I know what to by you for Christmas

An actor comes into the audition room, we say hi, “Hi.”

I say, “Do you have a pic/res?” They say, “Yes, but it’s not stapled, I am so sorry!” I say, “Don’t worry about it, I have the technology,” and I show my stapler to the actor. The actor says, “I am so sorry, I tried to find a stapler!” I say, “Really, it’s not a problem.”

So, today, during the above conversation that gets repeated hundreds of times throughout the audition process, I stopped an actor and asked, “Why are you so sorry about the stapling of the resume? It seems like it is a big deal to you and by you I mean every actor before you up to this moment in time.” The pressure was on this one actor to answer the great staple mystery for all actors.

His response was, “ I guess we (actors) are just concerned that we look bad if we don’t have our pic/res stapled together for you.”

Hmmm…really? Because, it seems like this staple obsession that actors have goes beyond just having the picture stapled to the resume. To me it seems that actors may think that casting directors will view the actor or would have viewed the actor differently if the picture were actually stapled to the resume prior to entering the audition.

Attention actors: I only care if you are a good actor. I could give a crap if the pic/res is stapled together. Concentrate on what is important, like, your energy, lines, thought process, intensity, character development, back-story, creativity, etc, etc… Please don’t sweat the small stuff, it is getting in the way of your success.