It can't be overstated how wonderful it is not to have to audition any more. Any actor will tell you it's like Christmas.
When I auditioned for 'Wedding Crashers ' the producers had never seen any of my other work except for Bond. I got 'Wedding Crashers' partly because I was a Bond girl.
I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers ' I don't have to audition anymore and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?
I played teen roles until high definition came out and I could never understand it. I would go in for adult roles and be older than many of the people auditioning but they'd cast the girl without a line on her face.
Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people I did not choose acting acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.
My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part.
I wasn't originally taking drama but the drama teacher asked me to audition for Bye Bye Birdie. I did and got the lead role. Initially I was kind of scared but once I did it I got bitten by the bug and loved it.
I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.
I have hair that I audition with my sitcom hair which is a curly wig. I have my long chic hair that I wear to my son's school so they know I'm not playing around. I always tell people that my husband gets a different woman every night when I come home from 'The View.' Hair makes you feel a certain way like putting a power suit on.
I always always meant to be on stage. I only ended up even auditioning for television and movies because I was understudying a Turgenev play on Broadway and was so broke that when I got a mini-series I had to take it and was so ashamed because I was such a snob.
You have to read scripts and audition and develop relationships. It takes a long time to develop a body of work but over the last 25 years I guess I've done that many movies. In hindsight it may seem effortless but there's a lot of work that goes into it.
When I was seven I asked my mom if I could be on TV and she said if I really wanted to I could. I got an agent and booked my first audition.
When I was going on auditions it was nerve-racking. I'd always say to my mom that it would be awesome if I could get a series. When Modern Family came along I said 'You know what Mom? I believe I'm going to get this role.'
When I was six years old my friend was auditioning for 'Annie ' and I decided I wanted to audition with her. My mom was worried I would fall flat on my face because I'd never opened my mouth to sing so she sent me to vocal lessons. I did the audition and fell in love with the entire process of a show.
I told my agents that I didn't want to go on the audition. But as that was happening I called my mom who has been watching the show from the beginning and my mom said 'It's the coolest show. You have to go.'
My mom thought I might be good for voiceover. She thought I had a cute voice so maybe I could do a cartoon or something. And while we were looking into that we also thought I should get into theater acting so I tried it and the first audition I went on I booked it. And it kind of just snowballed from there.
I didn't really know what I wanted to do and then I got this call from a casting director in Los Angeles. She remembered me from something years before and she called my mom wanting me to audition for this thing.
I auditioned on my own. I tried to make a mark for myself without anybody's help not even Mom's.
I had never picked up a basketball before. I went through a grueling audition process. It was almost as if I was learning to walk. It would be like teaching somebody to dance ballet for a role.
Every time you have to speak you are auditioning for leadership.
I never doubted that I would work and every time I went to an audition I went into the room with the knowledge that I was going to get the part. Ninety-nine times out of 100 I didn't.
After hundreds of auditions and nothing you're sitting home and wondering 'What am I doing?'
I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.
And as I grew older I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London and they said well no we won't accept you because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that.