Should I Make Dialogue Changes To A Script On My Own?

Okay, here’s the TRUTH. For an audition it doesn’t matter at all if you are a little off, IF you’re good. For TV in particular, they expect you to be ‘on the money’, and often in film too. The script supervisor will approach you and tell you what the right line is and that’s pretty much it. You can keep saying it anyway you want, but you never know the true impact. They may love what you did, or they may never hire you again. But in general on a professional production, they have a script supervisor for one reason…to make sure the script is read. They don’t do the hiring and firing though, so if the director starts to bug you about it, then you might have a problem. In TV, the writers have all the power, so they have more influence than in film where they just sit there and take it while their script is butchered by movie stars. It depends but it doesn’t depend.

There are lots of catch phrases about this and that but it all boils down to one thing… Are you good?  You should try to remember every word, but there’s no point in doing it at the expense of the performance. If you watch sitcoms, sure it’s the words, but mainly it’s the performance. It’s the actors intensity doing ridiculous things that makes it funny. In the case of comedy, it’s really based on one thing… Surprise. You lead the audience to expect something and then the punch line is where you deliver the information that is unexpected. The word order certainly has an effect on how the surprise is delivered, but how the line is delivered is more important. Also there is personal experience and personality of the audience. Most comedy only resonates with half the people and the other half are staring blankly. That’s why i’m so impressed with standups. They are lucky to get half the audience laughing and the rest… It’s crickets.

As with anything, do your best, but never ever ever supplant performance with memorization. They are hiring you for the energy your bring, not your ability to recite. The best actors can of course do both, and they can obviously tell a funny joke when they see one. If they think it could be funny said another way, they can approach the writer and discuss it. I’ve always asked the writer if something would be funnier said ‘this way’ and they usually say yeah, you’re right…go for it…because they are professionals and recognize when something is better.