Jessie Usher Quotes

During the screen test for 'Red Widow' was the first time anyone ever told me that I was good at auditioning.

I've never given a bad audition in my life.

You go into an audition, you're either the one or you're not, and if you're not, you go home. And I kind of like that. If you're really good, and you're the best guy in the room that day, you get the job.

I didn't act professionally before going to drama school. I don't know if I had the confidence. I didn't think I'd get in when I first auditioned for drama school, and then I did.

I've had some rank auditions where I embarrassed myself to new heights, which is hard for me to do. I was never good at auditioning. There are a number of actors over the years come up the ranks who are horrific at auditioning.

You can be in an acting class all you want, but you don't fully learn until you get off that stage and in front of a camera.

I'm just terrible at auditions. I don't know how anyone does it.

I am always nervous when I'm auditioning for a part I really want.

As an actor, you have an accumulated knowledge base. But there's also something about it that every time you really feel like you're doing it for the first time; you have no idea whether you're capable of it.

'Body of Proof' was interesting because... I didn't feel I needed to prove anything in that audition. I didn't over-prepare it, but I was just very relaxed in it.

In films, I didn't crave the type of attention I had sort of stumbled into in my music career. And I do not audition well. I'm really not good at it. Early on, I did movies like 'Alpha Dog' and 'Black Snake Moan' because the directors didn't ask me to audition.

Sometimes you walk out of an audition and you kind of know you nailed it and you're probably going to book it, but you very rarely are told in the room by the people who are hiring you.

Sometimes fake laughing is hard once you've done a scene 18 times. I don't want to brag, but I have a reputation for being very, very good at that. It's funny finding what's challenging about acting as you go.

If you're not careful as an actor, you can find yourself, at a certain point, a little bit bored.

A bad audition is usually the director's fault, not the actor's. It's up to the director to get the atmosphere right to get the best out of your auditionees.

You do your best [ on auditions] and sometimes you win 'em over and sometimes you don't.

I want to attack and to lead my life with vigor, but I'm in the watching stage at the moment. Younger actors feel pressure to bring a pop to every scene; as the roles get bigger, I'm finding you can add layers and do less scene-to-scene.

You're always nervous about an audition.

I have been parts of some films in the South where I didn't expect certain shots to be shot in a certain way. I wasn't experienced enough; I was very naive. I didn't have the standing of an actor to say that I don't want to do this shot.

There's always this hump, this 1-week hump where the first-time actors have to get used to the fact that there's a camera in their face. It takes them about a week to get comfortable.

I had never really acted before, so I really didn't know what I was doing. The casting director for 'Euphoria' set me up with an acting coach in New York, and he completely flipped my world around. The way you learn to utilize your brain and your emotions really freaked me out.

Commercial auditions can be pretty humiliating.

I think my concerns are the same as every actor. Can I find this character and make it come to life properly?

For me, the audition process always starts with a few questions: Who am I? What am I trying to get across? Why am I trying to get that across? Where am I emotionally? It's a lot to do with my foundation, and I go from there.

When I got the script for 'The Art of Seduction,' I realised I'd never been in a comedy, so I decided to experiment. What the character went through could never happen in my own life.