Authentic Casting with Angela & Louise Heesom

S03E06 is with the wonderful Angela and Louise Heesom, casting directors from Heesom Casting in South Australia. 

Angela & Louise discuss their journey in the industry and the role of casting directors. They emphasize the importance of collaboration and supporting actors in the audition process.  The conversation touches on the impact of technology on casting, including the use of self-tapes, and the need for actors to adapt to this changing landscape. In this conversation, Angela and Louise Heesom discuss the importance of finding authenticity in acting and simplifying scenes to their core emotions. They emphasize the need for actors to live authentically and honestly within a moment, rather than trying to demonstrate or indicate their character. They also discuss the opportunities for actors in regional areas and the impact of self-taping on the industry. They encourage actors to keep up their skills and training, and to never give up on their dreams.

Takeaways

• Casting directors are not gatekeepers or enemies, but rather collaborators who support actors in the audition process.
• Technology has changed the casting landscape, allowing for a broader pool of actors to be considered for roles.
• Casting directors strive to find fresh talent and cast against type to create unique and engaging storytelling experiences.
• The use of self-tapes has become more prevalent, and actors should focus on delivering their best work and showcasing their understanding of the character.
• Actors should approach auditions with a sense of collaboration and a willingness to explore different interpretations of the role. Find the authenticity of a scene and work back to its simplest, purest emotion.
• Live authentically and honestly within a moment, rather than demonstrating or indicating a character.
• Opportunities for actors exist in regional areas, especially with the rise of self-taping.
• Keep up your skills and training as an actor, whether through formal education or self-study.
• Never give up on your dreams and continue to pursue acting with passion and dedication.

Check out

Chapters

• 3:53 Demystifying Casting Directors
• 26:57 Delivering Authentic Performances
• 32:08 The Power of Authenticity and Connection in Acting
• 34:02 The Rise of Self-Tapes and Opportunities for Actors
• 35:58 Acting in Regional Areas: Staying or Moving?
• 47:06 The Importance of Training for Actors
• 49:50 The Significance of Auditions and the Casting Process
• 59:26 Perseverance and Belief in the Acting Journey

Transcript

David John Clark (00:00)

Welcome everyone. We have a another wonderful episode for you for The Late Bloomer Actor podcast. And we're coming again from South Australia, but this time with the wonderful Angela and Louise Heesom of Heesom Casting. Heesom Casting is South Australia's market leader and the state's only casting guild of Australia accredited fully serviced independent casting directors. They're offering premium casting solutions to the local, national and international film and advertising industries.

They operate from the studios at the South Australian Film Corporation. Heesom Casting has cast hundreds of high profile award winning commercials. TV series such as The Hunting for SBS, Wolf Creek, TV for Stan, Deadline Gallipoli for Foxtel, Anzac Girls for ABC, Pine Gap for Netflix, which was a wonderful one that I was fortunate to be involved in. Danger 5, SBS, and they also hold over 50 film credits today, including the genre in the defining Wolf Creek 1 & 2.

And most recently, the Warner Brothers blockbuster, Mortal Kombat, which was absolutely fantastic for South Australia. And I remember the queues outside of the studios for everyone lining up for an audition. So this is an absolute wonderful episode where we really get into who...

casting directors are as well as who Angela and Louise are as casting directors to realise that they are part of our team, my team, your team. And they're not this scary thing that you need to find your way through, that they're there to support you and be part of your journey, which is why they're on the podcast because they've been a part of my journey for, we were trying to work it out for,

10 years or more now. So, and that journey is continuing. So it was wonderful to have them on. Absolutely fantastic chat with both of them out of the studios themselves. So with Louise was able to get some babysitters so she could join us this morning. So that was fantastic. So guys, thank you for coming. Remember like, subscribe and follow the podcast to share it with your friends if you can. And I'd love to have your support if you can leave a review,

or if you can spare a couple of dollars and hit the link for subscribe down there, that'll help pay for all this wonderful equipment that makes me sound so wonderful because I need everything that I can find to make me sound so good on screen and on the audio. So thank you very much and enjoy the episode. And as I like to say all the time, see you on set.

David John Clark (02:29)

Good morning everyone and welcome back to The Late Bloomer Actor. It is June, it is cold here in Adelaide, South Australia. We've just started winter, my favorite season, not. I suffer from a seasonal affective disorder according to my wife, self -diagnosed. So I'll try and keep the mood up. We have two wonderful ladies on with us today, Angela and Louise Heesom from Heesom Casting in South Australia. Good morning ladies.

Angela & Louise Heesom (02:46)

Thank you.

Morning, thank you for having us.

David John Clark (02:58)

Thank you very much for coming on. Casting directors are some of the hardest guests to get because they are some of the busiest people in the industry. So I really appreciate you for coming on board.

Angela & Louise Heesom (03:07)

That's a pleasure. We always make time for you, David. It's been a long relationship. So, very happy to do it. Yeah.

David John Clark (03:11)

It has, it has, and we will talk about that for sure. So, but before we go into the nitty gritty of everything, everyone in Adelaide knows you two ladies, of course. But we've got a lot of guests around the world and we're reaching out to America. So this is a chance for people to learn who Angela and Louise Heesom are. So we have two guests, obviously we can't talk over each other. So let's start with the queen of Heesom casting, if that's an appropriate word, Angela.

Angela & Louise Heesom (03:34)

Nice.

David John Clark (03:39)

Can you just give us a little bit of a background into your life, how you got to where you are today and made Heesom Casting as it is?

Angela & Louise Heesom (03:48)

Absolutely. And I never, you know, sort of my wildest dreams that I'd be a casting director. It was never in the game plan. But I was born and bred in my early years in Liverpool, in England, the beetle country. And my family emigrated to Australia when I was about 11. So when I came here, I went to school.

David John Clark (04:10)

Nice.

Angela & Louise Heesom (04:13)

I didn't have any particular career I wanted to do. I love playing table tennis. I was a champion table tennis player. I used to play play the state. And that's what I really loved doing. And then I know if you get one day when I was about 15, my mother decided I wasn't going to get my table tennis service subs I hadn't tidied my room or something, teenagerish like that. So I've always been very independent. So I thought, well,

David John Clark (04:22)

Wow.

Angela & Louise Heesom (04:40)

I'm going to find my own way of earning a living then, so, because I really want my table tennis sub. So I actually looked in the papers that morning, saw a job for an apprentice hairdresser, I'd never even thought about hairdressing. Without telling my parents, I caught a bus to town and queued up with 90 other girls to get that job and embarrassingly I got it. So then I had a lot of fast talking to do because...

