Les Chantery has established himself as one of Australia’s premier acting coaches. In the 20 years that he has worked in this space, he has guided rising Australian actors including Jacob Elordi (Euphoria), Mia Healy (The Wilds), William Lodder (Love Me) and Sam Corlett (Vikings: Valhalla), to name but a few.

Trained as an actor at NIDA, Chantery’s own credits include Heartbreak High, Cedar Boys, Schapelle, The Gloaming and Pitch Black.

He now leads screen testing training at the prestigious centre for performing arts, as its Senior Corporate Coach, and runs his own studio.

Determined to share his years of experience with young actors, Chantery has released his first book, Life in a Mid-Shot, which gives actors an expert insight and practical approach to the audition process, combined with economics-based techniques and research into Neuroscience.

What made you want to do this book?

“It came out of my own frustrations as an actor, 20 years ago, not understanding why I booked some jobs, but not others. I was completely confused why my very first ever audition in 1998 was for a film with Vin Diesel called Pitch Black, which I got, and I’d never taken an acting class. I didn’t know what I was doing. I found myself on a big Hollywood film for four months, and Vin Diesel taught me about hitting marks and closeups and all that stuff.

“And Vin Diesel said, ‘you’ve got a lot of raw talent, but I reckon you should do some training’. So, I went to NIDA and did my three years. And, when I graduated, I was a much better actor, but I also was confused why I wasn’t necessarily getting call-backs on certain jobs, and others would.

“Out of frustration in 2007, I applied for and got a scholarship from NIDA, the Mike Walsh Fellowship to go to LA and study filmmaking. I made a short film, and it’s one of those right time, right place things… I’ve had a couple of lucky breaks in my life, but this was another one where a friend of mine passed my short film on to a big American director producer whose name was Jon Avnet.

“He really liked my short film and said, ‘What do you wanna do? Do you wanna go to film school? Like, what’s your deal?’ And I said, ‘Look, I’ve just come out of doing an economics degree at Sydney Uni, and then I went to NIDA and did another degree, and I’m  a bit over the degrees’. I needed a visa to stay in the country, a work visa. This guy just like, literally, made it happen. He gave me a part in a feature film he was directing. He pretty much said, ‘How fast can you get to Connecticut?’ I jumped on a plane, no sleep from LA to New York, put in a car and taken to Connecticut. And before I know it, I’m on set with Robert De Niro and Pacino playing their lawyer [in Righteous Kill], and having this completely out of body experience.

“This is 2007. And then, I was talking to Pacino, and he’s very passionate about acting, and he said something which changed my life. He said, ‘it’s not always the best actor who books the job. It’s the person who gives the best audition. And, the book was born from that one statement.”

How important is the audition?

“It’s everything. The unfortunate thing about our business is that at some point, someone says to us, ‘Okay, you think you can play this part, prove it to us’. And we used to get like 10 minutes in an audition room. And now, because of the pandemic, it’s all moved to self-tape – actors have to film their own audition. Recently, there was a project casting where they saw over 1400 tapes for a couple of roles. It’s exploded. The audition is everything. And there’s a sad reality, which is some actors will never get their break, not because they’re not good, it’s just they can’t do it quickly and under pressure, which is what an audition is. It’s not, ‘can you act’, it’s ‘can you do it quickly and under pressure?’

“In my opinion, there’s three kinds of skills actors need. The ability to work on stage, the ability to work in film and television, and then the ability to audition. And, audition is a separate skill. When I was studying at NIDA, we didn’t really have a class called audition, or certainly screen testing. And, 20 years later, I lead that training at NIDA.”

The book is centred around the audition process for actors. How has this system changed in the last few years?

“Now, casting directors can see anybody and as many people as they want. So that’s a really great thing. But as a result of that, they’re not just seeing 50 people for a role, they’re seeing 500 people for a role. It’s become a lot more competitive. Research tells us, our attention span is anywhere between eight to 12 seconds. What I tell an actor is, ‘We’ve got eight to 12 seconds in your tape to make an impression’. That’s a lot of pressure. So, whenever we put a tape down, it’s always about – let’s grab their attention.

“This whole book is literally addressing one of the most crucial moments or parts of an actor’s process, which is the audition. Actors will spend most of their careers probably auditioning more than working. And, sometimes it happens quickly, like with Jacob Elordi. We were maybe two weeks into working together, when Kissing Booth came along. And the rest is history. That’s not common. That’s rare. Even like with Geraldine Viswanathan, we were maybe four weeks into working together when the American film Blockers came along, and then she gets that and put on a plane and flown over, and is then doing a chemistry read with Daniel Radcliffe for Miracle Workers!

“I didn’t intend to write the book. I didn’t even call myself an acting coach. I call myself an actor who coaches because it’s not what I intended to do. It’s a happy accident.

