Don’t Act, Reason #29: You will not be allowed to improvise while at the same time improvisation is the only way you will be able get work.

            The first job I ever booked I booked because I was willing to improvise in the audition.  The character in this spot for a “three-way calling” telephone service was barely on the page, and in the audition I was told to “make it my own.”  I went with it, and the cats running the show thought I was kind of funny, so they hired me.  I dare say that three-quarters of the commercial jobs I have booked, I booked from improvisation.  I’ve learned however that SAG has made it illegal for anyone to ask an actor to improvise in an audition situation.  It has been that way since well before I became a union actor. 

            The reason for this ruling is simple.  A lot of commercial productions have stolen lines and ideas from actors’ improvisations without hiring the actor.  When I dabbled in stand-up comedy in New York City, I experienced that very phenomenon: on more than one occasion, I saw stand-up comics more lucky than I steal my jokes for television appearances they had booked.  That’s a pretty common occurrence in stand-up, and I rest easy knowing that none of those thieving hacks have gone on to much success after stealing my jokes.  (Which means my jokes were mediocre, I realize.  But if they’d blown up into superstars, I would have probably been even more pissed.)  It’s a rotten feeling, knowing that someone is making money off of your words when you don’t receive any credit, let alone payment. 

            Still, I guarantee that if you never go off the copy that is written, and this is sometimes true for television and film auditions as well, then you dramatically slash your already slim chances of booking jobs.  What casting people will do at auditions in which they want you to improvise (because the copywriters failed to come up with anything genuinely funny) is they will ask you to “make it your own.”  When you hear those words, it means you should improvise.  However, if you say, “You mean improvise?” to the person asking you to improvise, you may very well be thrown out of the casting session.  No one wants to get fined by the union. 

            You will also often be subtlety asked to bend many union rules so the casting director and production companies can avoid other types of fines.  For example, if a casting session keeps you waiting for more than an hour, the casting director has to pay you a small fee, but most casting directors don’t have money to throw around just because they are running late.  No one will directly ask you to fudge the numbers on the audition time sheets, but the hints will be dropped.  If you refuse, you might get your audition erased from the audition tape and then obviously you won’t get the work.  And you may not ever be called in to audition again.

            It is downright impossible to be both faithful to your union and get work at the same time.  I believe the phrase for justifying lying to one’s self and others in order to keep life running smoothly is “moral ambiguity.”  Of course, I doubt any profession in our modern corporate society is devoid of moral ambiguity.  Still, with acting you’ll be crystal clear on how idiotic all the red tape really is, and when you do get screwed—which you will—you’ll get up in arms about union rules getting broken.

            And that makes you a hypocrite, you jerk weed.

            Unless you don’t act, of course.[1]