Audition Anxiety: What to Do When You Can’t Stop Shaking

You’re in the hallway with your sides. Someone with a clipboard says your name, and your body goes into a full alarm: pounding heart, shaking hands, a dry mouth, and a head that suddenly feels empty. You knew these lines an hour ago.

If this happens to you, nothing is wrong with your talent. An audition is a few minutes of being watched and judged by strangers who hold something you want. Many bodies treat that as an emergency, and some treat it as a big one.

The short version: don’t try to force yourself calm. Slow your exhale, call the feeling excitement, give your tense muscles a job, and plan your recovery before you need it. And if panic shows up often, or outside auditions too, talk to a professional. This piece is practical advice from performers and research, not medical advice.

First, know what is happening in your body

Ordinary audition nerves are not the same as a panic attack, but when nerves spike hard, it helps to know what a panic attack is. The National Institute of Mental Health describes a panic attack as a sudden wave of fear or a sense of losing control when there is no clear danger. The physical symptoms can include trembling, tingling, and a racing heart, and they can feel like a heart attack.

Two facts from the same NIMH page are worth carrying with you. Panic attacks are not life-threatening, and the symptoms usually pass with time. And a one-time or occasional panic attack is not a mental disorder. The NHS adds that most attacks last between 5 and 20 minutes.

That matters in a hallway. The scariest part of panic is often the thought “this will never stop” or “something is badly wrong.” Knowing that the wave peaks and falls lets you ride it instead of fighting it.

If you have never felt anything like this before, or you are not sure it is panic, get checked by a doctor. A doctor can rule out other physical causes.

In the hallway: slow your exhale

The fastest lever you control is your breath. The NHS breathing exercise for stress is simple: breathe in gently through your nose, counting to 5 if that helps, then let it flow out gently through your mouth for another count of 5. The NHS suggests at least 5 minutes; in a hallway, do what you have time for.

A second option has some newer research behind it. In a 2023 Stanford study, people practiced one of several breathing patterns or mindfulness meditation for five minutes a day for a month.

The pattern called cyclic sighing led to a bigger rise in positive mood and a bigger drop in breathing rate than meditation. It was a small study: 108 people in all, and only 30 of them did cyclic sighing. Treat it as promising, not proven.

Here is how cyclic sighing works:

1. Breathe in slowly through your nose.
2. When your lungs feel full, take a second, short sip of air through your nose to top them up.
3. Let it all out slowly through your mouth, longer than the inhale.
4. Repeat for a minute or two, at a comfortable pace.

No one in a waiting room will notice. It looks like someone sighing at how long the line is.

If your thoughts are spinning

When the problem is less your breath and more your head, try the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise from the University of Rochester Medical Center. Start with a few slow breaths. Then name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste.

It sounds too simple to work. Its job is narrow: it pulls your attention out of the movie in your head and back into the room you are actually in. That is the room where your audition will happen.

Call it excitement instead of trying to calm down

Most of us believe the right move is to calm down. Harvard Business School researcher Alison Wood Brooks found that most people she asked believed exactly that. Then she tested it. In a series of experiments with karaoke singing, public speaking, and a hard math test, people who said “I am excited” out loud did better than people who tried to calm down.

Her explanation is useful for actors. Anxiety and excitement feel alike in the body: both come with a fast heart and high energy. Jumping from that state to calm is a long way. Relabeling it as excitement is a short step, and it pushes your mind toward opportunity instead of threat.

So before you walk in, say it quietly: I am excited. You are not pretending the nerves are gone. You are telling them what they are for. The energy that makes your hands shake is the same energy that makes a performance feel alive.

What about power poses?

You may have heard that two minutes in a “superhero” pose changes your hormones. A larger replication study led by Eva Ranehill at the University of Zurich found no effect on testosterone, cortisol, or behavior. People did report feeling more powerful. So stand however helps you feel ready, but don’t count on it to change your chemistry.

When your hands or voice won’t stop shaking

Shaking is adrenaline looking for something to do. Instead of trying to hold perfectly still, which often makes it worse, give your muscles a clear job and then let them go. This is the idea behind progressive muscle relaxation, which you will find in many NHS self-help guides, such as this one from Oxford Health. If your nerves come out as giggles instead of shakes, our guide on how to stop corpsing has fixes for that too.

• Hands: make tight fists for a slow count of 5, then let them go completely. Notice the difference. Do it three times.
• Shoulders: lift them toward your ears, hold for 5, and drop them.
• Jaw and face: scrunch your face, hold, and release. Let your jaw hang slightly open afterward.

In the room, a shaking page is louder than shaking hands. Hold your sides with both hands at about chest height, close to your body, so a small tremor doesn’t turn into a waving flag. Glance down for the line, then lift your eyes to the reader to say it.

For a shaky voice, let out a full breath before your first line, take an easy breath in, and start the line on the way out. A voice gets wobbly when you speak on top of a held, high breath. The first line matters most, because once you are talking, the scene usually takes over.