“In 2007, after Pacino made that comment, and I started to redesign and create a new process of auditioning using the sciences and using my education and my own experiences as an actor into a hybrid, an agent contacted me and said, ‘Hey, there’s this young person who has an audition for a big Australian soap. But they’ve never acted before. Do you mind working with them for an hour to prepare them?’ And I did. And this person booked three years on this soap.

“I think the agent at the time went ‘Whoa. That was quite exceptional. Can you coach this actor?’ And I did. And that actor booked the job. And then before I know it, I’m in my studio last year on Zoom with Steven Spielberg and a young actor (Sam Rechner) who I work with who was having their final callback. We put their audition down on tape, and then next step was Spielberg wants to meet them. So, Saturday morning in my studio at 7:00am, there’s Steven Spielberg on my Zoom, running this audition with this actor who I coach. And, 30 minutes later, he offers him the job on the spot. This young actor [Sam Rechner] is about to come out in Spielberg’s next film, The Fabelmans.

“And again, I didn’t do anything different. I literally just used what’s in the book. I just went, ‘the audition is our five minutes to show Steven Spielberg that you can do it’. That was why I wanted to put it all in a book, because I wanted to show that this is not just my opinion, this is now combining science with the arts for the first time. And, it’s working!”

You’ve worked with young actors. Are there qualities they have in common?

“It’s a great question. It’s actually not something they have, it’s something they don’t have. And I know that sounds weird, but I’ll explain it.

“When I started working with actors who were experienced, on auditions, I would also study them and go, ‘what is it about you that allowed you to have your career?’ So, whether it’s a new actor or an established actor, I was always looking for, ‘what is it? What have you got?’ And I discovered that it wasn’t something they have; it was something they didn’t have. And what they don’t have is the gene for embarrassment. What I mean by that is, nothing embarrasses them. I worked on a show called Nine Perfect Strangers a couple years ago, and watching Nicole Kidman do take after take after take, nothing embarrassed her. She would try everything. Being up close with Melissa McCarthy or De Niro or Pacino or Vin Diesel. These people are so free to try anything. It’s that fearlessness. So, I would say, same thing with Will Lodder, even Sam Corlett who’s the lead of Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla.”

You talk about being mentored by Vin Diesel. What was that like for you?

“It was the best thing that could have happened to me because, I remember one day, maybe the second day into filming [Pitch Black], they were calling out things like the lens sizes that they were using, and it was shot on film. And I didn’t know what any of the numbers meant. And he would tell me, ‘Okay, this number means now you’re in a closeup. This is now a wide shot. You see this mark that you’ve gotta hit on the floor? If you don’t hit it, just ask them for a sandbag so you can feel it when you hit it’. He taught me about continuity and all the mechanics of a film set. But, I’ll never forget this day when my character was being attacked by aliens. And it was a big emotional scene. And I didn’t know that. I didn’t know just how to prepare. And I remember him saying to me, ‘They’re gonna shoot the wide scene first, so maybe don’t give all your emotion until they get you in the closeup, because otherwise you’re gonna use up all your emotion. By the time they get to the closeup, you’re not gonna have any tears left’. I wouldn’t have known that, I would’ve just kind of done everything on take one, and then, 40 takes later, not have had anything left in the tank. And, then when it came time for my closeup, he looked at me and he said, ‘You know, this is the shot for your mum in the audience’. He was very protective and I’m grateful because I got my film education from him in terms of filming and how green screen works. He was a true leader.”

One of your earliest major roles was in the 2009 film Cedar Boys. What was it like to work on Cedar Boys?

“Cedar Boys was my first time being a lead of a film. It’s interesting because Cedar Boys was one of first auditions that came my way after I started investigating the screen-testing process. But I also got an audition at the same time for an Aussie soap and one of those kind of three-year type contract deals. I booked both at the same time. I had to make a decision. But I do remember in that moment, that was when I discovered, ‘Oh, I actually haven’t become a better actor. I’ve just started to audition differently’. So that solidified my confidence in the audition process and what I had started to uncover about how to do it.

“I do have fond memories of Cedar Boys, because at the time, it was also one of the first films to explore the western suburbs of Sydney and another culture that I hadn’t really seen a lot of on screen. I actually think the film was ahead of its time. I’m not really sure people knew what to do or how to feel about it then.”

If you had a couple of takeaways for actors coming up, for the audition process, what would they be?

“I would say, make sure that every audition you do has what I call a trademark moment. Just one moment that nobody else could easily do. And the second thing is, to do what I call a ‘fuck it take’. Which is, always do one take after you’ve got your proper take down, where you just let anything happen and see. Usually that’s the best take that happens.”

Life in a Mid-Shot by Les Chantery is available now at all major online book sellers

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