For over twenty years, Michael Lien has been casting commercials for everything from Coke to Colgate, Sears to Sea World, Hallmark to Hershey. Among the myriad of directors he has worked with are Penny Marshall, Rob Pritts, Mark Pellington and Academy Award winner Caleb Deschanel. While Lien has done music videos, video games, trailers and industrials, commercials are clearly his specialty.
If your audition is not good, know they’ll always tape over it. No casting director is going to submit a tape that looks bad, if they want to keep working with that advertising agency.
Actors need to memorize the first and last line. That way, they’re looking at the camera - at least for the beginning and the end. You don’t have to memorize everything in between.
It’s judged in the first few seconds and they may or may not watch beyond that. They’re evaluating your look first and your ability second. Therefore, you should dress closely to the part. Don’t try to be exact or wear a uniform but do try to suggest the role.
Yes, but I think more people have a shot now than when I first started. Clients don’t like to see people in commercials that they’ve seen before. Certainly an actor is not going to be punished if they’ve done other commercials; but generally, if you don’t have anything running and you do a good performance and you’re up against someone who did a good performance and has a lot on the air, you probably have the better shot.
No. Usually, they want to know about your theatrical credits, not your commercial credits. They want to think you’re their discovery.
Well, I cast the first big music video - Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” - and I wrote the Taft-Hartley letter on Robin Williams.
I was working on two jobs at the time. Robin came in for one and was totally wrong for it. The other project was for Illinois Bell. It had a guy talking into the phone and imitating all of these voices. When I came out into the waiting room, Robin was talking to a friend and he was making all of these weird noises the way Robin Williams does. I sent him to the director immediately and they loved him. He had never worked in front of a camera before. I ended up working for that advertising agency forever after that. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of actors who have done commercials and with what the commercials have done for the actors. It really gives people a base and foundation. When I started, people like Chevy Chase and Marsha Mason were coming in.
I try my best to stay away from any non-union casting. Really, I would only call in non-union talent for print casting or maybe a student film for AFI. I always advise my clients to go union because it’s really their best option. It’s best to do everything above board. I make my living working with SAG actors so I try to support the union anyway I can.
We get a stack of mail everyday and we put a large percentage of our jobs on online breakdowns. If you have an agent, I’ll eventually end up seeing your picture. If an actor doesn’t have representation, unless they have a really obscure talent (a fire-eater, fluency in Gaelic or something that most people aren’t), there’s almost no reason I would see them. I just get too many submissions. I look at them all but I can’t call all those people in. If we put out a breakdown for ten parts, we usually get anywhere from one to five thousand submissions, but we only call in between ten and thirty people for each role.
Anything that shows body language is good. It helps us to see a little bit more of the actor’s personality. With most casting directors, your shots have less than one second to make an impression. They have to be great! If you’re not getting out on auditions, that’s probably one of the reasons. Very rarely do actors with bad pictures get into auditions. Actors shouldn’t be sending me their pictures anyway. Their agents should do that and if they don’t have agents, they should spend their time trying to get one instead of trying to get to me. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it when people make it easy and just send a postcard with some information on the back. It’s quick and easy. And it’s much better for the actor’s advertising dollar. Now, if they’re looking for an agent, obviously they have to send the whole picture and résumé, but for me, that’s not necessary. I know these things seem small but cumulatively, with the stacks of mail that we get, it’s not small.
Quality shows. And résumés need to be current. If the last thing you did was ten years ago, I’m going to wonder why. You can include older shows as a representation but they have to be balanced with more recent work. The other thing that is so important on a résumé is the actor’s height, weight, and coloring. Let’s say I get a picture in the mail and I’m looking for a husband for a specific actress. The picture is of a new face and I like it. But if I don’t know what his height or weight is, I can’t match them up. What if the characters have kids? I need to know the coloring. What if the project is a car commercial and they’re too big for the car or too small for the car? I have to be able to tell from the résumé. And it’s not just for commercials, it’s theatrical too. What if they want to put you with Dustin Hoffman? Dustin Hoffman is very short. What if they want to put you with Arnold Schwarzenegger? He’s very big. So you only help yourself by telling the truth.
I hate to keep dwelling on the negative, but generally, if you have a bad attitude on a particular day, don’t go on an audition. It won’t help you. You’ll only make an enemy of the casting director—and if you’re in this for the long haul, that’s not something you want to do. There are actors, for example, who get uppity when they walk in and see thirty other people waiting to audition. They should be grateful that they’re one of the thirty! Three thousand actors who weren’t called in submitted for that role. That stuff makes me crazy. Number two, say hello to your friends after the audition. Get prepared first. And when you come in, have your choices and decisions made. You’re going to be a much better judge of what’s going to work for you than I am. There are actors who even come in and ask us which clothes they should wear. That’s not up to me.
You would be shocked at how many times we get pictures that don’t have the actor’s name or their agent’s information on them. A lot of actors assume that their agents will take care of that. Guess again. Another thing, be nice to my assistant, because you never know when he’s going to be running the company. There are secretaries who have become vice presidents of networks. So always be nice to everybody you meet. Some actors won’t talk to assistants. Even agents can be that way. Well, if they won’t talk to my assistant, they’re never going to get through to me. It’s such a silly thing and it happens a lot. I don’t hire people here that I don’t trust. My assistant opens the envelopes and don’t think he doesn’t say to me, “You know, this person was really rude to me.” So I avoid that person. Believe me, it’s a small circle. None of us need unpleasantness in our lives.
Michael Lien
323.937.0411
7461 Beverly Blvd. Suite 203. Los Angeles, CA 90035