Not to do list

The audition

October 22, 2025

“Here, this is what I make”

As actors, we can fall in the trap of trying to morph into what we ‘think’ the casting director or director want.

We reach for something and in the process lose our authorship. This is a destabilising place to work from and makes the whole process feel empty.

“Here! Do you like this? Is this what you want?”

The alternative of course is radical authorship. It aligns with this idea of doing in the audition exactly what you would do on the shoot day.

Seems obvious, right?

Of course understanding what the project needs, the tone of the piece and the directors past work can and should feed into your process.

But it’s an interface, not a foundation.

Instead, it’s saying “Here, this is what I made. Here’s what I uniquely bring to this, you likey?”

This is a much more satiating orientation to the audition process. We remove the desperation and we get back to our art.

Every audition really is an opportunity to work, as Bryan Cranston encouraged us. The minute we reach for what we think they want is when we stop actually doing our job. We’re just entering a weird lottery at that point.

Ignite the artist and unleash the full force of your creative craft on that audition.

When you do that, whether or not you book the job becomes irrelevant.

Don’t try and be good.

October 19, 2025

Looking back on my experience of drama school, it seems a lot of the initial training was about getting us to focus on the right things.

There’s this thing people say about actor training where they “break you down and build you back up”.

I’ve never really liked this saying- it seems kind of negative or unnecessarily fear inducing. From my years of training it’s more about discovering patterns and building new ones.

And that’s just the learning process. But I guess people like making things sound dramatic and scary when it comes to acting.

It’s confronting, sure, but so is meeting your edge in any arena.

One of the main focuses I needed to undo in my training was this thing of trying to be liked. Of monitoring in an audience or in a director- am I doing the right thing? Do you like this?!

It makes sense, of course; my only frame of reference for learning was the school system that was all about being ‘right’. But of course acting isn’t about being ‘right’ it’s about being true.

Even that is a tricky metric- true according to who? Looking elsewhere for how truthful your work is is just another way of outsourcing your certainty.

Instead, as actors we must become experts of placing our focus. One way of doing this is to give your character an objective:

To make this person stay

To make them leave

To make them understand me

You get the idea. This is how we pursue truth; to what extent did you fight for your objective?

I love this way of thinking because if I’m feeling nervous I can ask myself, what is my objective?

And more often then not in those nerve wracking situations my objective has accidentally become “to make these people think I’m clever or funny.”

You lose when this becomes the objective, you really do. And this is what can happen if you’re not clear on your objective as an actor.

Trying to be clever or funny or attractive will always set you up for failure. Those things MIGHT come as a result of what you do in pursuit of an objective (emphasis on might, haha).

So in life, I think we should practice the same thing; give ourselves objectives that get us out of our own way. Objectives we can fight for, use our full selves to pursue them.

That’s playing big and that’s where the real magic is.

Learning and playing for keeps

September 24, 2025

Psst, have you tried bubbling?

And have you ever wondered how we keep what we learn…?

A year and a half ago I learned a great new voice exercise from a friend called the ‘lax vox’ exercise. The singer in me is on a constant journey of improvement so I was excited to try something I’d never done before.

The exercise involves having a straw in some water and signing through the straw; in my house it’s affectionately known as bubbling.

I loved bubbling! Every morning before breakfast, I was bubbling musical scales and my favourite musical theatre songs. The exercise is designed to strengthen your voacal muscular coordination and breath use. And it worked!

I was thrilled because my vocal technique really had changed. My daily bubbling turned into every other day, then would pick up again when I’m performing or teaching, then it dropped off nearly completely. And this morning I could hear and feel some difficulty in my voice.

I realised I hadn’t bubbled in a long time and I’d fallen into a familiar trap: Just because I learned the skill once, it doesn’t mean its mine forever. It’s the equivalent of going for a run once and thinking I’ll be fit for life.

We get what we practice for.

When I was in the daily practice of bubbling, my voice was always getting stronger and so it’s obvious that that would drop away when my daily practice did.

So this morning I got bubblin’ and decided I’m playing for keeps.

Don’t call someone a show off

September 21, 2025

A characteristic of the New Zealand upbringing is to make sure you aren’t standing out too much. We’re taught not to be a ‘know it all’, not to be too loud and that over confidence is to be avoided at all costs.

The term ‘show off’ as a negative is one of the most damaging things a young heart can hear.

This is why I’m banning you from saying it.

Words have effects, because of what they infer.

To call a kid a show off and tell them not to do it is inferring that what they have to ‘show off’ is not of value.

It’s inferring that you shouldn’t share things you’re excited or proud of.

It infers that you definitely should not own and flaunt the things you think you’re good at. In fact, you shouldn’t think you’re good at things.

Don’t be a show off.

As simple and harmless as it sounds, I believe its a real act of violence. It’s making the worse possible assumption of someones intentions. Of course, we can encourage kids to have a bit of grace in their gifts. Or assist them in improving them.

