What I Did Differently to Finally Book my First Lead Role in a TV Series
“Instead of continuing to send you out for lead roles, perhaps we should start focusing on smaller roles to build your resume,” my agent finally said.
At this point I’d been with this agent for four years, since 2012, and out of 50+ film, TV, and commercial auditions, I’d booked only one; a Super Bowl commercial that brought me 0.75 seconds of air-time. I was counting.
So, for the next full year, we turned away from auditioning for lead roles, and I only auditioned for supporting or one-liner roles. But I still. Wasn’t. Booking.
“Am I just bad?” my 22-year-old self asked, sitting across from him in his office.
“No,” my agent said, “There’s no reasonable explanation for why you’re not booking. You’re an enigma”. It was time for me to leave my agent, take a break from the industry, and pursue other interests.
I’d first fallen in love with acting in a 5th-grade English class when I was asked to memorize Kate’s full Shakespearean monologue in Taming of the Shrew. From then on, I would memorize any monologue, scene, or film I could get my hands on. My parents enrolled me in musical theatre, and I fell further in love with performance and embodying characters.
When I got my license at 16, I started taking my parent’s car on Saturday mornings and ventured 45 minutes into the city for acting class. I took all the standard classes at Armstrong Acting Studio from their scene study to on-camera classes. By the end of one of the class rounds, the studio director, Dean Armstrong, introduced me to an agent in the city. This agent, known for developing stars like Nina Dobrev and Drake (Aubrey Graham), signed me that same year, the day after my 18th birthday.
I started auditioning for shows like CW’s Reign, Arrow, and Disney’s Max and Shred. I continued training, taking private lessons with acting coaches and attending industry workshops with casting directors. For each new audition, I prepared with my coaches or actor friends. Sometimes I was nowhere right for the lead role, but other times I’d make it to the round of chemistry reads (where you perform the scene with another potential actor) as I did for Australia’s Mako Mermaids and CBC’s Four in the Morning. In a few cases, we’d already started contractual negotiations for the projects, but then they went the other way. Those would be my hardest letdowns.
After a few months of leaving this agent at 22, I began missing acting and decided to continue working on my craft. I found new teachers and signed up to study different kinds of acting techniques like the Meisner technique with Robyn at the Robyn Kay Studio. This was a gym for my emotions. I sought out my own auditions, did student film projects, and performed a one-woman piece called Ether at the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival. I started a monthly script-reading get-together in the city that grew into an actors' community and filmed my own short films. I threw myself into the creative arts in a way that was authentic to me.
The Search for a New Agent:
After three years, in the fall of 2019, I felt ready to find a new agent. I put together a submission package complete with my headshots, resume, and demo reel. I e-mailed ten agents in the country who focused on adult actors. Some I’d heard about through word-of-mouth and others I found online through the ACTRA database. After several meetings and questions about my leave of absence from the industry, most were happy to offer me a spot on their roster (the list of actors the agent represents). The agent I chose was based in Vancouver, one of Canada’s West Coast cities known in the industry as Hollywood North. He was opening an office in Toronto and eager to expand his roster. I liked that he had strong connections in Vancouver — a pool I hadn’t yet auditioned in — and that he was inclined to work hard to make a name for himself in Toronto. In our conversations, he spoke about branding me in a way I felt aligned with and saw me in roles that I, too, saw myself in. I felt he understood me as a person and as an artist, and I sensed he would be patient with me on this journey.
In the first six months of signing with my new agent, I booked a silent-on-camera (SOC) part in a VICE documentary and a national commercial that unfortunately never shot because COVID hit.
Once the industry bounced back, I spent another year auditioning with no bookings. This time I was at a loss for what I could be working on or improving. And by now I’d been auditioning for 10 years.
As new auditions rolled in, I couldn’t help but feel that the required hours of memorizing and taping would be a complete waste of my time. But then, an audition landed in my inbox, and after two years of COVID, I was invited to audition in person. I read through the storyline, the character breakdown, and the two audition scenes, and I couldn’t believe what I was reading: the characters’ story had been my story for the last year and a half.
Dorothy, the lead female role in this new television series, Emerge, was a well-intentioned girl who finds herself in the grasp of a toxic relationship with a self-destructive writer. I could relate to her journey and her pain but more than that, I knew the kind of person she was dealing with in the scenes — I knew who she was talking to and what she was talking about. My whole soul wanted to tell her story.
One more audition, I said to myself.
But, if I don’t book this one, one I feel so deeply connected to, I’ll finally take the hint the Universe has been giving me for over a decade: that it doesn’t want me acting. Because if this path isn’t for me, then I need to stop banging on a closed door and find what is meant for me.
So this is the last one, Universe. I let go of neediness or control of the outcome and went into audition prep mode like never before.
The Audition Prep-Process:
I treated the entirety of the process as though it was my last time ever prepping for an audition. I savored each moment of the process as if it were my last. It felt as though there was room for both more error and more pleasure. I embraced the process of character exploration and made scene choices I felt were appropriate, absent of fear. I booked a session with a new acting coach to break down the character with me and had an actor friend come over to run the scenes with me the night before.
As I drove to the audition, I had a first-time instinct to pray to the acting Gods. I’d never thought of doing this, nor had I ever thought that acting Gods existed. But I felt compelled to have a conversation with them: the metaphorical rulers of the acting world.
