May 29, 2012 
Anonymous asked
When asked what makes you different from everyone else what is your answer? I always find this question tricky
“Look at me!”
Seriously though, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that. It might be because I am a character actor and I walk in the door different. But, I imagine if you’re a pretty blonde American actress in her late 20s that question is going to be asked a lot. My guess is that the intention behind this question is about type. What are your strengths? It’s good to know who you are as an actor and what roles you’ll be going out for so that you can basically “pitch” yourself. It’s not something we’re trained to do as actors and if I were to ever open an acting school there’d be a class on it. These kinds of questions are also about getting you to talk about yourself to see if you’re a functioning human being or not. There’s nothing worse than hiring an actor only to discover that they are socially dangerous/unpredictable/outright-crazy. So, getting you to talk about yourself is a great way to unmask any weirdness. It sounds awful, I know, but this industry does tend to attract a lot of weirdos, so there is a screening process needed for sure. A friend just auditioned for Steven Soderbergh and had to submit a video interview of himself with the audition tape.
Hope that helps!
The NYC Actor
Isn’t this question the same/similar to the question “Why should I hire you” in a regular job interview? It would make me feel put on the spot. I think I would need to come up with pre-set answer for this so I don’t freeze up. Feeling dumb will choke me up.
An interesting point, but I think it’s slightly different, because the “Why should I hire you?” question changes significantly from audition to audition in acting. However, the concept of preparedness is absolutely spot-on. Knowing your “type” and how you fill a certain niche is vital for our success out here so it’s something we should definitely know going into every audition.
Thanks for your input!
Angela