Jordan Woods-Robinson - Acting Coach

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One time, I spilled food on my shirt on the way to an in-person callback. Big stain. Right there on my chest. No jacket. No backup shirt. No clever fix. I walked in anyway, and the casting director looked at it and said, “Don’t you travel with a different shirt?”

And I said, “If they’re looking at my shirt, I’m not doing my job.”

To be clear, I was embarrassed and very self aware. But at a certain point, the work either becomes bigger than the stain or it doesn’t.

Minutes later I went into the room, did the audition, and the director stood up, shook my hand, and said, “I want you to know that was a great audition.”

Not because the stain disappeared. But because I did.

(That was also the director’s way of acknowledging I wasn’t going to book the role but that it was still a good audition.)

I find actors do this all the time. Being sucked into the physical minutia... hair, hands, marks, eyelines, etc. But when we believe what we’re doing, all of that melts away. For us and our audience.

I taped an actor once who drove back to the studio hours later to redo her slate because her buttons were out of alignment.

The audition itself was a distraught mother responding to the death of her child.

And she was worried her buttons were out of alignment.

In her slate.

Now, let me be fair. Of course some things matter. This is a visual medium. We frame to a certain spot. We choose wardrobe. We adjust eyelines. We try not to have toothpaste on our face. Fine. Great. Be a professional.

But the deeper issue is that actors (and parents of actors) are so often desperate to control what can be controlled that we accidentally make our performance about managing the world instead of living within it.

This is part of a much larger pursuit, obviously. Trusting that what you are is enough. Trusting that your face is enough. Your body is enough. Your presence is enough. Your thought is enough. Your mess is enough.

And no, I don’t think any of this gets solved in a day. I don’t think it gets solved by reading one blog post and suddenly walking around like some fully liberated artist who never worries about their zit or their haircut or whether one side of their jacket fits weird.

That’s not really how this works.

But I do think we can start noticing and challenging where our awareness goes. That alone is huge. Because awareness is everything.

This is part of why so many acting philosophies, even when they use different language, eventually point us toward the same thing.

Meisner, in his way, keeps pushing attention off the self and onto the other person. Stop doing your idea of the scene. Be with the person. Let them affect you.

Chekhov gives us tons of language to get the actor out of their own traffic and into a more expansive experience. Into doing. Into receiving. Into transformation.

Viewpoints, which I use all the time, reminds us that time and space are not neutral. The room is alive. The architecture is alive. Proximity is alive. Tempo is alive. The floor, the walls, the silence, the air between people... all of it is usable. All of it can pull attention outward. All of it can rescue you from becoming trapped in the tiny prison of your own face.



And the irony is... what we often call “being present” is not some mystical state where we become blank and perfect and free of all insecurity. Sometimes presence is much messier than that. Sometimes presence includes the insecurity.

Hell, there’s even a way to use it.

If you feel embarrassed, exposed, ugly, off, sloppy, judged... that is not automatically the enemy. That is real human material. Use it. Let it alter the thought. Let it create friction. Let it make you more desperate, more withholding, more defensive, more hungry to be accepted, more pi**ed off that someone noticed, more determined to connect anyway.

That stain on my shirt... I didn’t “win” because I ignored it. I won because I didn’t allow it to be the main event.

Because acting is not about erasing awareness entirely.

It’s about being aware of something more important than yourself.

In my freshman year of college, I had a teacher named Ray who introduced my class to one of the most influential tools that I still use today.

Juxtaposition. Which, if you look it up, basically means opposites. Contrast.

And it’s not there by mistake.

Shakespeare was RIDDLED with it. That, along with rhyming and iambic pentameter, were “shortcuts” for the actors to better associate with their text that would sometimes have to be memorized within a matter of hours before a performance. “To be or not to be” Montagues vs Capulets

But we’re not going to talk about Shakespeare. We’re going to talk about modern film and TV scripts... the ones that you receive every time you audition.

Scenes, monologues, plots, character archetypes, settings, and many many more things are all brilliantly crafted around juxtaposition.

Opposing forces. Irreparable differences. Contrasting perspectives.

Because we care about CONFLICT. About Drama. About the unknown tension of how our beloved characters are going to get out of these precarious situations.

Everything is a battle. --> Two sides each fighting for what they believe in? Juxtaposition.

And when we apply this tool to our scripts, we get SO MANY visceral tools that it makes our jobs easier. We know what we’re fighting for. We associate. We see the opposing sides and realize we can lean in 100% because the other side is doing the exact same thing.

We get permission (nay, a responsibility) to

Some juxtapositions?

“I” vs “You”
“We” vs “Them”
“I told you that in secret.” vs “So why did my mom call me this morning?”
“You want the truth?” vs “You can’t handle the truth.”
The Hero vs The Villain
The Rule Follower vs The Trickster
“You lecture me” vs “about something you can’t comprehend.”
“I love you” vs “but I can’t stay.”
The beginning of the movie when the character’s life is being established vs the middle half of the movie when the character is fighting against change vs the end of the movie when the character has learned something new.

