Hello Reader,
I want to tell you about an audition I didn't get. And then I want to tell you the real story underneath it — because it took me a few days to see it myself.
A project came my way that I genuinely loved. Great writing, great role, and I should have been thrilled.
There was just one problem: Of the three scenes I needed to prepare for the role, one had a fairly explicit sex scene in it. And every time I sat down to prepare that scene, my body said no. Not a delicate no. A full stop.
Did I say that out loud? Of course not. I told myself the project was too good to pass on. I told myself I'd figure out how I felt about the scene later. I told myself I "should" do the audition, because that's what professionals do, and because I didn't want to have an awkward conversation with my agent about turning down something she'd worked to get me in for.
So I auditioned. And here's the part I'm not proud of: I couldn't make myself prepare that one scene. Not skimmed it — avoided it. I was underprepared for exactly the moment that mattered most.
You already know how this ends. I didn't get the role.
And then I did what a lot of us do. I spent the next several days beating myself up. You didn't do your best work. You know how to prepare better than that. You let yourself down. You let the casting director down — someone who has other roles to fill, on this show and others, and now has seen you at less than your best.
That's a heavy thing to carry. Except it wasn't true — not the way I was telling it.
When I actually looked at what happened, underneath the shame, I saw something else entirely: I didn't fail. I engineered the outcome I actually wanted. My gut had already made the decision. It just didn't have my permission to say so out loud — so it found a quieter, sneakier way to get me out of that role. An underprepared audition was never an accident. It was a strategy. A bad one, but a strategy.
The failure wasn't the audition. The failure happened twice, earlier, in two moments I skipped right past:
- I didn't honor my gut feeling that told me, plainly, that I wasn't comfortable with this role.
- I avoided a hard conversation — the one where I tell my agent, "Thank you for submitting me, but I'm going to pass on this one." A completely reasonable thing to say. A completely professional thing to say. Probably a conversation that would have strengthened that relationship, not damaged it — and it definitely would have respected the casting director's time more than showing up half-ready.
Instead, I let my discomfort make the decision for me, quietly, at the worst possible moment, in front of exactly the people I most wanted to impress.
So here's what I want you to sit with this week:
Where in your life have you "failed" at something — and if you're honest, some part of you engineered it?
- The job you interviewed for half-heartedly, and didn't get.
- The relationship that fizzled after you started showing up a little late, a little less present.
- The project you keep almost-finishing.
- The trip you agreed to help plan and then kept forgetting your duties, your end of the agreement.
- A course of study that you could have completed easily, but somehow didn't get your projects turned in.
None of these are bad luck. They're often our gut, screaming the truth we didn't want to say with our mouth, so it said it with our actions instead.
The invitation isn't to beat yourself up for the "failure." It's to go one layer deeper and ask: what did I actually not want, and why didn't I feel safe saying so?
Because here's the cost of skipping that conversation with yourself — and the one with the other person: you don't just miss the outcome. You walk away carrying shame for something you never even got to consciously choose. That's the most exhausting kind of tired there is.
Next time, I want to have the harder, more honest conversation earlier. With my agent. With myself. Before my gut has to stage a coup.
Your gut already knows. The only question is whether you'll let it talk, or make it sabotage.
With love,
P.S. — If this one landed, hit reply and tell me where you've seen this show up for you. I read every one.
Click on the link below for useful information from past newsletters.