A letter arrived in the mail, in those days it was letters, it wasn't emails, saying that I'd been offered the role of an apprentice hairdresser at Grenfell Street, a place called Shergis which is a really well known salon then. And I was only 15, but actually my parents were always very, very supportive and they got behind me and, you know, I started a hairdressing career, which I did and I loved for about five or six years. And then I went to London and,

I, as travellers do, young people do, and I applied for three or four jobs and I was offered three of them. I don't know what it was like with getting jobs. I wish it was the same with actors and auditions, but I was offered three jobs. One was with the Irish Export Board and that was when they were sending bombs in the mail to those sorts of places. So I thought I wouldn't take that. And the other one was a very high paying job at a PR company. And the last one was a terribly paying, low paying job.

David John Clark (05:42)

Yeah, I'm starting to think.

Angela & Louise Heesom (05:59)

working for a film company in Soho called the Moving Picture Company. And it was just a frontline job in those days, just receptionist. And it was a big company, it's a huge company now, it does all the Harry Potter post -production. But in those days, it was one of the biggest production companies in Europe. And I was just a full -time switch girl. But that was a turning point in my life, I think, because the moment I got in with that crowd, I really felt like I'd found my tribe. I just absolutely loved it, like we all do. And...

and just drank up everything that was production. And then after two or three years there, I returned to Adelaide for a holiday and the holiday became a long -term return to Adelaide. And I got a job from there in a documentary company called Filmhouse. So we were doing a lot of documentaries, you know, on the Kangaroo Island echidna, the Tour de France, Jack Absalom, the Outback Adventurer. And I was just working with a very small film crew as a production manager

David John Clark (06:52)

Wow.

Angela & Louise Heesom (06:54)

for about four or five years. Then I moved into feature films as we do. It's like you get into the industry and you start growing and trying different things. So then for several years, I was a feature film production coordinator and all those early films that were happening in the 80s. That's putting a bit of age tag on me. No, you're timeless. I'm timeless. There we are. I'm timeless.

David John Clark (06:59)

Awesome, yeah.

Yes, beautiful.

Angela & Louise Heesom (07:18)

Then I did production work for about 10 years and then there was an agency called Spotlight, do you remember Spotlight David? Spotlight Casting?

David John Clark (07:26)

No, know the spotlight as in overseas, but not one here in South Australia. No.

Angela & Louise Heesom (07:30)

 Well, in those days, Lyn Pike ran a company called Spotlight Casting and that was, you know, one of the two biggest agencies in town, actors' agencies in town. And yeah, yeah. And so they decided to cease being an agent and they asked me if I'd like to be an actors' agent. And I knew nothing about being an actors' agent. I did know by then I loved actors because even on the films I worked on.

David John Clark (07:39)

I know Lyn Pike's name, so maybe I have heard it, yeah.

Angela & Louise Heesom (07:57)

I'd always be hanging out in the caravan and the wardrobe and makeup trucks and hanging out with actors and watching them on set and just wanted to be part of who they were. So I thought, might as well give give a try. By then Louise had come along, my beautiful Louise, and she was probably seven or eight then. And I thought it might be just a perfect career for a... This is late 80s, early 90s. That's right. Don't age me up too much,

David John Clark (08:21)

Okay. We to, it's really hard when you're telling a backstory and et cetera without giving away ages, but.

Angela & Louise Heesom (08:26)

which has been going quite so far, which is handy. And then, yes, I started a company called Actors Inc. And that was in 1994. And I was working out of a really hot sweatshop in O 'Connell Street, an old 1940s ballroom that hadn't been even swept, the floors hadn't even been swept for 50 years. Had no ventilation, no air conditioning.

Talk about the cold today, it was stinking hot, like it was so hot and we were stifling me and my assistant. One day actually we came to work with towel and dresses on because it was so hot, we just had to find a way of soaking up the sweat. So I built Actors Inc and within three years it's one of the biggest actors agencies in South Australia. We moved to swanky premises at the old Adelaide North Adelaide Police Station in Archer Street. It was a beautiful, it was a cop shop actually. David, before we...

David John Clark (09:02)

Love it.

Angela & Louise Heesom (09:18)

we moved in, so we were there for about three years. It was a fabulous place. Actors loved it. They used to, out the back, I had the, in the exercise yard, I had an actor's hangout spot and we had, you know, coffee running 24 seven and we had, you know, tables and actors used to come and congregate, you know, collaborate, all that sort of stuff. It was a real club. And that was the start of Actors Inc. And then, that's right. That's right. That's right.

David John Clark (09:30)

beautiful.

Wow, because that's where I started my journey was with Actors Inc. Yeah, when they were in the, I signed up with them just after I turned 40. So the midlife crisis, instead of having an affair or buying a fancy car, I became an actor and Actors Inc was where I first went and I ended up doing their four term study. So that's how I decided not to just be a, not just to be an extra, but I decided I had the...

Angela & Louise Heesom (10:00)

Yeah!

What view was that?

David John Clark (10:07)

God. So that would have been, what are we, 2023 now, 2013, 2010? Yeah. So.

Angela & Louise Heesom (10:13)

 well I no longer owned Actors Inc then, the Laidlaw's took it over in the year 2000. But no, there were heady days in those days and I loved every moment of that job. But what happened was the agency got very, very big, huge. And it was the times of doing Rabbit Proof Fence in all those really big movies. But I was frustrated because I felt my actors weren't actually being seen for the interesting roles, the bigger roles.

David John Clark (10:18)

Yes, yes, that's who. Well, there you go.

Angela & Louise Heesom (10:41)

There was no casting director in South Australia, being in a small community. And so when films came here, they'd come here, cast by interstate casting directors, many of my lovely colleagues, but all the roles were gone except for the 50 worder's and the extras. And after about three years of observing that, I thought things have got to change. I've got to try and get my actors a chance at going for the lead roles and the key support roles.

So I thought thought only way to do that is to start up a casting industry here so that the films start by casting here, looking at what's in Adelaide. then if it's not found here, then going interstate for the role. So I decided to split my business in half. It was half casting and half training and representation. And split it in half. I sold the training and representation to Richard Laidlaw, who still runs it today.

David John Clark (11:34)

Mm -hmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (11:34)

And I started up an independent casting agency called Heesom Casting. And then from there on, I started casting lots of movies and TV series, documentary, short films. I mean, it's been well over 100 in that time that we've we've handled. Yeah.

David John Clark (11:48)

Fantastic. And you are the only accredited independent casting with the Casting Guild of Australia, our casting agency in South Australia, even today. Love it.

Angela & Louise Heesom (11:58)

From South Australia. And look, the Casting Guild is a wonderful organisation as well. We started that, I was one of the founding members probably about five or six years ago. Casting can be a very lonely, isolated job because you're not part of the film crew and you come on very early when there's just a producer and director and us. And I'm so grateful that Louise joined the company.

