What Is a Pre-Read Audition, and How to Prepare for One

The email lands at 6:40 in the evening: “Pre-read with casting, Thursday 2:15. Sides attached.” Three pages, a character name you’ve never heard of, and a word that sounds like a warm-up. Is this a real audition? Who’s going to be there? Do you need to be off book by Thursday?

It is a real audition, and it decides whether anyone else sees you for the part. It’s also smaller and friendlier than most actors fear.

The short version: a pre-read is the round where the casting director, or someone from their office, sees your take on the role before deciding whether to show you to the people who hire. You’re reading for casting, not the producers. Prepare one specific, playable choice, know the words well enough that you can look up and change them, and treat the session as a chance to work. If the casting director gives you a note, take it fully. That note tells you what they’re looking for.

Know where the pre-read sits, and who you’re reading for

For screen work, casting usually narrows in stages. Veteran casting director Marci Liroff lays out four levels of auditions: the general meeting, the pre-read, the callback or producer/director session, and the network and studio test. The pre-read is level two.

Liroff admits she hates the word. She explains why the round exists: she’s doing it because she’s “unfamiliar with your work,” or because there wasn’t a decent demo reel for her to watch, or because she doesn’t quite see you for the role yet and wants to see what you’d do with it before bringing you to her creative team. Either way, it’s your chance to show her.

Her guide to the phases of TV pilot testing makes the stakes plain. “First, you read for me,” she writes. No one meets the creative team, which she lists as producers, director, and studio and network executives, unless she knows their work or has auditioned them before. If she likes your read, she brings you back for the producers and the director.

So the pre-read is casting’s own filter. The person across from you isn’t deciding whether you get the job. They’re deciding whether to bring you to the producers and director at all.

Pre-read or callback?

The difference is order and audience. The pre-read comes first and is for casting. A callback means you’re being seen again, usually because the pre-read went well. Spotlight’s guide to recalls and casting callbacks calls the recall “the second stage of the audition process” and notes that the director or producer may be there.

When the people who decide are watching, it’s often called a producer session. That round has its own rules, mainly about keeping the read you gave here, and our guide to what a producer session is covers it. This piece is about getting there.

Expect a small room, or no room at all

A typical pre-read is not a panel. Often it’s just the casting director or someone from their office, reading the other lines with you. The producers and director usually aren’t there yet. That’s the point of the round.

Liroff’s advice is to think of it as “a work session not a hurdle.” In her post “Always Trust Your Casting Director”, she describes what working with an actor in a pre-read or a coaching session can look like: breaking down the character together and going through the script for clues. Casting wants you to be good.

When the pre-read is a self-tape

Some pre-reads never happen in a room. The request arrives as a self-tape with a deadline, and the casting office watches it later. The goal is the same: show casting your take so they can decide whether to bring you forward.

Taping changes one thing. Nobody can give you a note before you commit, so the choice is entirely yours. In Spotlight’s self-tape tips from casting directors, Emma Sylvester tells actors not to aim to please or second-guess what casting wants, and reminds them, “You are being asked to tape for a reason.” She also suggests recording the scene a maximum of three times. Pick your read, tape it, and stop.

Prepare the sides around one clear choice

Casting isn’t hoping to see every possible version of the scene. They want to see that you understood it and made a decision. Liroff’s checklist for this level starts with being prepared and having done your research on the role and the project. If you can get the full script, read it once for story before you work on your pages.

Then answer a few questions on the page. Our guide to breaking down audition sides goes deeper; for a pre-read, these are the ones that matter most:

• Who am I talking to, and what are they to me? A specific relationship makes your read different from the next actor’s before you say a word.
• What do I want from them in this scene? Choose a want you can play, like “get her to stay” rather than “be sad.”
• Where does the scene turn? Find the line where something changes, and let it change you.
• How do I start, and how do I end? Know your first moment before the first line, and where you land after the last one.

Spotlight’s guide to audition sides and how to prepare them puts the balance in one line: “Do go in with an interpretation and be prepared to change it.” It also warns against over-rehearsing your sides, because you might be directed in a new way. A read you’ve drilled into one fixed rhythm is hard to change when someone asks.

How off book do you need to be?

Liroff’s answer for a pre-read is “as off-book as possible,” while still holding the sides and turning the pages as you go. Spotlight adds that offices differ: some casting directors prefer you off book, and others don’t mind sides in hand. Either way, the pages are a safety net, not something to read from.

