Stephen Tobolowsky: The X Factor, Part 1

Knowing what you are doing can give you clarity, and people in show business appreciate any kind of clarity. Once I went into an audition and they asked me what I had been doing lately, a typical audition question. Instead of going through the morass of my recent show biz history, I told them I was watching my jade tree bloom in my front yard. It only happens once every seventy-five years and it was a real treat, like seeing a shooting star on a camping trip. They immediately were interested, and I got a call back. Truthfully, not so much out of interest in the jade tree, but the clarity I displayed in telling the story conveyed the impression that I was not nervous.

That is a biggy. Being nervous. The question I get all of the time is about the sheer nerve factor of auditioning. Say you have the latest version of the script, you've learned your lines, and you have a simple, clear approach you believe in, and you still get so nervous you can't execute. What do you do? First, you have to understand it is the idea that you are walking into a room with people sitting on the other side of the table judging you that is making you nervous. Right? Not completely. Once I got there early and walked into an empty room with a table in it and I got nervous. That's when it dawned on me that the table itself is a factor. I realized I needed to turn the tables so to speak.

The solution-and this advice works for any profession you have to go on interviews for-go sit on their side of the table. Not literally, but figuratively. Don't stand opposite them to be judged, become a collaborator. The one thing you always have in common with the producers or your employers is the project. If you make the project the most important thing in the room-not you-you will sit on their side of the table and you won't be so nervous.

My agent called me up about a film called Memento during one of the many slow periods the industry goes through. He told me this is a very, very low budget movie with a young director, no money for actors. The part they wanted me to look at was Sammy Jankis. They told me not to be insulted. It is a part that has no lines. My agent said there was nothing really to audition with, but he could fax me a scene where Sammy is tested for amnesia and has one line. Remembering Ed Kaye Martin's advice, I said, "I'll read the whole script. I'm not doing anything anyway."

The script for Memento was huge by most screenplay standards. I sat in the bedroom and started reading. I got to a scene early on that seemed exactly the same as the previous scene. I thought it was a misprint until I read in the scene description "…the lighting, costumes, camera angles, acting should appear to be exactly the same as the scene before it." Then the new scene proceeded differently. I was amazed and had no idea what I was reading.

I called out to my wife, Annie, "Hey, I'm reading the script. It is either very, very bad or very, very good."

She laughed downstairs and said, "Which do you think it is?"

"We shall see." I went back to reading. I got half way through and took a break. I came downstairs and started pacing. Annie said, "What's wrong?"

I said, "It's the script. I'm really upset."

She said, "Is it awful?"

I said, "No. It's not. I think it may be the best script I've ever read and I'm terrified it'll suddenly become stupid. Why do they always start good and end stupid." I finished Memento and threw it across the room. Ann heard the commotion and ran upstairs. She saw the script on the floor and me lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. She picked up the script and said to me, "Stupid?"

I shook my head, "Brilliant. Unbelievably brilliant." I called my agent and said I had to play Sammy Jankis.

He said, "How are you going to read? There's no scene."

I said, just get me in to meet Christopher Nolan.

So here is an audition tip for actors, and this also cuts across to other professions where you have to interview for the job. You have to know the difference between a good script and a good pitch. There is no substitute for a good script. You can play a tiny part in a good script and it will be worth your while. You will get noticed. A good pitch is another animal altogether. It is vapor. It is just a sales job. You can play a huge part in a show that's only a good pitch, and it could be the end of your career.

Example: Around the same time I was sent some scenes for the "Michael Richards Show." It was a sit-com that got picked up right after the "Seinfeld" gang called it quits. All my agent said was, "This thing is going to be huge. It's 22 on the air" (which means that the show has been bought without even waiting to see the pilot). It was Kramer as a private eye-just imagine. That was the sales pitch and not the script. The show tried to find itself unsuccessfully. They wrote and rewrote and came up with different approaches, created new characters-none of them were able to give Michael the platform he needed. I never could get in to audition because I was working. My agent was having a fit because he was sure it was the closest thing you could get in this business to finding a leprechaun and a pot of gold. But it wasn't. They didn't have the script. It may be overly simplistic to say if you have a script as good as Memento you will be guaranteed success-because most scripts aren't that good, but it is fair to say if you have a good script with a good story and structure, you will develop passion. And passion is powerful on an audition. Passion is the closest thing we have to alchemy. It can turn almost anything into gold.

Christopher Nolan was one of those people I liked the moment I met him. He was soft-spoken and intelligent. There was no phoniness about him. I came into the room and the first thing he said to me was why on earth do you want to audition for Sammy Jankis-the part is tiny. I smiled and told him that it is one of the best parts in the movie. Chris laughed and asked how so.

(Note to Ed Kaye Martin: Here is where reading the entire script worked.) I said the premise of the movie is the mystery of amnesia. It is how the entire movie is structured. In every scene we wonder about Leonard (the part played by Guy Pearce-the fellow with all the tattoos) to understand who he is. That is the entire thrust of the story and he is trying to solve that mystery by understanding Sammy Jankis. Sammy is a key and the death of Sammy's wife is one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking scenes I have ever read. Chris nodded quietly and said, "Very good. So what are you going to read for me? I'm sorry there's not more here."

I put the script on the ground and told Chris, "Oh, I'm not going to read for you, that wouldn't be helpful, but I will tell you this. You may consider a lot of different actors to play Sammy but I am the only one you will meet that actually had amnesia."

That caught Chris' attention. He said, "You had amnesia?"

"Yes, sir."

"For real?"

"Yeah. I had a kidney stone a few years ago and they had to do some surgery. They used an experimental drug on me that didn't put me to sleep but gave me amnesia. I would still experience the pain but would forget about it-kind of like a bad relationship. But like any general anesthesia, for three, four days after the surgery it had to work through my system and the result was I had waves of amnesia. It was very unsettling. I would wake up and find myself in the living room holding an empty glass. In that moment I had no idea if I had finished drinking some water and was returning the empty glass to the kitchen-or if I was thirsty and I was taking the glass to the kitchen to fill it with water."

Worse. I "woke up" standing over the toilet with my fly open and Junior in my hands. In that moment I didn't know if I had to pee or if I had just finished and was ready to go back to watching the game. So I waited and then forgot again. And again. Finally Annie walked down the hallway and looked in at me. She gently told me I had finished a long time ago and it was time to zip up.

Chris was fascinated by the story of my amnesia and I believe I got the part of Sammy Jankis very much by turning the audition into a session of collaboration. But again, the secret was I believed in the project and was less concerned about how I came across in the interview.

This is a brief run down of the elements I have found most important in having a successful audition. Be prepared; understand the material as well as you can, even better than the people hiring you if possible; whenever appropriate, become a collaborator and not just another person hungry for a job or worse-hungry for acceptance.

According to the dictionary: "In an audition, the employer is testing the ability of the applicant to meet the needs of the job and assess how well the individual will take directions and deal with changes". Deal with changes. That's the hard part no one talks about because, by definition, changes are not what we expect. Sometimes we never even see them coming.

The latest episode of The Tobolowsky Files, a project of Stephen Toboloswky and David Chen, has just been released. You can subscribe through iTunes here or via RSS here. What's more? You can e-mail Stephen at stephentobolowsky(AT)gmail(DOT)com.