David John Clark (12:21)

Mmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (12:25)

Yeah, as a young teen, of course, on Saturday she was in the organisation earning your pocket money. But let's just talk about what happened when you went overseas, didn't you? No, no, keep going. It's a great segue It's all about her. Every time I hear her story, I'm so immensely impressed with what she has done that I've just become a fan girl myself.

David John Clark (12:32)

That's.

No, that's a great segue into how I...

I love it. Do you learn something every time? Lou, do you learn something every time she goes through and go, I didn't know that.

Angela & Louise Heesom (12:51)

 a diamond. There's so many different ways to view the facets within her So it's incredible and just being a single Mum and forging an entire industry sector in those times, particularly when the opinion that there was no great acting community within South Australia and she really put it on the map. And that makes me immensely proud because I know...

David John Clark (13:06)

Mmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (13:17)

had a real lasting impact, not only for South Australia as a business sector, but for so many artists that just want the opportunity for their work to be seen and considered. And I'm so proud that Mum is at the precipice of that. So it's amazing when I hear about it. It's very impressive.

David John Clark (13:32)

 do love how you talk about your Mum when you do and you have that... I love it.

Angela & Louise Heesom (13:38)

Only when we're live and on air. you have to see her. I'm telling you the real story. No, I must say she's beautiful through and through. Beautiful outside and inside. I feel very blessed to have such a loving daughter. Not only from a business point of view but personally, she is a very supportive, loving human. So anyone who knows Louise would probably know that. I wish you two well. So she, yes, that's right, I'm a single parent. And then when Louise was 20, she left home and I became a very lonely single parent. So Louise went to London for, how many years were you in London?

David John Clark (13:53)

We all know that.

Angela & Louise Heesom (14:07)

Almost five, five. And I ended up working for Viacom and CBS, so the big advertising giants over there before getting a job. Had a creative agency called Everything Works. I was desperate because my Mum was formerly a producer and my Dad was a director. They fell in love on set, had me, got divorced! As all film romances tend to happen, I was desperate to do anything not within the film sector. And so...

David John Clark (14:09)

Wow.

Okay.

Angela & Louise Heesom (14:35)

but went to the next best thing, which was advertising and ended up working there for five or six years producing commercials all across Eastern and mainland Europe. And then the financial crisis happened over in London and all the freelancers, all the Australians, everyone in Sheppard's Bush were completely out of work. And we all, and so I came home desperately poor asking for Mum for a job so I could just make ends meet and ended up falling madly in love with her.

So that's, I got the job through bloodline, not through skill, is what I always say.

David John Clark (15:05)

Awesome.

I mean, you would have grown up with it. So, Angela alluded to you being in on the weekends and stuff like that. So...

Angela & Louise Heesom (15:16)

It was amazing as a kid, I was part of the circus. I was on

to grow up for sure. A lot of things have changed David now since Lou joined because she put a very modern wash on the business. A lot of the major stuff we've done since she's been with us, like the big mortal combats of the world would never have happened if it wasn't for Lou's steering of those projects. And it's got to the point where the last few years until she's recently obviously been on the maternity leave for having two beautiful grandsons for me.

David John Clark (15:47)

And so.

Hmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (16:13)

But she's been steering the projects. So I'm now working for her, you know what I mean, in many ways. And Mortal Kombat was a prime example where she just led that entire film. It was massive, it was the biggest film ever done in South Australia, an eighty million dollar film. It was a total partnership. I do not know what she's talking about. And she led the whole thing. So I happily work for her and she brought all the social media and all the language and also Louise is trained as an actor. So she brings into the audition room something

quite unique. She brings in the eye of a director in casting director, but also the understanding of an actor and she can really help unlock in actors things in the room which I can't so she's pretty incredible.

David John Clark (16:50)

Mmm.

But I think you do because I've been in front of you before and you've got that ability to redirect and stuff. I think it's something that just comes naturally in the role of a casting director over time, of course, that they become acting teachers per se. And I love it that, Lou, we've done the course with you and you have that ability to see actors and to redirect them down. But...

This sort of starts to go into some questions I have with self -taping and that. And we'll talk about that later because self -taping has taken that away, that one -on -one with casting directors a bit. But before we go into casting directors, I want to start off with a, like a bit of a tough topic. So then we can end on a lighter one. How's that sound? So I want it, but it's not, it.

Angela & Louise Heesom (17:45)

Very cool. Baptism of fire. Okay. Ready?

David John Clark (17:48)

It's like a current issue discussion really. It's arguably a tough topic, but there's a current issue going around the world associated with casting. And I've listened to dozens of podcasts with casting directors from around the world. And a current major discussion point is in relation to an issue that happened in the US during the COVID crisis, where a casting agency advertised a pay for audition service. So as I said, I want to talk about the self -taping shortly, but...

What seemed to happen is I feel casting directors have had a bad rap forever. Initially, casting directors were put up on a pedestal and they were considered by many to be gatekeepers to actors working, but now the pendulum has swung all the way to the other side and there's a lot of people treating casting directors as the enemy for want of a better word. Can I ask how you both feel about that, about that going from casting directors being considered the gatekeepers,

and to now being treated as the enemy. Whereas I think we're all part of the team and it's all a process. What's your thoughts of people seeing it that way?

Angela & Louise Heesom (18:51)

For me, that's the first. I've heard of the analogy of casting directors being a gatekeeper and I think definitely technology has shifted that. I haven't actually heard the pendulum go the other way of us being considered the enemy. So for me, that is painful to hear because there is nobody more on the actor's side than a casting director.

David John Clark (19:00)

Mm.

I told you about...

Hmm. And that's why I wanted to bring it up. So it's wonderful that it hasn't affected you. And it's certainly something that I'm hearing from so many other podcasts that I listen to in the UK and in England, that I think it's the world we live in and people expect to get everything they want now. And if you don't, they need to direct their anger at somewhere. And that's where it seems to be going. And I think it's such a shame. So that's why I wanted to go into casting and...

Angela & Louise Heesom (19:22)

I know it.

David John Clark (19:40)

and how you're there to support us and that you're not the gatekeepers and that you're not the enemy.

Angela & Louise Heesom (19:47)

No, I think I can definitely understand. I mean, everything these days, there's no such thing as a nine to five job within every, every single industry, but certainly in the film industry, the film industry has never operated like that. So from the day that we sign on to a production, the moment we sign on that contract, we're only two weeks behind schedule because we're all chasing mighty production schedule. So we're running like a bull from the gates.

Because of that, I think the ferocious speed in which we work means... It just means that we need to economise even more. The thing is that...

This is our philosophy and I'm sure it's shared by most casting directors that I know certainly. Actors feel they come in and test for us and that they're actually testing for us, but not testing for us at all. We're testing together and our job is to make the actor totally comfortable in the room and to support them to do their best work. And so we always feel it's an even -stevens thing that both actor and casting director have equal weight.