You see how so much of this is laid out almost like “on one hand” vs “on the other hand?” Juxtaposition BREEDS conflict. It drives tension. It is 2 ideas wrestling without anyone knowing which will win.

I’ve put some monologues below. Look these over. Find the juxtaposition.

Sometimes it’s obvious in the text, other times it’s more esoteric and you have to go digging for it.

But the writer has put it there ON PURPOSE because this is the human condition. This is why the camera turns on. To capture conflict. Not to see things going easily.

Train your brain to find it. And, until it’s second nature, ask yourself “Where are the opposites? What are the opposing forces?” And then put it in your gut and let loose.

Humble brag. Got this amazing message yesterday... first co-star AND on an extremely popular network show! This actor is a hard-working theater actor and is transitioning into more film and tv and, obviously, they're making strides! WOOT!

Another actor reached out this morning that they've gotten 5 auditions in the past WEEK from our recent headshot session. We can't compare audition numbers due to different markets, demographics, representation, etc. But 5 is a HELLUVA number no matter where you are!

A lot of this profession lives in a vacuum with little or no feedback so it's truly awesome hearing from folks.

Keep chugging along, everyone!

Work to 99%

Full disclosure: this phrase started off a little click-baity.

“Work to 99%” popped into my head as a blog title before it was fully formed as a concept. I wanted people to stop and read it or at least form a sense of mystery or whatever it is that makes people like you through the internet.

But then the more I sat with it, the more I realized it actually captured something pretty strong...

When I say prepare to 99%, I want to offer three ways of looking at that idea:
1. What it means in your personal preparation
2. What it means in auditions or coaching
3. What it means once you’re on set

Each phase asks something slightly different of you but they all come back to the same core... “Work to 99%”

AS AN ACTOR

First things first: no self-respecting actor ever truly prepares to 100%. The big 100%.

It’s not possible.

There is always more to uncover. Another layer. Another discovery. Another angle you didn’t see yesterday. In life, we don’t hit 100% on anything until our final breath and then we’re dead. That’s 100%. Until then, we’re always learning, always experiencing.

Acting works the same way.

You can work to what feels like 100%, discover something that adds 20%, and you’re still just at a new 99%. Then you work another 30% deeper and you’re still at 99%. Again and again.

Stay hungry, stay curious, keep exploring. Because you’ll never reach 100%.

IN AUDITIONS AND COACHING

Now here’s where the phrase really earns its keep.

*You* worked to 99%. And the missing 1%? That’s intentional.

That 1% is room for play. Room for affectability. Room for today being different than yesterday.

If you walk into an audition, a coaching session with “100%” ready to go, you’ve left no space to actually be affectable.

You’re in the “get it right” phase. The “earn a gold star” loop.

So try showing up with the 99% mentality. It doesn’t mean you’re losing what you worked on. It means you trust your 99% enough to let something else in.

That 1% is for:
- A CD’s adjustment
- A coach’s question
- A reader who throws the scene at you differently than you imagined
- You waking up a different person than you were yesterday

All of that is true in the moment. And that truth is what rounds out the 100% today.

You’re not replacing your work. You’re completing it together, in real time.

ON SET

Now let’s say you book it. (Because you’re awesome.)

When you show up on set, you still bring your 99%. (And this part matters a lot.)

They hired you because you are the right person for the job. Period. Full stop. Amen forever and ever.

Do you know how many people auditioned? How many tapes they watched? The puzzle pieces that had to fit together for you to land this?

The numbers are astronomical.

You’re there because they trust YOU to tell the story. That might sound bold, but it’s true. You earned that trust through your preparation.

So bring your 99%. And then... seek the final 1% on set.

The costume isn’t what you expected? That’s true now.
The set looks different than you imagined? That’s true now.
Your scene partner gives you something new every take? That’s true now.

Each department brings their 99% and, together, you’re building toward the 100% of the story.

Even when a director comes in with big ideas, they’re not asking you to dilute your 99% to make room for theirs.

They’re asking you to include their perspective so that your new 99% is richer, fuller, and more alive than before.

And that continues all day. Take by take. Adjustment by adjustment. The day isn’t done until it’s done.

Once you understand this, that final 1% becomes something you actively seek, not something you wait for.

You’re curious. Open. Engaged. Playing.

---

In auditions and coaching, there is always an opportunity to accept who you are today and collaborate toward something truer right now.

On set, bring your 99% (that got you there) and actively invite the final 1% so that, together, everyone reaches the fullest version of the story.

Prepare to 99%. Trust it. Protect it. And stay open enough to let that last 1% change you.

If this resonates, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s keep the conversation going.

See you soon.
-J

Amanda needed some specific footage to round out her reel so we pinpointed her goals and got to work! I wrote, filmed, and edited these for her. Let me know if you need some new clips!