Episode 175: Interview with Working Actor Amelia Campbell

About Amelia:

Amelia Campell was most recently in the Lucille Lortel nominated Coal Country at The Cherry Lane Theater. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her first Broadway play Our Country’s Good in 1991.

Additional select theater: Broadway: A Small Family Business; Translations; The Herbal Bed; Waiting in the Wings; A Streetcar Named Desire. Off B’way: Middle of the Night(Keen Company); Taking Care of Baby(MTC); The Exonerated(Culture Project); The Fall to Earth(59E59); Philip Roth in Khartoum(LAByrinth); The Misanthrope(NYTW); Tryst(Promenade); Love, Janis(Village Theater). Regional: A Midsummer Nights Dream; The Night of the Iguana; Desire Under the Elms.

Film & T.V includes Anthony Arkin’s “Sender”; “Things Like This”(upcoming); “I Am Michael”; “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors”; “Coming Up Roses”; “Leaves of Grass”; “The Paper”; “Bull”; “Mindhunter”; “The O.A.”; “Alpha House”; “Third Watch”; “Law&Order”/“Law&Order Criminal Intent”; “A Dog Year”(HBO) “My Louisiana Sky”(Showtime).

Amelia has been an acting coach since 2005. She co-created the audition workshop “What’s Stopping You?” with Jack Doulin at HB Studios. She also co-created the groundbreaking on-set/on camera workshop “Being On Camera” with Anthony Arkin, which they have been teaching together since 2012. They currently teach their workshops at Primary Stages school ESPA. Amelia teaches at Pace University in their FTVC B.F.A. Acting program.

What makes Amelia nervous about auditions:

• Expectations for what good means
• What is your personal best?
• Rejection is constant
• That little voice still shows up

"The biggest thing you have to sell is yourself."

Humans are messy and flawed, and you have to remember as an actor you have to be that too.

Prepping for an audition:

• First step: Script analysis
• Start to get a sense of what I’m wearing and hair
• Shoes can even help
• Read it and move around
• You have to think of an audition as your role for the time you are working on it

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever has.”

Learn to apologize less.

Tips for Newbie Actors:

• Pay attention
• You don’t know everything
• Be interested and curious
• Want to learn and grow
• Choose to grow into the best version of yourself
  • What is that?
  • What does that look like?

It’s ok to be new and it’s ok not to say anything.

When in doubt leave it out. Listen and absorb.