Anchor is so easy to use to make your podcast. I've been wanting to make Confessions of a casting director for years and I floated around looking around the internet for all different kinds of ways to make my podcast. I downloaded different programs and finally stumbled upon anchor it's so easy and user-friendly and perfect for people who are super busy. So make your life easy pursue your dreams use anchor and make your podcast a reality because I did Hey everybody, so welcome to the official Confessions of a casting director podcast. So it's really funny because I have been wanting to do a podcast for such a long time. First. I actually want to do a radio show back when confessions of the casting director first was published. And now of course the world is full of podcasts and I've always loved doing voiceovers when I was a child actor. So what better way to combine my love of audio With my love of actors and my love of my book confessions of a casting director. So it's December 2019 and we are celebrating publication anniversary coming up on December 17th. So in honor of the books anniversary Welcome to our podcast, there's so much to talk about and so every podcast episode is going to be different. Sometimes it'll just be me giving some interesting perspective about some auditions that I've recently Conducted sometimes I'm going to be talking to some of my favorite actors about their challenges in the audition waiting room and the audition room what it's like to be on hold for a role to not get a role the highs and lows that make up this crazy business of Show Business and I'm going to be talking to Stage moms. I'm going to be talking to directors and writers. So I think you're really going to enjoy it and we'll start with probably my most challenging audition story when I was a child actor. Okay. So most of you know that a group in New York City in the 1980s and the introduction of Confessions of a casting director, you can read all about my passionate obsession with the Brady Bunch Little House on the Prairie The Love Boat. I was determined to be on television. In fact, I actually wrote Channel 5 a letter saying that they if they ever needed to replace Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch, I would be perfect for the role because I had pigtails and blond hair and all of that. So and a sister named Eve like Eve Plumb who played Jam. So anyway, I began auditioning for real in third grade mostly commercials. I had a friend in elementary school whose father worked for Ogilvy & Mather and he quote unquote discovered me at Peter's birthday party and said Jen he's really smart and now going and she seems like she would be great for commercials. So he introduced me to an agent her name is Regina Berg and I started going out on commercial auditions and I will never forget the first commercial audition for Jello because I totally froze like Cindy Brady in that episode where she's on that game show and she stares at that flashing red light and can't say anything or do anything and really gets camera fright stage fright, and that's what happened to me when I auditioned for this Jello commercial at a casting office on 57th and Broadway. I just couldn't say the line. I was very nervous. Nervous and kind of screwed up for the rest of the family. I remember there was an actor playing my grandfather. He was trying to help me. So after that first audition, I actually got a little bit better. I ended up going on in AT&T commercial the next week and had a callback and suddenly had some confidence. So the commercial auditions went on and then the summer before fifth grade in 1982. I went to stage-door Manor performing arts training center and Jean Foxx and Adrien Albert were Being a management company called Kids and Co and I was one of I think their first clients so in now in addition to all the commercial auditions, I started going out for movies and theater and so on but I really actually want to talk about probably the hardest audition that I endured in 1985. So I had many many many callbacks for growing pains Growing Pains was a show on ABC starring Alan Thicke. And I didn't get the part. I thought I was going to get the part. I already knew what the pre-negotiated episode rate would be in my mind. I was already spending the money. I was already in LA and when I didn't get that role, you know, I took it really hard. I have to say that not getting into Wesley and early decision or not getting some jobs as a grownup. None of that can compare to the sadness and disappointment that I felt at age 12. So as my podcast goes on we're going to be talking to actors who are going through auditions today. I will only share that that continues to be one of the stories. I always like to share with listeners or actors that I'm talking to you because it's still if I close my eyes I can feel like it was yesterday and here's the irony. I was in LA last week and I'm flying home on American Airlines and I'm scrolling through all the entertainments and trying to keep awake. There it is. There's four episodes of growing pains. So I sat in my window seat as we were flying from LAX to JFK and I watched several of the episodes and When we landed I got into a taxi came home crawled into bed with my husband and moved back into the present day of my life. So it was fun to watch it brought me back. So many years to what could have been I know that as my friend likes to say rejection is God's protection. So perhaps if I look back at The Growing Pains moment, perhaps I was being protected from what would have been Very difficult childhood acting career that could have taken me down a dark Road. It's hard to know what would have happened because for some reason I wasn't Chosen and I went on and did a bunch of other things in my acting career but not that particular TV show. So I will leave you guys with the this idea as this week goes on try try try try to let it go if you go on an audition and you really want it don't obsess don't fixate let it go into that big balloon in the sky because there will be another audition tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. So stay tuned for more fun upcoming podcast episodes for Confessions of a casting director.
Based on Jen Rudin's popular book Confessions of a Casting Director, this podcast takes listeners inside the audition room. Episodes feature Jen sharing her own audition stories from when she was a professional child actor mixed with current audition stories and interviews with some of her current favorites actors, child actors, stage moms, and more! Jen Rudin is an award-winning casting director who began her over thirty-year career in show business as a child actor at age eight. As a casting executive at The Walt Disney Company, Rudin conducted talent searches across the United States, identifying and hiring actors who went on to star on Broadway in The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and The Little Mermaid and in beloved Disney movies like The Incredibles, The Princess and the Frog, Chicken Little and Brother Bear. Her company, Jen Rudin Casting, casts animation, commercials, live-action and TV projects in New York and Los Angeles. She is a proud member of the Casting Society of America. 