Who hates job interviews? I do. I loathe them. I hate the idea of having your life condensed into a single typed page, and writing a letter of intent, and dressing up to be evaluated.

My hatred of job interviews should have convinced me to never be an actor. I’m not terribly smart.

Being an actor means that 90% of your work is going to job interviews—only they call ’em auditions. Sure, getting paperwork ready and dressing in a suit can suck, but auditions demand prep: hours of work memorizing sides and practicing them. The average actor, when doing well, will land one part for every twenty auditions.

Many actors, fed up with this, turn to writing and producing their own material. You don’t need to audition for your own part, right?

Further evidence that I’m not terribly smart: I insisted on auditioning for a role in LARPs: The Series, despite being the writer, because apparently I don’t have enough stress in my life.

Then again, would I really want to appear in a web series if everyone else in the cast could act circles around me? Would I want to be the weak link?

So I rehearsed. I made sure I was ready to read for every part I could conceivably play. And, partway through the audition process, I stood up from behind the table where my fellow execs were sitting, crossed the room, and faced the camera.

I had this gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that I don’t usually feel for auditions, because by writing this project, it had become important to me. And I felt like I really could do well performing in the series. I’d have a reason to be on set every day beyond occasionally being consulted for being the writer, or the LARPer-on-staff. And, here I was, having said that I should be fair and audition like everyone else.

Man, screw fair. Fairness doesn’t get you anywhere in show business (right?). The agony of waiting to hear if I landed a part was appreciably short (there are some perks with being on the core team), but I wouldn’t want to repeat it for a while.

So. That being said, why did we hold auditions? Especially when, once the casting was complete, everyone in the cast were already good friends? It certainly looks like we just cast friends to be a part of our new project.

Auditions can make or break a series. I would recommend holding auditions for almost any web series project, even if you’re just planning on doing it for fun with friends. Sure, you want to make sure that your actors can actually act, but there’s more to it than that. You’ve gotta make sure an actor fits the role—in LARPs, the actors who played Arthur and Evan almost switched roles based on their auditions.

But more than that, you want your actors to sweat a little. Acting can be easy, but acting well takes a lot of work. Actor who have to fight for their roles—who have to prove themselves, instead of having them handed over—are more likely to treat the production seriously, and sink the effort required for a great performance.

I got the part—I was cast as the Game Master, Evan. I remember feeling relieved, but at the same time, I wondered if I was ever really in doubt of being cast in a project in which I was clearly heavily invested. Maybe that little bit of uncertainty just forced me to push myself harder. Maybe that made all the difference.

But—I’d need all the drive I could get when we entered into pre-production, because there I’d face the first truly serious tests…