David John Clark (20:36)

Mmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (20:49)

And we're very, very strong on that. And we're very strong on that when we do callbacks with the director in the room too, which obviously sometimes can feel a bit toppled, but you know, the actor's worth and the sense of respect that we give an actor is the same as an actor, a director or a casting director. Our job is to make it, get the best work out of the actor. And in a way, we selfishly want the best work because no one's going to employ the Heesom's if all the tapes we send

of our studio work is all bad and not reaching the, you know, hitting the goals that the director's expecting. So it's in that interest as well that the actor does their best work. I can understand sometimes actors feeling a bit like we are the gatekeeper because I guess in the audition space, we only allowed 10, 15 minutes for an actor and sometimes an actor might want to do more, you know, they might leave feeling they haven't done their best work yet. But that's just...

David John Clark (21:24)

Exactly.

Mm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (21:45)

you know, one of the realities of time. And there used to be a time back in the day that sense of there being a gatekeeper, I can understand that, because you used to have to only be, if you're an actor and you wanted to be considered for a large role for Australian feature film, you really did have to be based in Sydney, so you were getting in the room with that casting director, because back in the day self -tape's didn't exist. These days, there's such a shift in technology, which means that if we're auditioning a room, it's,

David John Clark (21:48)

And that's sort of...

Angela & Louise Heesom (22:15)

lead role, you know, we're seeing 20 people, 40 people for that role, we've got 10, 15 minutes per audition and we've only got two weeks to deliver tapes of director. There's a sense of reality that we can only see so many people in that time frame in order to deliver it. So therefore we are making educated decisions on who we think might be right for those roles as well as taking gambles on new talent, emerging talent, people we don't know, who we would love to get in the room and work with and see their...

their ilk of an actor or what they could possibly offer the production that we haven't even considered before. And that's, they're always the juicy, most exciting auditions because you don't know what's gonna happen in that space. But so technology has changed that now. So instead of just seeing those, those, you know, 20, 30, 40 actors, we can suddenly open it up to a much broader market, which means that if we've got David Clark living in Adelaide and he can't come to Sydney for a tape to see us in the room, if...

you know, back in these days, we can offer a self -tape and then that work can be considered and sent to the producers and directors. So it actually opens up the creative pool in which we can actually be offering directors and producers ways in which they might want to cast their particular production. And our job as casting directors, we get no satisfaction in just casting the same old faces every single time. Ours is how do we cast...

off -cast type. How can we surprise the audience? How can we engage the audience in a different level of storytelling that is unpredictable and is told to them in a way in which has not yet been expressed in our screen? And that's where our artistry is being able to be utilised its best because we don't want to go for those most obvious choices. I think audiences are sick of seeing that as well. And so opening up the pool of

the range of actors and the diversity of actors and the way in which we want our own humanity to be reflected back on screen is something that in the space of technology has given us that ability to do. And so I find that we're in a really, really interesting space these days in terms of casting and representation. So I think that the long gone idea of the gatekeeper I think hopefully is dead and buried.

And I hope there's one message we can send to all actors is that please do not feel us as the enemy. Our industry is you. And if we have no actors, we have no job. So I think it's a, this medium is a collaborative medium and it's one that is from, it needs to be fueled with a huge generosity of spirit, both in the room, in working, but also, you know, raising our industry collectively.

David John Clark (24:29)

Beautiful.

Angela & Louise Heesom (24:57)

And again, we're only as good as the actors we present, we're only as good as you, really.

David John Clark (25:03)

I love that. And that's exactly where I wanted to bring it because I've been very fortunate to be in front of a lot of casting directors, both in the auditions I've done, workshops that I've done and the relationships that I've had. So I know exactly what you've just said there. And I wanted to have that ability to, for my listeners to see that you aren't this empowering...

creature, sitting in this dark tower at the studio, you're there to support you. Because a lot of people don't get to see who you are. And especially now when, as we go to more self -tapes, and this will be a great, I'm going to use the word again, another great segue into self -taping is that now we're submitting our self -tapes, we're not starting in the room. So a lot of actors aren't seeing the casting directors now, they're sending in their auditions.

Angela & Louise Heesom (25:30)

I'm so proud of her, absolutely not.

David John Clark (25:55)

And because of the very nature of it, they're not getting that feedback. So if they don't hear from you, then.

Angela & Louise Heesom (26:00)

 crave the days that we used to have back -to -back auditions for weeks on end. I mean, for me, there's nothing more joyous about my job than when I'm in the room working with the actors. I live a Peter Pan existence. I'm so lucky. And I still get to benefit because I get to receive all this great artwork in form of self -tapes. But that connection, that collaboration, that sense of conversation, how the actor is able to educate me on the role and how...

different ways in which those moments can be played. I mourn for those days, but you know, it is the changing industry, but we're actually in awe of actors. I mean, quite honestly, generally, I go to the theatre a lot. I love going to the theatre because it's in the room, I can only see an actor for about 10 minutes. There's only a short amount of time that I get to receive their work. And seeing them alive on stage for an hour plus is just like heaven to me.

And then by the time they're finished, I have to go to stage door to say hello and congratulations. I mean, I'm a total mess because I'm just in complete appreciation of what they're actually able to deliver. So, you know, I think that there's no one who's a greater fan of actors and their work because we understand how much work has to go into it in order to deliver something with that scale and artistry. And I think every casting director feels that about actors. There's such a huge amount of respect.

David John Clark (26:57)

Awesome.

Beautiful.

So on that nature of the self -tapes, to get to that second stage so we can come into the room with a callback, whether it's be Zoom or in the room, what would you, if you had to give a couple of quick snippets to an actor, what do you think we need to do with our self -tapes? Is there anything special or just deliver who we are and deliver what we think the character is and go from there?

Angela & Louise Heesom (27:53)

I always recommend actors to find the authenticity of what that scene is about. I think we tend to want to over complicate the material and I understand that. I used to direct myself and I look back on the work that I probably delivered in the room casting and I think, my god, what was I thinking? And it's because there's such a want and a hunger to be seen for those roles and for your work to be considered as good. And so we tend to put on...

We want to show everything that we've got in our arsenal in the room and through that the performance becomes about us and we lose the character. So I always recommend just try and work back to the most, what is the most simplest, purest reason that the scene exists? And often is it just, is the core root of it simply because he didn't tell me he was?

