some, like high schooler Donna Kim, was just there to get auditioning experience and to see if acting was what she wanted to do. It was Isaac Huh’s first audition. Megan Kim brought her daughter, Jenny, to the event in full of support of her daughter’s interest in acting. She did, however, have reservations about the difficulties ahead for her daughter.

There wasn’t much information available to attendees before entering, about what was happening inside. I was the sixth one to arrive. Attending as an actor but also as press propelled me to be more aggressive than usual in finding out details. Yet when I entered the room, I still had no clue about what would occur. I entered the room as I usually do, with a boisterous, “Hello.”  I received dead stares. I stood at the other end of a long varnished conference table while the panel of casting professionals' eyes glazed over in silence. Finally I said, “So what are we doing here?” 

One piece of auditioning advice that has stuck with me is to take control of the audition. But not in an obnoxious manner. Another granule of wisdom: “the casting director is on your side.”

Somehow those two bits of guidance weren’t working for me that day. Julia Kim, a casting director who has worked on Wassup Rockers and My Bollywood Bride, took a negative tone in telling me to bring my headshots to her and then asking what I had prepared. I answered, “Name it, and I’ll do it.” She responded by saying curtly, “You’ve gotta be prepared.” After assuring her that I was prepared, I proceeded to do my monologue, and while it got some laughs, I couldn’t overcome the gloom that Kim cast from the outset.

From her standpoint, I could have been taken as arrogant and obnoxious -- which in my mind is fine because at least I had a personality. 

“It’s better to exhibit something than none at all.” 

I am not sure if I made up that nugget or picked it up somewhere.

Carolyn Do reported that it was awkward at the beginning of her session, but “then the magic happened.” James Choi only wanted to entertain them. John Lee put a trip to Korea on hold to participate in the event, and intently studied his monologue while he waited. After he was done, he said that he was given great feedback. A young man was in tears because he forgot his monologue. Another actor said he thought he was a handsome leading-man type until the casting directors told him he wasn’t. 

Dreams turned into nightmares for some actors, and some actors turned into nightmares for those on the other side of the table.

Thomas Lynch, after one of the panels, said that he learned to be “relaxed and himself” at auditions.

But what if that self is a personality they don’t like?