Back Pocket (Circa 2011 via Essence.com)

I’m going to make a bold statement and I think every actor/performer will agree with it..

There is no greater feeling than having someone you love in the audience watching your work.

It’s something about the care you get from people who already know you and love you. Believe it or not, it makes us actors perform better. Now this is an easier feat for film and television actors because they can simply call home to Greensboro, North Carolina and tell their grandmothers to turn the TV at 8pm. However, live performances are just a little different. Family and friends can’t just pick up and fly out whenever I have a performance, especially with my living in Los Angeles and their living on the East Coast.

Moreover, before we actors even get to the point of being on TV, a performance or a show, we have to book the job. Some of the best advice a casting director has ever given me was, “Be the person your friends love when you’re in the room.” In the Room meaning in the audition room. The person my friends and family knows is fun, wild, highly animated and a little crazy.  To those who don’t know me well, it may seem as though I am, “always on.” While I resent that because it suggests that I am never just being myself and I’m always performing, I have to admit, I’d rather always be on than struggle to turn it on.  J

Somehow, when I first started auditioning, I noticed that all that UMPH used to drain out of me once I got in front of casting directors and producers. Becoming so focused on booking the job, I was in the room nervous, shaking and stuttering and carrying on. Then I noticed why I might be coming off as cold, or stiff, or worse, incapable of conveying my talent in the room... I was leaving all my goods outside in the waiting room!

So I decided, if I was going to Eeeever Ever boooook book aaaaanything anything, I was going to HAVE to get it together. Now, back in Florida, I would straight up ask my friends to come with me. Yes! I have taken friends with me to auditions! Isn’t that messy?! And they would come too! Aaaaaand I’d book the job. But something tells me they won’t be taking a 4 and ½ hour flight several times a week to come strut around Hollywood with me while I audition. When I’m with my people, I’m FEARLESS! I’m invincible. I’m never nervous or shy because I know they want to watch me. So I had to figure out a way to take them with me.

 I put them in my back pocket.

My friends and family know I’m capable of entertaining the masses and I think nobody knows my talents like the people I’ve been entertaining for years. When somebody already believes in you, you don’t have to go out of your way to impress them. You have freedom to just do what you came to do. This is now my approach to auditioning. I name everybody in the room my friend. They all know my name. They all know my talent. And they all WANT me to book the job, because when I book it, they get to go home!!! And lately I even go a step further I putting my friends in my back pocket. And I stopped leaving them in the waiting room. I bring them right into the audition room with me. I’m immediately comfortable because I’m surrounded by friends and love, and I don’t have to perform because when I show up, they’re already laughing.

They don’t know it but they go everywhere with me now. On every audition, to every job I book, and they’ve met many amazing people. And every chance I get, I do my best to return the favor. I was able to see two of my good friends perform just last week.

 Next time you’re going somewhere and you need that extra support from a special someone who has always held your hand, take them with you (in sprit). Eventually, I bet you’ll realize that they probably never left you anyway. J

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