“You know that magical place of acting?” I asked them, “The one where you exist fully in the reality of a fake reality? Well, I’d like your help in accessing that during this audition today”. In my mind's eye, I could see them looking down at me from the clouds on which they were perched. “We can do that,” they said, “thanks for asking us.” They were now aware that I was going to enter that place during the audition, and would let me ‘in’. Because I felt they were supporting me as best as they could, I would have no judgments about how the scene unraveled. If I conjured up tears and cried in the scene like the script called for, great, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get wound up about it. Rather, I would live in faith, stay in the moment, and finish the scene.
I got to the waiting area where the audition was being held. There were five other girls all around my age. This time, I paid them no mind and made sure to stay close to myself and my own energy. I remembered hearing the story of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's audition for his role in Modern Family. While all the actors were reading and re-reading their lines in the waiting room, he calmly sat on a chair and read the newspaper. “He was the most relaxed actor in the room,” they recalled. I remembered how the famed writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, said that she didn’t want to be the smartest or most interesting, but “the most relaxed person in the room”. That’s what I would be this time, too. The secretary in the waiting room asked if I had printed my headshot and resume. “I did not,” I said, without flinching. In the past, I may have felt bad or nervous about this. “I’ll print it off for you,” he said. That was very kind.
After auditioning two other actresses, the casting director came out to get me. I was wearing a simple black cotton T, black pants, and black leather boots. I wasn’t trying to “dress like the character” or make an impression with my wardrobe. As actor Bryan Cranston says, I was letting “the artistry of my work supply the color” and came in as comfortable as possible. I walked into the room unafraid of messing up or doing something strange because it was *my last audition*. If I sucked or messed up, who cared, I was leaving the industry anyways. At the same time, I was going to do my best work so that for the rest of my life I would know I had given it my all! This created a special kind of confidence and also made the actual audition more personal: I was doing it strictly for me, how I felt the scene should be done without trying to please anybody’s idea of the scene or character.
I walked into the room and greeted the team. The director and writers were all present. Taking my mark, I slated for the camera. “I’ll be walking in for the first scene,” I told them. “No problem. The cameraman will follow you,” the casting director said. And then I started.
“Great, let’s move on to the second scene,” the casting director said at the end of the first scene. That was standard. And so I did the second scene. I didn’t cry when I could have, but I stayed true to the moment and my emotions at the time.
“Alright, thank you so much,” the casting director said. No adjustments, no re-directions. That was it, then. Might as well speak my mind and give a compliment. “I did want to say that it was a pleasure reading these scenes. I found the writing absolutely brilliant.”
“Well, these two are the writers, tell them!”
“Truly brilliant,” I echoed.
“Thank you so much,” the writers said.
The casting director walked me out and thanked me for coming in.
The next day I called my agent.
“That was the best work I could have possibly produced. If my best work isn’t up to par with the industry, then this has to be it. Can you ask the casting director what they saw?”
“Sure thing,” he said. Later that day my agent forwarded the casting director's comments:
Esther did a very strong audition yesterday and is in contention for the [lead role]. She does have some pretty stiff competition, but she is ‘on-the-table’.
Alright…so I’m doing the thing. I am acting. If I wasn’t acting, they wouldn’t have thought it to be a strong audition. But we know this, I’ve done strong auditions for years, but haven’t booked them. Was there anything else I could do to ensure I left no stone unturned?
I called my acting coach and asked if we could put the second scene of the audition on camera. I didn’t feel pleased with how I had done it in the audition room and wanted to do it justice. Additionally, I felt deeply connected to the scene and wanted to have it on camera for myself to look back on later. After shooting it, I sent it to my agent and asked him to send it through to casting.
The call-back:
Five days later I was invited in for a chemistry read. This was one more audition than I was expecting to have in my life: a confirmation from the Universe that it did want me in the room.
For this audition, I followed the exact same audition prep as the first: a coaching session, practice with an actor friend, and of course a conversation with the metaphorical (but real-to-me) acting Gods. Before the chemistry read, I entered a meditation to speak with them. I thanked them for the last time and asked if they’d let me enter the “world of make-belief” once again. This time they grabbed my hand and pulled me up into the clouds with them. “You don’t have to keep asking to enter the space. You have access to it when you need to.” And just like that, I was invited in.
In the chemistry read, I was paired up with a fellow actor, Damir Kovic, who was auditioning for the male protagonist, the writer, in the show. You generally don’t have the chance to practice with the other actor in advance, and this time was no different. In the past, I’d been thrown off my game during a chemistry read, but this time I wouldn’t let my scene partners’ choices catch me off guard. I would expect the unexpected and hold my own gravitation pull.
“Action,” the director said.
The first take ran smoothly. Then the director gave Damir and I a few acting and blocking notes. I took a few beats to internalize them and left it all on the audition room floor.
Afterward, we were asked to wait in the waiting room while they deliberated. After 20 minutes the casting director came out. “We’ve seen what we’ve needed to see. You’re free to go,” he said.
I mulled over those words for days, trying to decipher whether that was positive or negative. Then, I got a call from my agent.
“Es, you’re the girl! Congratulations.”
Contractual agreements were signed, and I happily booked my first lead role in a TV series! They say sometimes that parts are written for you, and I feel that was true of this role. I’m so glad this was a story I was able to relive, tell, and bring to life.
And I cannot wait for you guys to watch it.
EMERGE is a TLN Studios production for TLN Media Group Inc. The 6 part series stars Damir Kovic, Simon Phillips, Mitchell Anthony, Justin Bott, and myself as Dorothy. The series is slated for broadcast in 2024.
