Almost every actor has to audition to get a role in a TV show – unless they’re really, really famous. Audition tapes allow producers to see what the actor would like in the role and although most audition tapes remain private, a few have escaped onto YouTube. Flavorwire has put together a collection of the best, including Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner as Arya and Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones, Seth Rogen as Ken Miller in Freaks and Geeks and Lea Michele as Rachel Berry in Glee, but I’ve put a few of them below as well:
Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad
Josh Holloway as Sawyer in Lost
Hugh Laurie as House
Blake Lively as Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