And so all these other scaffolds that we put around it in order to protect ourselves is what's disguising that real core emotion. And I think when we don't understand the scene well enough, we haven't read the scene well enough, and we don't understand ourselves enough as human beings, well enough as human beings, we tend to want to demonstrate and indicate what we want the audience or what we want the casting director to think about the character that we are creating,

instead of living authentically and honestly within that moment. So whenever you're in doubt, just go simple. Go for that one true, what is it about the human condition that this is about? Where do I identify and find myself within that? And then go from that place of honesty and truth and go for connectedness. Because all the other stuff is extraneous. And actually, Morgan Freeman says it really well. He says that only a bad actor will show that they're acting.

David John Clark (29:42)

Mm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (29:42)

 why the Daniel Day Lewis and Meryl Streep and John Malkovich are just so amazing because their acting is translucent. You can't tell that they're even doing it. And it's just viscerally alive and wildly human. And yet they're not having to do much at all. It's because in life we spend our whole lives concealing and disguising what we're really feeling because the volume of that emotion is just too intense and we don't want it to burst out of us because we don't know

what we do and that we don't want to risk the relationship. And so in life, you know, we always try and keep it really, really simple and play every single moment as it comes to us. And it's hard, it's really, really easy for me to say that on the other side of the camera. It's so difficult to actually do, but it comes down to trust, finding an ease and a fluidity within your work, which just springs from honesty, authenticity and connection. Is that?

David John Clark (30:39)

I love it. Yeah. And it's great to hear that because I said, we used to have that ability to come into the room and you might crash and burn with the audition, but the casting director and you would be able to say, I like what you do there. How about we, and you just give them that little bit of a push behind and all of a sudden you've got gold. Whereas if you sit,

Angela & Louise Heesom (30:40)

very consistent.

Awesome.

 beautiful point David, because quite a lot of times, and there's an opposite of the epidemic, which is what I call coffee and cigarettes acting, where everything is just so casual and just so throw away and just so minimal. There's nothing underneath the surface. So I would far rather an actor to come in in an audition space or send in a self -tape that is just bonkers. But I can see that they've done the work. They just need to tame it down because I can do something with that quite instantly with a couple of redirection ones.

It's very, very hard for us on the other end of the spectrum to have to try and build the actor up into the performance because they actually haven't done any of the work themselves. And Carl Jung, I'm loving quotes from him, but Carl Jung says, it's really, really hard to think and that's why everyone judges. And so in our work, because again, it comes down to the economy of time. We don't have much time to learn this self -tape. We've got kids at home, we've got time away from our jobs. We've got to, you know,

get food on the table. And yet we're expected to deliver this self -test within 48 hours and it to be fully alive and formulated and considered and coming effortlessly from you as if tripping off the tongue. And so I understand the huge ask, but it requires an enormous investment of self. And so if you can just bring yourself into every single role instead of thinking you have to become a character and judging the material as something other than yourself.

I think that is the quickest highway to delivering something that is authentic at the time. So the more of yourself you can bring into the role, the less distance you can see between you and the character, the more arresting your work is going to be untruthful. And less work to do as the actor.

David John Clark (32:27)

I think.

Awesome. That's great. And that's what we just need to hear is about just get in front of the camera, know the character and deliver the scene. There's no fancy games to it really, is there?

Angela & Louise Heesom (32:47)

I know you're still... No, there's not, there's so much power in stillness. It's like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, not Al Pacino, Al Pacino is bonkers but he's still wonderful, he justifies himself. But you know, Robert De Niro, his strength is in his silences. He's a really, the smartest actors, they know how to hold the thing, hold everything in. So all those things that are never really explained at all are still bubbling under the surface and...

The camera reads the internal dialogue and the camera loves ambiguity. So the more you can actually hold in, the more you can actually not reveal, the more strength your performance and weight your performance carries. And so I guess it's not falling into the trap of thinking that you have to demonstrate that you can play Lady Macbeth to Anglin. I'm looking at a book of Shakespeare in front of me.

And that we can just simply, it still waters run deep, we can just simply deliver something that is really truthful and simple and that probably will carry more weight and impact.

David John Clark (33:51)

Awesome. Awesome. So let's move on a little bit from self tapes and look at the industry side of things. Angela, you were talking at the start about the reasons why you started Heesom Casting to try and give the regional actors of Adelaide a better chance and better opportunity to get the bigger role.

Many actors listening to my podcast are from Adelaide, but they're also from around the world and many live and work in what's considered a regional area of their country. So in the United States, they're not in the Los Angeles or the New York area, if it's theater. They're away from those, what I call the movie meccas like Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, here in Australia. What's your thoughts on actors in these areas? Should they aim to move to those meccas, to the Los Angeles areas or to Sydney or the Gold Coast?

Or can they make it by staying in the regional area now, especially with self -taping and movies being made in that regional area? Is it possible to stay here or do you think that eventually you need to move?

Angela & Louise Heesom (34:46)

There's a possibility of of I think if you're in LA or Sydney or London or Adelaide, it doesn't matter. The majority of actors these days and why the industry has moved and ferociously moved on because of COVID. Most actors are self -taping anyway. So whether you're self -taping from LA or what's a country town, a metal a metal bar. It  matter.  depends on how far you are up in your career though. Yes. Because if you were known, of course, living in Sydney and taping for something in Adelaide or...

David John Clark (34:59)

Mm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (35:15)

in the middle, you know, the country is somewhere as easy. If you're an unknown actor in the regions, it's harder, it is harder, I think, to be recognised. So for someone who's living in Whyalla and wants to be an actor, and has never acted before, maybe centralise themselves in a town like Adelaide where they can connect with casting directors and with trainers and things like that, so they can start becoming part of the fabric here, would be a great stepping stone.

But there's a lot of known actors or just even actors that are just on their way, that live in regional towns. And we constantly, when we're casting, we get tapes in and they're in all sorts of areas, all over Australia. We don't really care where they come from. So it depends where you are with your career. And Miss Shantae Barnes-Cowan the indigenous actor now that was up for the actor, best actress with Kate Blanchett. She lives in Wyalla and she doesn't have to live in Adelaide.

She does lots of stuff, she's fitted out her shed like a studio now and she does all her self -tapes there. So yeah I think if you're established or if you're known you can live anywhere.

David John Clark (36:23)

So the world is open and the internet brings it to you. So it's still something that's happening sort of thing. So, I mean, we still see a lot of projects here in Adelaide that are cast in the Eastern States. And I think I've spoken before that there's the Upright TV series, for example, was still cast even with the 50 -worders and the 20 -worders. And I was fortunate to be on set as an extra and it was...

Angela & Louise Heesom (36:26)

That's right. Yeah.

David John Clark (36:49)

Which was great, fantastic. I loved the opportunity, but it was such a, it was so sad to see these interstate actors being flown in for roles that I knew I could have done and would have fitted perfectly. So is that changing for South Australia a lot more?