But we must never sever the sprout.

Yes, confidence and arrogance are on a spectrum and I’m saying that nuance should always be honored.

What is our intention? Do we want to push down the flurries of ‘showing off’ in an attempt to keep their creative spirit at bay? Maybe protect them from being teased?

Or, do we intend to lift up? To encourage? To feed the flame and signal safety? To say:

“hey that thing you’re trying takes bravery! Wow, look at you go! I honour you for it!”

Never flippantly extinguish this flame. Fan it!

Make the action match the goal

September 1, 2025

If you want to be a guitar player don’t go out and buy a ukulele.

Sure, it looks like a guitar- but it’s not.

You might say “But Justin! It’s a mini guitar, isn’t it a good place to start?”

Maybe- but I think if you want to be a guitar player, go and get a guitar.

Make the action match the goal.

If you want to be a novelist, don’t write once a month and wonder why it’s not happening for you.

A novelist writes every day, reads, researches, ideates, moulds, drafts, publishes… you get the point.

Make the action match the goal.

Where do you want to be? Don’t shortchange yourself by playing small. There’s already a fair distance between where you are and where you’re going.

Don’t increase the distance by getting a ukulele.

Get the guitar. Play full out. Act as if you’re there now. You’ll be immediately closer.

Any moment

August 31, 2025

Isn’t it cool that at any moment you can choose to be different?

No matter how tired, fed up or out of ideas you are, you can- at any moment- choose a new story. Adopt a better physiology. Heck you could even just smile.

Every single second presents us with a new opportunity to live into exactly the reality that we want.

Don’t miss too many of them.

Is this a version of hiding?

August 7, 2025

We’re great at hiding from the work. Sometimes it’s obvious like being on YouTube for too long.

Sometimes it disguises itself as something that is more helpful.

Here’s some ways I recently hid.

Brainstorming the next ten articles and the perfect way they will culminate to a congruent career through-line (I was hiding from actually writing the first one)

Learning how to position a hair light perfectly to make me ‘pop’ off of the green screen in post production more easily.

Chatting with AI about how to provide value for prospects instead of just making something for them and seeing how that goes.

The sneakiest hiding is when you can reason with yourself as to why it’s actually helping you. The clue is if it is ultra specific and frilly when you still need to do the ‘meat and potatoes’ work, then it’s probably hiding.

Be tough on yourself and don’t hide from your work.

What’s your favourite thing right now?

August 3, 2025

There’s an unwritten rule when it comes to talking to actors:

“What are you doing at the moment?”

DON’T ASK THAT. It seems harmless sure- but there’s a lot going on in that question. Actors don’t always get to be hired to do acting, so this question can trigger this fact. Worse still, there is a habit amongst actors to equate their self worth to their work.

So when you ask what they’re ‘up to’ at the moment or if there’s anything ‘in the pipe line’ you could be accidentally triggering a series of thoughts that lead to the actor saying to themself “I am worthless”

Yikes, what a mine field.

Instead, I prescribe asking a different question. One that not only dodges any existential crises BUT it also forces both parties to be present, really present with that very moment.

What is your favourite thing right now?

It’s open enough to be a bit of a pick your own adventure for the person being asked, but it’s also specific enough to begin a good conversation.

It’s not perfect- I’ll keep playing with this one and see if there’s something even better.

What I like about it is it gives the power to the other person, gives them status. It allows them to find something that they’re actually interested in, something they’re excited about; their favourite thing.

With that kind of kindling you’re in for a fire of a conversation!

Honour inaction

July 29, 2025

Sometimes it’s as important to not do something as it is to do something.

Let me explain.

I was at the gym today and was getting SO bored waiting for the three minute rest time between sets. I wanted so badly to just stop the timer at two minutes and nine seconds and just do the next one.

The fact is, this short interval is precisely this long to give my body enough rest to then do the next set. Skipping it would actually be to my long term detriment; I’d struggle to do the amount of reps on that weight as I’d have otherwise had done. (Sure, I could change the rest time to be shorter, but then it has to be that short always as it’s about controlling variables in the gym.)

It’s kind of counter intuitive because action is what causes things to happen right? It feels good to be in action, it means we’re moving toward our goal.

This is mostly the case, but there are times when what is truly called for is to not do anything. To wait, perhaps. Or to let the last action seed and grow.

Truely moving forward is knowing when to take action and when to honour inaction. I suppose it’d be called active waiting.

Don’t look up

July 24, 2025

(not the movie, your life)

It’s our job to find something worth mastering. Something of value to others (whatever the scale may be)

We must practice it. Over and over again, don’t ask for anything from the world in return. Merely serve. Keep your head down for a long time.

100 days, maybe even one thousand.

But…

Don’t.

Look.

Up.

Practicing is enough, you don’t need to.

JUSTIN ROGERS

Post Category: