You're Not Fooling Anyone

I'm in a bit of a rant-y mood today, so bear with me. 

Look, don’t lie in your audition! You will most likely get caught. If we specify that we want an actual French person with an authentic accent, we mean it. Don’t come in and tell us you’re from France when you’re clearly from Paolo Alto. When we're reading people with actual French accents, that are actually from France, and then you come in sounding like a cartoon, we kind of hate you for it.

An even more extreme version of this happened when I was casting the roll of a transgender prostitute for a film. We clearly stated that we did not want to see any women that were born women for this role. We had an open call - always interesting - and a few women that were clearly born women, tried to pass off that they were transgender. They weren't fooling anyone. And we were annoyed that they wasted our time.

LESSON: Honesty is the best policy. (most of the time)