Angela & Louise Heesom (37:04)

Well, I think it's opened up because whenever we're casting films and we don't cast all the films here obviously, but whenever we're casting films, like the recent one we just casted for shooting in Kangaroo Island in December, we had four key leads, but we obviously, we started looking months before that film started, even with the leads, we tested throughout Adelaide. So, just referencing what you're saying, Adelaide actor perhaps

didn't get the opportunity of winning that role but they certainly got the opportunity of testing for it before we actually even started testing interstate. And for Adelaide that is the best process. If there's enough time, we had, you know, we did the same for Mortal Kombat, we did the same for Mortal Kombat, so The Hunting, The Hunting TV series SBS, so whenever we're casting, we try and start in Adelaide first, just so that those Adelaide actors have got the first leg in. And I've had the opportunity for that role to be considered. I think that's all actors want,

David John Clark (37:36)

awesome.

Angela & Louise Heesom (37:58)

is the opportunity. And also the fact that actors are testing it sort of keeps their skills up you know because when we go interstate and then test and we're not doing it so much now because of self testing we got before we used to fly everywhere all over the country testing and you know you'd see actors on the 10 minutes and the actors had this ease about them because this was probably their fourth audition for the week so you know it was very easy rough and tumble and just made natural with their work.

Whereas Adelaide actors, because they may only get a chance to get into the room once every four months for that role, there's so much loaded on them. The stakes are so high and it's so tough. So I think what self testing has done is if we're not casting a project, now that self testing exists, the interstate casting directors will likely test through your agent and they'll get all the self tests. So it's a different way to play the game.

Self testing is great for a few reasons. It means, as Louise said, that the producers can see a lot more actors and a lot more actors can be seen. The downside for the actor, before there were maybe one in 20 joining the role, because there's 20 actors coming into the studio, because whenever we cast the Wolf Creek's of the world, we used to sit down with the producers and say, okay, what's our budget? How long have we got in Sydney? How long have we got in Melbourne? How many studio hours have we had? We've only got this many. Okay, so how... many?

We do our sums, okay, we can only see 20 for this role and 30 for that role and 10 for that role. And so a lot of actors weren't getting tested that we wanted to test just because the budget wasn't there for us to test them. Whereas now with self -tape, it means that, you know, you can see 50 actors for a role, it's great. So actors is getting their work out there, casting directors for them to see their work, which is great. The downside is, an actor used to have one in 10 or one in 20 chance of actually landing the role. Now they've got one in 50 because there's a lot more competition.

So that's good. Yeah.

David John Clark (39:48)

But we could also look at the other side of that as well because there was more chance that you weren't found as well because now, Louise, you were saying before that you like to find that outsider, that unknown, that something different. So if you were restricted to 20 actors before, then there's more chances that you actually missed that gold nugget, isn't there?

Angela & Louise Heesom (40:03)

move.

Although I don't think any casting director would ever restrict themselves to twenty! We always go well and above and we'll keep chasing until we find it. We're all like a dog with a bone. I mean like with Stormboy for example, we actually screened 1 ,000 boys for that role. It wasn't our budget to do that. It was probably our budget to do 100, but we can't help ourselves. So because we have to know that every stone is... no stone's left unto us.

David John Clark (40:29)

I remember.

Angela & Louise Heesom (40:39)

It was a thousand that we actually, we got, we got, rexing for, we looked at a thousand boys, we got a test that had three, four and a bit. I even went to the Korong in search of the total authentic boy, because obviously a boy of that age isn't necessarily going to be a known actor, so when you have your cast in the age group it's a much, you spread your net much wider. And I spent three days in the Korong going from school to school and from pub pub to 

thinking does this boy actually live with pelicans? And he ended up not. We We one one, do you remember remember Yes, I remember Zee. And I thought he was Stormboy until we saw Finn Little and then we realised that was Stormboy. Yes, but with Stormboy 2, not only did he have to actually, in view with all the qualities of Stormboy, but he had to play younger Geoffrey Rush. Yes. And those sorts of casting activities we found really interesting. Trying to honour those matches, because if you've got an audience watching a film.

David John Clark (41:10)

Wow.

That's awesome.

Hmm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (41:36)

And there's a flashback from the 60 year old to him as 10. You lose your audience immediately if you haven't honoured that flashback. And it's not only how they look, like Finn had curly hair and all the things. The ears. But he had the ears, he had the long nose that Geoffrey has, he had the slightness of Geoffrey. But he also had the centre of gravity. The centre of gravity in the mood of the character. Getting all that right. So there were all the really interesting little casting things. And we didn't cast Finn, that was, we should say.

David John Clark (41:56)

Wow.

Angela & Louise Heesom (42:06)

Nick was, yeah, so Nick found Finn in Queensland, but we tested it and got many, many children for it.

David John Clark (42:13)

But that shows you how hard it is to get that role. And you could walk away from an audition, whether it's just a self tape or a callback and not get it and think that I suck. My acting is obviously suck because I've just missed out on another role, but it can come down to the colour of your eyes at the end of the day, isn't it? So it's not about your acting most times.

Angela & Louise Heesom (42:31)

Well, it could. And in that case, that's right. When Nicky Barrett found Finn, it was like, you know, there's so many great actors out there that got away with it. I think less so for film. I think film, you've got more creative license. I think for commercials, definitely. So commercials, you've only got, you know, 15, 30 seconds to tell a story. It has to be very, very quick. And so the visual representation of delivering that accurately is huge. But, you know,

David John Clark (42:45)

Yep.

Angela & Louise Heesom (43:00)

film, television, we've got hair and makeup, costume, that goes a long way in helping to create that sense of believability in the audience. But there was something in essence of Finn's disposition, his character, his sense of self, his energy levels that was just so akin to what you would imagine a young Geoffrey Rush to be, it was almost impossible to separate the two. So.

David John Clark (43:23)

 Now, a lot of people don't, haven't believed me when I've told them, but I know that a lot of casting directors probably do it too, but it's true that you and Angela will go out on the street and will look for characters.

Angela & Louise Heesom (43:32)

Awesome.

 me on the streets so many times, David, at like 11 .30 pm at night down at Red Square. No one knows what Red Square is if you're not in Adelaide. It is the seedy part of Adelaide where someone like me who is such a high moral compass. And very good upbringing. And very good upbringing. They smell me a mile off shoving me into the late night bars and pimping me out under the red lights.

David John Clark (43:55)

Hahaha!

So you can be discovered anywhere at any time. And if you're in this industry and you want to be in there, you've just got to keep pushing through and you never know when that door is going to open for you. Is that correct?

Awesome. I'm mindful of the time, ladies. I wanted to ask quickly, about as a late bloomer actor myself, and obviously the namesake to this podcast, what are your thoughts on training? now my son Connor is just, he's in his first year of the Bachelor of Performance at Flinders, which is fantastic. And he's having a ball. He's.