The way to get there in a couple of days is to learn the lines from the cues, not by rereading. Say your line from memory after the other character’s line, check it, and repeat. In Offbook, you upload the sides as a PDF, choose your role, and realistic voices read every other character, then wait for you to say your line before giving you the next cue. The short video below shows that run from upload to the first rehearsal. If you’d like to warm up on a classic scene first, the free run lines online tool works the same way and needs no account.

Use the session like a work session

Because the room is small and the stakes are about trust, how you behave counts as much as how you read. Liroff’s guidance for this level is practical:

1. Ask brief, specific questions about the character or the script, if you have them. One good question shows you’ve done the work.
2. Keep the chat short. In her words, “clip the small talk and get into the scene.”
3. Mention any dates you’re committed to that would make you unavailable. It saves everyone trouble later.
4. Don’t ask whether you’re getting a callback. Liroff says she’ll usually tell you right there if you’re coming back, along with specific directions.

In any audition room, if you get off to a bad start, you can begin again. In a post titled “Can I Get a Do-Over?”, Liroff advises saying simply that you’re going to start over, without apologizing or asking permission. She adds a warning: “don’t abuse the privilege.” An actor who restarts again and again gives the room a glimpse of how they might be on set.

Take the adjustment big enough to see

A note at a pre-read isn’t a bad sign. Acting Magazine’s explainer on notes, adjustments, and redirects lists several reasons casting gives one: to improve an already good read, to correct a weak one, to give the decision-makers more options, to see if you’d fit another role, or to test your range. It says plainly that redirects “aren’t necessarily a bad thing.”

One theater director, Em Fitzgerald, writes in a post about how she runs auditions that if a first reading keeps someone in the running, she asks them to do it again “but to change something.” It tells her two things: “can they make a change and are they willing to make a change.”

A pre-read note is often testing the same thing. Not whether you guessed the right reading, but whether you can move. So when the note comes:

• Listen to the whole note before you start nodding.
• If it isn’t clear, ask one short question about what they want, not how to do it.
• Change what you’re doing to the other person, not just your volume or speed.
• Make the change big enough that the second take clearly isn’t the first.

You can rehearse this before you go in. Once your first choice is solid, run the sides twice more with a different want each time (a softer one, a sharper one). Your first choice stays your first choice. The others are there so a note feels familiar instead of like an ambush. Our guide on how to take direction goes further into turning a director’s adjective into something you can play.

After the pre-read, write it down and let it go

Before you check your phone, write down what you did: who you were talking to, what you wanted, where the scene turned, any note casting gave you, how you played it after the note, and what you wore. If a callback comes, this is the page you’ll need. Spotlight’s recall guide advises keeping the same choices you made in the first audition, and Liroff’s four-levels post says to bring the pre-read’s direction into the next round.

Then let it go. A pre-read can lead to a callback, a producer session, or nothing at all this time. Liroff’s post has a line for that last case: even if you didn’t get the role you came in for, “I notice you.” A pre-read where you were prepared, specific, and easy to direct is how casting offices start to remember your name.

If the callback does come, the pre-read version is your starting point. Learn the scene fully, keep the choices that got you there, and stay ready for the next note.

Questions actors ask

Is a pre-read a good sign?

It means a casting office wants to see your take on a specific role, which is a step forward on its own. Liroff explains that the round often happens because the casting director doesn’t yet know your work, so it’s an introduction as much as a test.

Is a pre-read the same as a first audition?

Often. In Liroff’s levels it comes after a general meeting and before the callback, and it’s for the casting office only. A callback or producer session comes after it, when casting brings you back, often for the producers and director.

Will the director or producers be at my pre-read?

Usually not. That’s the point of the round: casting decides who is worth showing to them. Liroff’s pilot guide says the creative team meets only actors she already knows or has auditioned before.

Do I have to be off book for a pre-read?

Aim to be as close to off book as you can, while holding the sides. Offices differ, so if you’re unsure, ask your agent or check the casting notes. Knowing the words well matters most because it frees you to look up, play with your reader, and take a note.

Should I ask if I got a callback?

No. Liroff says plainly not to ask the casting director whether you’re getting one. Thank them, leave the room, and write down your choices while they’re fresh.