How Seinfeld Experience Influenced Actor Ken Davitian's Role in Borat, all Revealed on Filmnut

filmnutlive August 4, 2011 2:56 Social Media Auditions

Ken Davitian on booking Borat by convincing the room he had no business being there.

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5 Things Actors Should Know About Auditioning When They Do Not Want an Actor

Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to spend the 2:56 watching it.

Sometimes the brief is that you are not an actor

The production did not want a trained American actor and said so. Reading the brief as a description of a person rather than of a performance is what tells you whether polish is an asset here or a disqualification.

Keep calling after they say no

The answer was a flat no, repeatedly, because of what he was. It took an agent who kept calling anyway to get him through the door, and the door was the entire difficulty.

Be in it from the moment you walk in

He arrived in the character's own suit, oversized on him, and produced a folded photograph from a pocket. The audition had already started before anyone asked him to read.

Playing unfamiliar can be the read

Asked whether he could ad lib, he answered as someone who did not know the word, then mentioned classes. The room reacting to him as an outsider was the evidence he was right for it.

A credit you missed can be the reason you booked

A part he could not take years earlier would have marked him as a working actor to the same people. The job you did not get is not always a loss, and there is rarely any way to know at the time.

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Full transcript (591 words)

hi i'm jeff shubert the host of film nut here with a clip from our last live broadcast uh what was your career like before borat how did you get the part and how did it change your career wow that's one big question okay what was life before borat uh working hard like an actor like a regular guy and we're still doing the same thing go to auditions or now they're meetings uh and meet with people and try to explain to them why you think their project is good so they'll hire you uh but before that it was just you know knock on doors auditions i was always the guy that went to the agent and said call for this call for that and it was the same thing for borak it was call call call and they wouldn't let me in they they said no we don't want you you're american actor we don't want an american actor now what did larry charles say to you larry charles called me a fraud because and we have i i don't know if you have the clip uh we he taped the audition and when i went in there i was completely in character i was wearing a suit that belonged to me that you see in the film but i was 100 pounds heavier so it was very baggy on me and i had a 8 by 10 fold it up in my pocket that i took out and i straightened up and i gave to them and when we got up we started doing ad-libs with sasha and they asked me they said can you add lib and i said what do you mean ad one two three no no can you do improvisation and i said oh improvisation i take it in classes and i heard everybody going he's taking classes what is he doing here how did he get across the gate and i thought okay i got him i'm i'm i even if i don't get the part i have successfully convinced these people that i have no business here and that's what they were looking for right but wasn't there a story with larry where you almost got on an episode of seinfeld oh yes you know he he told me he said well let me finish the other one because he didn't call me a fraud it wasn't a bad thing when i finished the audition i was walking out and i thought well somebody's got to tell them and i turned around and i said gentlemen thank you very much uh if you like the audition please give me a call and that's when he jumped up and goes you're a fraud so but he had told me while we were on while we were working uh he i had told him about an audition that came to me from seinfeld and it was about a russian guy eating a muffin in a bus and i couldn't go i was in mexico at the time and i didn't get the part and i had told him about it and he said if you had gotten that part you would never be in borat because i would have known you were not a not you were an actor at the time because they were looking for somebody that wasn't you can watch episode 507 with ken davidian at the stream dot tv film nut film nut live wednesday nights only on the stream dot tv