Angela & Louise Heesom (44:33)

Get out of here! I'll be teaching him in his final year. Yeah, amazing! I can't wait to get my little hands on him.

David John Clark (44:37)

wow. That's awesome. He is, he's going some places. He's just fantastic. And we've not one of those, I'm not one of those parents that pushes my children if they don't want to do something. We identified when he was really, really young and said, you should be an actor. No, no, I don't want to. I don't want to. And there's issues there that why he didn't and we never pushed it. And then one day he said, Dad, can I go on?

Angela & Louise Heesom (44:47)

It's funny.

David John Clark (45:03)

talk to your agents, can we do it? And he's just, he's embraced it now. So it's great. But so in that relation to training, what are your thoughts on training for actors from those three year degrees to the late bloomer approach that I've taken of learning on the fly to so to speak, does life experience change the training needs or benefits either way?

Angela & Louise Heesom (45:22)

Well, I think life experience is critical, you know, because whatever role you're playing, whatever circumstances it seems in, you've got to reference something. So even with the tertiary institutions, they often want students that have had one or two years life, in fact, their heart's broken and all that sort of stuff. So I think, and I think, you know, I do think training is really important. I think it quickens the outcomes for the actor.

But I really admire people like you, David, because you've been in our, I've known you as long as I've known casting, I think. I admire actors like you that try to keep up your skills and improve your skills, because that is critical. There's a mindset among some actors, even the trained ones perhaps, that they've trained, they've learned how to act now, the book's closed, and they don't need to keep refreshing their skills. And that is a fatal mistake.

And I think it's a bit of an Adelaide thing sometimes because I know when I go interstate to Melbourne, Sydney, there's a lot of actors that are doing a lot of training. So I'd encourage any actor listening, wherever you are in the world, to keep up your skills and your skills, of course, are found, training is found in workshops by known and well -qualified, reputable trainers. But, you know, you can train on your own. You can just sit at a bus stop and watch people. You can watch movies. You can keep your vocal

exercises going, there's lots of stuff you can do, you can collaborate with other actors and make short films together and keeping active as an actor is absolutely essential. It's like a pianist, I mean you know if you're a professional pianist you practice the scales every day you know you keep your fingers working and in your vehicle, your instrument ready for the work and the same applies to acting as well so I

I can't stress enough, on how important it is, and how I celebrate the actors that do keep up their skills. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah.

David John Clark (47:18)

Awesome. But at the end of the day, it's about being the best actor that you can be and where you draw on that, whether it's because you've done three years at a drama school or you've had your heart broken a dozen times and you've got all these emotions to draw on, it's about what you deliver to the screen for the character.

Angela & Louise Heesom (47:38)

Yeah, and I think, you know, talent will only carry you so far as well. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't know what to do with it, then it becomes problematic. So if you're able to do a wonderfully rich, emotionally raw scene and you do it the first time on set, it's great, the director loves it, everyone's in awe, you're feeling like you've just lived that experience. So that was the wide shot. Now we've got to...

do the close ups and then we've got to do some cutaways and the reverse and you don't know how to get yourself back to that same emotional place and deliver it with emotional continuity, that becomes an issue. So training is essential in order for you to understand your instrument and know how to use it as a vehicle. Also really helps you in moments when you get stuck and you can't, if something is not aligning for some reason and you cannot work out a way that you can

David John Clark (48:09)

Mm -hmm. Yes.

Angela & Louise Heesom (48:27)

connect and anchor back into that, you become adjacent and you don't know why. Technique will carry you through it because it gives you the skills and the tools to allow you to still deliver something that is honest and truthful and carry you through that moment. Whether if you don't know what to do or how you got there in the first place, you've got no hope of being able to re -deliver it. That doesn't mean that it has to be tertiary education.

Lots of actors, especially when they start young, they don't actually have any experience whatsoever and they learn on set. And that becomes their education, working with professional directors and other actors, working on short films and doing theatre. Also, being a great actor is also about being a great human. And so you have to keep yourself so actively involved, not only in the industry, but in life. So out in nature,

reading the newspapers, going to museums, understanding what love is and loss is. So it's a strange alchemy and combination of everything. But I am a firm believer in, you know, you you at the Oscars and who's, majority of times, who's winning the Oscar. And they're the ones that have, you know, come from the conservatory approach really of training. And you can do short courses as well. You know, Meinser technique, Stella Adler, you know, Hargan.

David John Clark (49:25)

Mm.

Awesome. Awesome.

Angela & Louise Heesom (49:47)

There's so many out there, but it's being really, really engaged with the world and with the work.

David John Clark (49:52)

And it's about... Exactly. And if you're not working, then keeping your activity going, you've got to be doing something all the time. So if you're not doing a self -tape every month, yeah, definitely.

Angela & Louise Heesom (49:59)

You do. Your skill sets. It's like a language. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't have to always cost you money. You don't always have to do courses. You know, you can get together with a group of actors and read screenplays together. You can put in your own theatre show. These days you can write and develop your own content. It's like Phoebe... Who did Fleabag? I always forget her last name. But she developed that as a one -woman show.

David John Clark (50:08)

Of course.

Angela & Louise Heesom (50:25)

Because all the work she'd get was a writer of a comedy sketch and so she wanted to express herself in artistic terms. And so she created a one -woman show, Fleabag, that got picked up, it became a TV series and now she won an Emmy from it. So actors do have control and command of even more so of their careers these days than they ever had before. So you just can't be complacent in the work or expect the work to come to you or the big break to come to you because if...

David John Clark (50:31)

happen.

Angela & Louise Heesom (50:52)

It never will. You have to be hungry, you have to network and you have to hustle, unfortunately. Because if your dream is probably shared by another 2 ,500 David Clarks who look just like you are all hoping for those exact same opportunities. It's just that this David Clark is doing his own podcast and he's creating his own content and he's keeping up his education and expanding himself as an artist and growing. And so they're the things that separates

David John Clark (51:06)

There's only one.

Angela & Louise Heesom (51:20)

actors from those that will make it and those that will get lost in the process because it is it can be a crushing industry especially with the rejection and even worse than the rejection is the silence and I think a lot of times especially with self -tape you're sending out all this content all this work so much that you put your heart and your soul into just hoping just to get a whisper back of acknowledgement and so often that's not received I think in those cases the best advice I can always give to actors is the validation comes from the fact that you're still getting asked to tape,

constantly, consistently, because when those start to drop off, that's the moments where there might be something that is adjacent within your work that you should be talking to your agent to and find out what is the root cause of that. But if you're being asked to test, it means that the casting directors are loving the work that they are receiving and are so grateful for the work and the effort that you put into delivering those, that they know that you're just a reliable, consistent artist that will impress their producers and directors. And again, we are only as good as the actors that we present.

