Gimme Butterflies

I get worried when I don't get worried.
Weird way to put it, but it's true. When I first started down this road, nerves used to bring me to shaking hands and a leaden stomach.
Auditions were absolutely the worst. I'd be up there, barely able to slate. Dropping a line would be a small mercy at times like that. At least it meant you could get SOMETHING out. I'd stare down the long, pitiless barrel of a video camera lens and count the seconds till I could say my "thank you's" and flee from the room.
Simply put: I wasn't ready.
Now, don't get me wrong. In my heart I was ready to swallow my fears and enter that room. Every time. I had to. I couldn't call myself an actor if I couldn't do that.
My problem was I didn't like it.
I would get a notification that I had received an audition invitation, and I would curse out loud. You'd think I just learned somebody had died.
That is not a good sign of professionalism.
I despised how nervous I got. I knew I would be spending the next two or so days agonizing over the coming doom. I got to the audition, burped out my lines and fled. Only then would I feel that immense sense of relief, like I had just dodged a parking ticket.
It wasn't until I recognized where my nerves came from that I could enter that room and know I belonged there.
Here's where it started.
I wrestled from the time I was nine years old till I graduated high school at age eighteen. I have competed in hundreds of matches in that time. I wasn't half bad at it. I wanted to puke before every single match. Every one of them. Numbers-wise, that means I spent about nine years of my young life in ulcer-inducing nervous excite.
The funny thing was that I would suffer this raw nerve until the referee dropped his hand and shouted "Wrestle!" From that moment on, nerves had nothing to do with it. You simply lived in the moment. Second to second. You had way too many other things to contend with than the state of your stomach. I was prepared and well-trained. My focus was absolute.
Sometimes I won, other times I lost. But I never left that mat feeling like I had let myself down. I gave it my all. For six minutes of my life, nothing else mattered. What nerves I did have simply fueled that explosive moment. It kept me sharp. I could shape it into whatever I needed.
That is the state I seek now in the audition room. I will never get around nerves. Indeed, I need them in my preparation. As actors, we learn to take those nerves and use them to our benefit. It is pure emotional energy. It is a gift we give ourselves.
If you have prepared yourself, know what you are going to do in that room, made strong choices, then you can welcome the nerves. It means you are doing it right.

Yup...that's fear in my eyes.