12 Audition Steps for Kid Actors to Grab a Role

Audition of a child actor

What are the Steps of the Audition Process?

The different steps of the audition process are: 

1. You get a call from your coordinator/ Casting director or directly from a production house/ Assistant director if you had applied through a casting website  with an appointment time and a location to go to the interview.
2. You'll get yourself ready. You'll dress the way they've asked you to dress. And then you'll go to the audition. That will be the first audition.
3. You'll sign in on a sheet of paper.
4. You may be given your lines (called "sides") to read and if possible to memorize. The child has to dream and create the character in his/her mind to play in front of a camera.
5. You'll maybe get your Polaroid picture taken.
6. You'll give them your headshot or select pictures from your portfolio.
7. You'll go on to face the camera. You'll do your initial interview based on what is told to you.
8. And then you'll go away.
9. There may or may not a second step.
10. Call Back: If material that you've already recorded in your first audition is liked enough by the director and the advertisers to have you come to a call-back. Then what you do, is you go back to the same place typically. You wear the same thing typically. It's important to wear the same thing to a call-back that you wore to a first call. And then you'll meet the director or the advertisers, and they'll make sure you can do what you did the first time, or see if you have other ways to play your lines and character.
11. If you are not selected, your coordinator may inform you in a few days and if not, then you have to contact the person to know the status. If you are selected to do the role, you will be informed by the coordinator or directly by the concerned person from the project
12. If you are selected then later, you'll be told what day you're going to shoot, and then you'll be contacted by production. And production will give you your location and your call time and probably schedule a wardrobe fitting with you prior to the actual shoot.

How Should a Child Actor Behave During an Audition?

A child actor should act professionally during an audition. It is the job of the parent to tell the child, the child that wants to do this, that this is a business. This is not going to the park. This is not an Ice Cream Parlor or burger and chips at McDonald's. You're going to a serious interview. Yes, it's supposed to be fun. Yes, you want to have a good time, but don't climb around on that furniture. You don't run around through in their professional office space. You don't bring loud toys. You don't distract the other kids. It's common sense, like going to the library or going to the doctor's office. It's a place of business.