And so I'm not going to waste your time or your emotions in asking David Clark to consistently give me self -tapes if they're not going to, if they're not going to selfishly on my end make me look incredibly good at the job and showing the producers and the director the right people for the role.

David John Clark (52:36)

And that makes everyone need to realise that the casting director is part of our team. Essentially, we're a team together. Like our agent, we work all together and without the suit. And I just want people to know how much you do respect the actors and how much you want to make things work because I was fortunate to work on several episodes for Pine Gap,

Angela & Louise Heesom (52:45)

We're the mascots. We're the crazy ones in the animal uniforms.

David John Clark (53:03)

which you did a lot of the casting for. And I remember, Lou, your heart was broken when due to budgetary reasons, they had to cut a lot of the actors and I was one as well, halfway through. And I remember...

Angela & Louise Heesom (53:04)

you

Remember you're standing right outside the doors of Adelaide Studio just before we get into the old historic place. I remember the conversation.

David John Clark (53:20)

 your heart was broken. And I was, you know, that was quite a few years ago. And I was so surprised at how much that affected you because that was outside of your realm now that you'd done the casting and the show was being filmed. And like you said, the casting directors tended to be at the front end. And then a lot of cases aren't even allowed on set, which I know is changing. And I just want people to know that that's why you're part of the team and that you're there to support us

from the start right through to the end. And isn't it wonderful now that there's a chance for casting directors to get an Oscar. So maybe Angela or Louise Heeson will be up on stage in a couple of years time.

Angela & Louise Heesom (53:57)

 I wish I think we'll have to beat Nikki Barrett and Anousha Zarkesh off. And Kirsty McGregor. We've got one here, can we keep one? So if anyone's got a really really great script that they are developing, please send it to us.

David John Clark (54:03)

It's a long... I hear...

We're ready to go. I hear there's a lot of casting director retirements around the world have been delayed now because they want to keep going and see if they can get that Oscar before they retire.

Angela & Louise Heesom (54:24)

I just think it's an amazing acknowledgement. I think it's incredible that that hasn't been a category. I mean, the AFI, they were the first to have an award for casting. The CGA, the Casting Guild of Australia, pushed for that. Yeah, so it was pioneered in Australia, but you just think of all the actors that never would have, because casting directors fight for

David John Clark (54:27)

It is.

Mm.

Angela & Louise Heesom (54:44)

actors. When we believe that there is somebody that's right for the role, that maybe the director hasn't really seen what we have seen, because they haven't been in the room to work with them, or the producers, they've gone, they're unknown, they don't carry enough commercial cache that we can bank on. The casting director fights with like Al Pacino and the Godfather, they had someone ready to play him every single day, waiting for him to make a misstep, but his work is just so good and electric that they couldn't do it.

And so there's so much, you talk about the investment that the casting director has with the actor in that example of Pine Gap, because every single character is like a child to us. But we have gone through the process of watching and hoping and birthing, not birthing, but watching them rise to that occasion and finally get that role. And so we lived that experience with them. It's a really intimate experience. And why that we feel with actors, we feel that we've got a...

very quick highway to understanding who you are in acting as a human being and vice versa, you and me. And because of it, it's the level of investment that we have in every actor that gets a role and also every actor that we feel should have got the role is just immense. And the time and work, hours upon hours that casting directors do in making those productions successful. Because in a production, you don't think of the wrong location or the bad

David John Clark (55:55)

Yeah.

Angela & Louise Heesom (56:07)

sound you always think, that actor is mis-cast and so or they should have chosen somebody else. So there's so much on the line, you're so exposed as the casting director in every production and so much work goes into it. There is a lot of craft that goes into it. It's not simply selecting you know from the alphabet 10 letters that you want to bring in that might make a good soup. And so for that to be recognized and to be validated by the industry it's huge work from the casting directors.

David John Clark (56:34)

I love it. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Let's, I'm mindful that we've been here for an hour and you ladies are busy. Before we do go, can I ask either from both of you, if you had only one opportunity to give a piece of advice to an actor to propel them on their journey, what would that be? Angela?

Angela & Louise Heesom (56:39)

Bye. I'll talk to you.

Well, I think for me, it would be just to assure them how important it is, the auditioning process. And so when they actually get an audition, even though they don't get the role, they've been chosen probably from hundreds of actors already. So they've kind of won. I mean, that's the accolade. They've been selected for an audition. And even if they don't get the role, it's often not to do with anything to do with what they've done.

But just a lot to do with the machinations of the fine and the mix of people. And then it's such a wonderful opportunity. It's like a calling card when you're doing audition because you're sending that test to a casting agent that either knows you and loves to see different aspects of your work or a casting director that doesn't even know you and can get to know you. So make auditions a really positive experience and consider yourself an actor as a professional auditionee. That's your job. If you get the role, it's really out of your hands. So...

That's not possible. And just don't quit. The only sure way that you won't have a career as an actor is to give up. And it's a long juggernaut of a process, but if it is something that is innately within you that is so strong and you feel so passionate about and there is, that has to be expressed, it has to be followed through. And you get that break. What type of break that is is unknown.

David John Clark (58:13)

Wonderful.

Angela & Louise Heesom (58:17)

But it will continue to feed you artistically. But you have to, if you're wedded to it, you're wedded to it. Don't give up.

David John Clark (58:23)

I love it. I love it. And we have so many moments as actors where you just go, why am I doing this? And I talk about it pretty much every episode, the troughs, the ups and downs that we have in this acting journey. And the ups can be so far and few between, and those troughs are hard to dig through. And there's so many moments where you go, do I just suck as an actor? Is this why I'm not getting anything? And you're right. You just need to believe in yourself and believe in the team and believe in the people that you work with and the connections you have and keep pushing through.

Angela & Louise Heesom (58:28)

Absolutely.

David John Clark (58:52)

So thank you very much. Awesome, ladies. Thank you very much.

Angela & Louise Heesom (58:52)

That's right. Thank you for your time. Thanks for inviting us. We love your podcast, David. We love you. We love you.

David John Clark (58:59)

Thank you. And it's wonderful to hear. Yeah, I do what I do because I enjoy doing it. And I'd like to share with everyone that's on this journey, because there's so many people that don't know as much as I have found out. And I like to make sure that if they haven't done the research or they don't know about IMDB or about how to read the sides properly for an audition, those sort of little things that I've learned along the way, then that's why I do it. So.

Angela & Louise Heesom (59:25)

huge to us.

David John Clark (59:27)

Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to the next 10 years and more with you ladies and getting in the room with you and auditioning and working with you. It's been fantastic. So thank you very much.

Angela & Louise Heesom (59:35)

Austin.

All right David, thank you, we applaud you, we love you, we adore you.

David John Clark (59:43)

Thank you. Thank you.