Great post. And I totally agree. If you know your character, what you're doing in the scene and why, then even if you can't dredge up the exact line in the heat of the moment, you can get close enough to continue the scene (I'm a stage actor myself, so no retakes). Another good thing about that is if an actor you're working with goes off the rails, you're in a much better position to steer things back in the right direction than if you had just memorized the lines in a rote manner.

As with movies, I don't pay attention to the scores, but rather I read the reviews and adjust for biases I see on the author's part. For instance, the reviewer may say great things about the gameplay and then complain about the graphics -- I adjust my mental score higher in that case because I care more about the former. I also look for tell-tale words like "savepoints", which automatically makes me score the game lower (unless the reviewer is saying something like "savepoints are so frequent, you won't notice/mind them".

I've been acting here in Austin for near 15 years, and I have to agree that the most important thing in an audition is to have fun. Whether you're going to get cast or not comes down to so many things, many of which are totally out of your control. If you're having fun, chances are you're doing your best work, and even if you don't get cast, at least you had fun...

I've been acting here in Austin for near 15 years, and I have to agree that the most important thing in an audition is to have fun. Whether you're going to get cast or not comes down to so many things, many of which are totally out of your control. If you're having fun, chances are you're doing your best work, and even if you don't get cast, at least you had fun...

I'm on a Philip K. Dick kick right now. Just finished A Scanner Darkly last week (boy was the movie a straight-up interpretation), and enjoyed it immensely. Currently reading The Man in the High Castle, and enjoying it, but not as much as Scanner. Next up: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Yeah, like many geeks of my generation I read it back when Blade Runner came out, but my only impression of it is that it was vastly different from the movie and that I liked it.

I'm on a Philip K. Dick kick right now. Just finished A Scanner Darkly last week (boy was the movie a straight-up interpretation), and enjoyed it immensely. Currently reading The Man in the High Castle, and enjoying it, but not as much as Scanner. Next up: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Yeah, like many geeks of my generation I read it back when Blade Runner came out, but my only impression of it is that it was vastly different from the movie and that I liked it.