January Jones has a message for casting directors: working from home isn’t working for actors.
The “Mad Men” alum railed against virtual auditions — and paid virtual auditions, in particular — in her Instagram Stories over the weekend.
“Note to Hollywood: It’s time for casting directors to come back into the office like everyone else. To audition actors in person,” Jones wrote, per Variety. “And if anyone asks for a FEE to audition please know that this is criminal and PATHETIC. I personally have had to self tape several times since the pandemic began and there is zero benefit to it for anyone involved. It’s time consuming, expensive, and a drag to whomever you have to drag in to read with you (sorry Mom), and is often done with zero direction/notes.”
She went on: “I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for an actor just starting out if an established actor has to beg for a Zoom [meeting] when an in-person audition is ‘unavailable.’ Please do better.”
Other Hollywood actors are speaking out about self-taped auditions, too, as Deadline reports. “The Handmaid’s Tale” star Ever Carradine told Twitter followers on March 1 that she saw an Instagram ad for a “respected casting director’s office offering self-tape opportunities for a fee.”
“If we can go to casting and tape, can’t we just go to casting and actually read without paying $50 an audition?” she wrote.
In a follow-up tweet, Carradine said that such facilities offer taping and line-reading for a fee. “In the before covid times, this was a last resort and most auditions happened in person in the room with casting, producers and the director. Self tape was like one out of 20 auditions,” she wrote. “Now it’s 20 outta 20.”
“Alias” alum Merrin Dungey shared Carradine’s first tweet, adding, “This is some real bulls—t right here. It’s bad enough we can’t go in, and to get a great tape you have to use a service because you need a reader/lighting/editing. We are paying to get jobs now. With no notes. No communication. Lengthy sides. It’s not ideal.”
In another tweet, Dungey wrote, “Auditions should be at the very least Zooms. Then we can get notes and feedback.”
Following those complaints, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement on the matter. “Casting offices charging actors for the creation and production of audition tapes is taking our industry in the wrong direction. It is an optical and ethical disaster,” the labor union said on Friday, per Deadline.
“Actors are already faced with undue financial pressures in their pursuit of work. Casting offices running production and audition services runs counter to the principles of fairness and equity in our industry and the practice should be discouraged.”