A word on beta-blockers

Some performers talk about beta-blockers. According to the NHS, propranolol is a prescription medicine that can help with physical symptoms of anxiety like sweating and shaking, and it is not suitable for everyone, for example people with asthma. Whether it is right for you is a question for your doctor, never for a castmate with a spare pill.

The night before: write the worry down

Worry takes up mental room you need for your lines. Psychologists Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock tested this with students before high-stakes exams. In their study, students spent 10 minutes writing about their worries just before the test. Among highly anxious ninth graders, the writers averaged a B+ and the non-writers a B-.

You can borrow this. The night before, or in the car outside, set a timer for 10 minutes and write what you are actually afraid of. Be specific: “I’ll go up on the second page,” “they’ll stop me after ten seconds,” “my voice will crack on the first line.”

Then, next to each fear, write what you will do if it happens. For a dropped line, you will look at the page and keep going. If they stop you early, it can simply mean they saw what they needed. A fear with a plan next to it is much smaller than one left in the dark.

The other half of the night before is preparation you can trust. Know the first line of every page cold, and know the shape of the scene even if a word slips. Our guide on how to memorize lines quickly covers how to make lines hold up under pressure.

In the room: what to do if you go up

Here is advice from someone who has sat on the other side of the table for decades. Casting director Marci Liroff writes that if you get off to a bad start at the top of a scene, you simply say, “I’m going to start over.” No string of apologies, and no asking. In her words, “Don’t ask for permission, just start again.”

She adds two limits. Don’t abuse it: an actor who restarts again and again gives a glimpse of how they might be on set. And don’t stop near the end of a long scene. If you miss a word, stay in the scene and stay in character. You can rehearse that recovery ahead of time with our guide on what to do if you mess up a line in an audition.

For a bigger blank deep in a scene, Liroff suggests a quiet trick. Stop, raise your hand to the reader, take a moment, then continue where you left off. It gives you a beat to pull yourself together without starting the whole scene again. If it happens in a show instead, read what to do when you forget your lines on stage.

It also helps to remember who is behind the table. In an interview with Spotlight, UK casting director Irene Cotton said she gets hundreds of submissions for a role when the director wants to see about 16. If you’re in the room, you were chosen.

She also said a dried line doesn’t mean an actor is bad. When nerves get in the way, “casting directors can see beyond that.”

Make auditions less rare: practice being watched

One reason auditions feel so big is that they are rare. You spend weeks alone with the material, and then you perform it once, for strangers, with your heart pounding. The fix is to be watched more often, in smaller doses, long before the day that matters.

Therapists use a structured version of this idea. NIMH describes exposure therapy, a common part of cognitive behavioral therapy, as confronting fears to help a person get back to the things they have been avoiding. You are not doing therapy at home, but you can borrow the shape of it: start small and climb.

1. Record yourself on your phone and watch it back.
2. Perform for one person you trust.
3. Read in front of a class or a small group of friends.
4. Do auditions that matter less to you, like a reading or a student film.
5. Then the audition you care about.

The other kind of practice is saying your lines out loud to another voice before the day. If the first time you speak your lines to someone is in the room, the room will feel strange. Run them at audition volume with a friend, a recording of the other lines, or an app. Our guide to practicing lines without a scene partner walks through the free options.

Offbook makes that practice easy. Upload your sides, pick your role, and realistic voices read the other characters. Offbook listens as you say your line, then plays the next cue, so you can run the scene until it feels like yours.

When the lines are in your body, there is one less thing to be nervous about. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere.

When to talk to a professional

Pre-audition nerves are normal. Panic that is taking over your life is not something you have to handle alone. According to NIMH, panic disorder may be diagnosed when someone has repeated, unexpected attacks and spends at least a month worrying about the next one or changing their life to avoid it.

Talk to a doctor or a mental health professional if any of these sound familiar:

• Panic attacks happen outside auditions too, sometimes out of nowhere.
• You turn down auditions you want because you’re afraid of panicking.
• You worry about the next attack for days or weeks beforehand.
• Nerves are getting worse over time, not better.

The good news is that help works. NIMH calls cognitive behavioral therapy the “gold standard” psychotherapy for panic disorder, and medicines are also an option for some people. A primary care doctor is a fine first stop. If you or someone you know is in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 in the US to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Your two-minute hallway checklist

Save this for the next time your name is about to be called:

1. Breathe out long. Five rounds of slow breathing or cyclic sighing, with the exhale longer than the inhale.
2. Ground yourself. If your thoughts are racing, do 5-4-3-2-1 with what is in the room.
3. Squeeze and release. Fists, then shoulders, for a count of 5 each, then let go.
4. Relabel it. Say “I am excited” quietly to yourself.
5. Know your restart. If the top goes badly, “I’m going to start over.” If you blank later, raise a hand, take a beat, and continue.
6. Walk in. Look at the reader, not the panel, and play the scene.

You don’t need to stop being nervous to do good work. Plenty of actors shake in the hallway and then play a scene beautifully, because once they are talking to another person, the scene gives the nerves somewhere to go. Be kind to yourself on the way in and on the way out.