All the time and devotion poured into learning the craft of acting is not enough to land the role. Industry standards have changed, and to add to the audition jitters, today’s thespian needs to be ready to whip up a self tape when this type of audition opportunity presents itself in the casting process.
Despite overtaking in-person auditions for several years, many actors struggle with self tapes. Not everyone in the entertainment industry feels they have a decent command of the technical know-how of self-taped auditions—at least, not yet. This includes lighting, sound, angles, cutting out background noise and what cameras work best. Many actors also wonder how far one should go when it comes to self tape production.
Here are some famous actors who have also struggled with self tapes.
Benedict Cumberbatch
To kick off our list of amazing actors who have had difficulty with self tapes, we’ll start with Benedict Cumberbatch. The Sherlock actor once shared how an iPhone self tape helped him land the role of Khan in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness. During the 2012 winter holiday, the British actor received several phone calls saying that the director was considering him for a “not-so-good guy” in the Starship Enterprise flick. The British actor was urged to make a self tape as soon as possible.
Cumberbatch, however, was not confident in the technical aspect of creating a virtual audition. Needing support, the Dr. Strange actor reached out for help. “I rang some friends of mine—and when I say friends, I mean the top casting directors in England.” Unfortunately for Cumberbatch, everyone was away on vacation. He then contacted several other industry professionals hoping someone—anyone—would help him make an audition tape, convincing his friend to assist him.
“My flip [phone] wasn’t working, I couldn’t get any kind of recording device. I said, ‘I’m going to do it on my iPhone. It’s high quality, it’s HD. It will be fine,’” he told ArtsBeat.
Cumberbatch ended up “squatting in their kitchen” at about 11 o’clock at night trying to make his self tape audition. “I was pretty strung out, so that went into the performance. And his wife, Alice, bless her, with two children asleep—they’ve got enough on their plate without this actor in a crisis in their kitchen—and she’s balancing two chairs to get the right angle on me and desk lamps bouncing light off bits of paper, just trying desperately to make it look half-decent. Because it’s going to J.J. Abrams’ iPad.”
After the mini shoot, Cumberbatch had to deal with compressing the footage and getting it to J.J. Abrams in time. After the mad rush and all the stress of getting the tape to Abrams, he was dismayed to learn J.J., like the casting directors Cumberbatch tried to contact earlier, was also on vacation!
That being said, Cumberbatch made the right acting choices and delivered an authentic performance. His efforts paid off about a week later, when he was told he landed the role of the villainous Khan.
Tyrese Gibson
When Fast & Furious actor Tyrese Gibson learned Quentin Tarantino was casting for the revisionist Western Django Unchained, he wanted in. An entertainment industry gem, the rapper, actor and songwriter created a self tape for the title role, going to great lengths to increase his chances of landing the part.
Gibson made strong choices, shooting various scenes, each in its own location and changing his costumes accordingly. He even added a heart-wrenching soundtrack to accompany his performance. He then ended the tape with one of his own quotes: “As an actor, you should NEVER assume people know what you’re capable of. We are perception creators so if those perceptions don’t exist, you create them.”
Unfortunately for Gibson, the role of Django went to Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, but his self tape did end up going viral.
Eliza Scanlen
Before Australian actress Eliza Scanlen was cast in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects and starred in Babyteeth and Little Women (2019), she had to get used to self-taping to make her entertainment industry dreams a reality.
“When you’re an aspiring actor, you do so many self tapes that it gets to a certain point where you have to develop a thick skin, otherwise you will never survive,” Scanlen said.
Being a young actress, the Fires star could often count on help from her mother when recording her believable performances. “My mom usually does my self-tapes, and we’ve built a kind of shorthand with one another,” she said.
Along the way, Scanlen learned that one of the tricks to self-taping is to open your mind to strong choices and try new things. “Just having fun with it and not feeling restricted in your space and giving yourself enough space filming the shot to move around, things like that.”
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