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Zach Braff Shares Florence Pughā€™s Advice On Nailing Your Audition

Photo: getty images

Aspiring actors listen up! This piece of advice is for you.

Do not walk into your audition holding the script. Itā€™s an immediate, ā€œNo.ā€ But donā€™t take our word for it, this advice is straight from Scrubsā€™ actor Zach Braff.

ā€œListen you actors, as someone who is more often a director these days,ā€ said Braff on his podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald. ā€œIf youā€™re trying to audition and you donā€™t have that stuff memorized and youā€™re looking down at your page, you donā€™t have a shot in hell.ā€

Being "off book," or not needing a script for a rehearsal/audition, is something his former partner Florence Pugh swore on. Braff recalled that Pughā€™s auditioning advice was always be "off book."

ā€œI have to give Florence a shoutout for this because sheā€™s a better actress than I am,ā€ he said. ā€œShe goes, ā€˜I just canā€™t be present. If there is a part of me that knows I have that crutch there and I can look down, I am not present in the scene enough to perform.ā€

ā€œAnd that is coming from an academy award nominated actress,ā€ said cohost Donald Faison. ā€œSo uh, I am going to be listening to that.ā€

Braff said that as a director, actors who come into audition without their scripts are more present. Those who come in looking down at their scripts during their audition donā€™t stand a chance. But sometimes, the casting decisions have nothing to do with performance, but rather with appearance.

ā€œYou could literally walk in and be the best actor for the part, but you look too much like somebody else,ā€ Braff said. ā€œOr you are too old, or too young, or we just cast the father and you look nothing like him. Thereā€™s so many... variables. All you can do is go in and crush and do your best.ā€

In the end, it all boils down to being prepared. As both actors point out, it's impossible to control every part of an audition other than your own performance. Assume that the person who came in before you, and the one behind you memorized everything.

Check out ā€œMy Identity Crisisā€ to hear the full conversation as well as a breakdown of the Scrubsā€™ episode of the same name. Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald is working its way through the seventh season of the medical comedy, find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you want to be sure youā€™re listening to the podcasts everyone else is checking out, iHeartRadio has you covered.Ā Ā 

Every Monday, iHeartRadio releases a chart showing the most popular podcasts of the week. Stay up to date on whatā€™s trending by checking out the chart here. Thereā€™s even a chart just for radio podcasts featuring all your favorite iHeartRadio personalities like Bobby Bones, Elvis Duran, Steve Harvey, and dozens of others.Ā 


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