Best Monologues for Auditions | Top 10 List, Do’s and Don’ts
In This Article
monologue
So, you’ve been asked to perform a monologue. Maybe you’re trying to enrol in an acting program, or you’re auditioning for a TV, film or theatre role. Whatever the reason, you’re looking for the best monologues for auditions.
You’ll have to be very careful about which monologue you choose; it must not only be interesting, but something you enjoy performing so as to give casting directors, producers and directors a sense of your acting range.
I wrote ‘enjoy performing’ because if you pick something you don’t like, then that’s likely to affect your performance. So, let’s go through the do’s and don’ts of choosing a monologue, and examples of monologues for film/TV auditions and stage auditions.
But first, let’s start with what a monologue is.
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What is a Monologue?
A monologue is a solo speech given by a single character in a play, film or TV show. Often the monologue is used to reveal a character’s thoughts, feelings or backstory. For an actor, it is their opportunity to show their depth and range as a performer.
Check out Backstage for a curated list of monologues; you can filter by author, gender and genre, or explore popular monologues.
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How to Choose the Best Monologue for You: The Do’s
Ensure it’s an Actual Monologue
You may be tempted to take a conversation from a script and edit it into a monologue. Keep in mind it was written as a conversation for a reason. Use an actual monologue, because they are more likely to express a character’s innermost thoughts.
What you will find as you look through scripts is that often a conversation between two characters leads into a monologue, where one character talks for a minute or so without interruption. It is here that they are expressing their feelings, motivations, hopes and dreams. This is the part you will use. This is the monologue.
Below is a YouTube compilation of movie monologues that you can choose from (they are all good but you may find the Robin Williams monologue from Patch Adams is particularly effective).
Be Emotional in Your Monologue
When auditioning for a role, you have limited time to make an impression. To showcase your versatility, select a monologue that allows you to experience a wide spectrum of emotions. This could include happiness, sadness, anger, fear, confidence, and insecurity.
Consider incorporating humor into your performance too. While it might not be possible to display every emotion in a single piece, aiming for two or three will give your audience a better sense of your acting range.
Try Not to Be Self-Indulgent
Do not make a selection based just on your personal likes. You might love Tony Stark’s monologue from Captain America: Civil War, but maybe the casting agent isn’t a fan of Marvel movies, or the monologue you’re thinking about might need more context than possible in the short time you’re allocated. Research, if possible, the people who are going to be at your audition. Consider, based on their backgrounds, what they might like to hear (for example, maybe the casting agent started out as an actor – what did they perform in?).
Lastly, before you lock your monologue in, read the words as if you’re reading them for the first time, and ask yourself if the audience will understand them. If so, then that’s a big plus because when it comes time for you to audition, you can concentrate on your performance.
How to Choose the Best Monologue for Auditions: The Don’ts
Don’t Swear in Your Monologue
You might think it’s funny, or adds a surprise element to your audition that will make you stand out. A word of caution here: Don’t swear unless you feel it is absolutely essential to the audition; it could turn some people off. If the part you are auditioning for has no swearing, then don’t do it. There’s no value in it, as it won’t help the casting director envision you in the role.
Don’t Go Over 90 seconds, Max
You may already been given a length to work with. That’s great. But if you haven’t, then choose a monologue that’s no more than 60-90 seconds. You’ll be much farther ahead delivering a well-rehearsed, shorter monologue than something that is lengthy or so long that it makes your audience wish it was over.
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Top 10 List of Best Monologues for Auditions
5 Film Monologue Selections
Character: Lester
Monologue:
“I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time…For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars…And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street…Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper…the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird… Janie… And Janine…And…Carolyn.
I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me…but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry…you will someday.”
Character: Maggie
Monologue:
“I’m 32, Mr. Dunn, and I’m here celebrating the fact that I spent another year scraping dishes and waitressing which is what I’ve been doing since 13, and according to you I’ll be 37 before I can even throw a decent punch, which I have to admit, after working on this speed bag for a month may be the God’s simple truth. Other truth is, my brother’s in prison, my sister cheats on welfare by pretending one of her babies is still alive, my daddy’s dead, and my momma weighs 312 pounds.
If I was thinking straight I’d go back home, find a used trailer, buy a deep fryer and some Oreos. Problem is, this is the only thing I ever felt good doing. If I’m too old for this then I got nothing. That enough truth to suit you?”
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3. Malice
Character: Jed
Monologue:
“The question is, ‘Do I have a God complex?’ Which makes me wonder if this…lawyer, has any idea as to the kind of grades one has to receive in college, to be accepted to a top medical school? Or if you have the vaguest clue about how talented someone must be to lead a surgical team? I have an M.D. from Harvard and am board certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn’t miscarry or that their daughter doesn’t bleed to death or that their mother doesn’t suffer acute neural trauma from postoperative shock, who do you think they’re praying to?
Now you go ahead and read your bible, Dennis. And you go to your church and with any luck you might even win the annual raffle. But if you’re looking for God, he was in operating room number two, on November 17th, and he doesn’t like being second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex? Let me tell you something: I am God.”
4. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Character: Sam
Monologue:
“You had a career, Dad, before the third comic book movie. Before people started to forget who was inside that bird costume. You are doing a play based on a book that was written sixty years ago for a thousand rich old white people whose only real concern is gonna be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it’s over. No one gives a s*** but you! And let’s face it, Dad, you are not doing this for the sake of art – you are doing this because you want to feel relevant again.
Well, guess what – there is an entire world out there where people fight to be relevant every single day and you act like it doesn’t exist. Things are happening in a place that you ignore, a place that – by the way – has already forgotten about you. I mean, who the f*** are you? You hate bloggers, you mock Twitter, you don’t even have a Facebook page. You’re the one who doesn’t exist! You’re doing this because you’re scared to death – like the rest of us – that you don’t matter. And you know what? You’re right. You don’t. It’s not important, okay? You’re not important. Get used to it.”
Character: Ryan
Monologue:
“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to feel the straps on your shoulders. You feel them? I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life. You start with the little things. The shelves and the drawers. The knick-knacks. Collectables. Feel the weight as that adds up.
Then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, table top appliances, lamps, linens, your TV. That backpack should be getting pretty heavy now and you go bigger: your couch, your bed, your kitchen table. Stuff it all in there. Your car, get it in there. Your home, whether it’s a studio apartment or a two bedroom house. I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.
Now try to walk. It’s kind of hard, isn’t it? This is what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. We weigh ourselves down until we can’t even move. And make no mistake: moving is living.
Now, I’m going to set that backpack on fire. What do you want to take out of it? Photos? Photos are for people who can’t remember. Drink some ginkgo and let the photos burn. In fact, let everything burn and imagine waking up tomorrow with nothing. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it? That is how I approach every day.”
5 Play Monologue Selections
1. A Streetcar Named Desire
Character: Blanche
Monologue:
“I loved someone too, and the person I loved I lost.
He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery: love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s, although he wasn’t the least bit effeminate looking – still, that thing was there…. He came to me for help. I didn’t know that. I didn’t find out anything till after our marriage when we’d run away and come back and all I knew was I’d failed him in some mysterious way and wasn’t able to give the help he needed but couldn’t speak of!
He was in the quicksands and clutching at me – but I wasn’t holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. in the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it…the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years….
Afterwards we pretended that nothing had been discovered. Yes, the three of us drove out to Moon Lake Casino, very drunk and laughing all the way….. We danced the Varsouviana! Suddenly in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later – a shot! I ran out, all did! All ran and gathered about the terrible thing at the edge of the lake!
I couldn’t get near for the crowding. Then somebody caught my arm.
‘Don’t go any closer! Come back! You don’t want to see!’ See? See what! Then I heard voices say – Allan! Allan! The Grey boy! He’d stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired – so that the back of his head had been – blown away!…It was because on the dance-floor – unable to stop myself – I suddenly said “I saw! I know! You disgust me…”
And then the searchlight which has been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this – kitchen candle…”
2. Death of a Salesman
Character: Biff
Monologue:
“Now hear this, Willy, this is me. You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was jailed. I stole myself out of every good job since high school. And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! That’s whose fault it is! It’s goddamn time you heard that! I had to be boss big shot in two weeks, and I’m through with it! Willy!
I ran down eleven flights with a pen in my hand today. And suddenly I stopped, you hear me? And in the middle of that office building, do you hear this? I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw the sky. I saw the things that I love in the world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself: ‘What the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!’ Why can’t I say that, Willy? Pop!
I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you! I am not a leader of me, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash-can like all the rest of them! I’m a dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it! A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning?
I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home! Pop, I’m nothing! I’m nothing, Pop. Can’t you understand that? There’s no spite in it any more. I’m just what I am, that’s all. Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?”
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3. The Importance of Being Earnest
Character: Jack
Monologue:
“It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful. I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter.
This afternoon during my temporary absence in London on an important question of romance, he obtained admission to my house by means of the false pretense of being my brother. Under an assumed name he drank, I’ve just been informed by my butler, an entire pint bottle of my Perrier-Jouet, Brut, ’89; wine I was specially reserving for myself.
Continuing his disgraceful deception, he succeeded in the course of the afternoon in alienating the affections of my only ward. He subsequently stayed to tea, and devoured every single muffin. And what makes his conduct all the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don’t intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so myself yesterday afternoon.”
4. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Character: Marc Antony
Monologue:
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.”
5. A Raisin in the Sun
Character: Beneatha
Monologue:
“When I was small… we used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only hills we had were the ice covered stone steps of some houses down the street. And we used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day…and it was very dangerous, you know…far too steep…and sure enough one day a kid named Rufus came down too fast and hit the sidewalk and we saw his face just split open right there in front of us…
And I remember standing there looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and they fixed the broken bones and sewed it all up…and the next time I saw Rufus he just had a little line down the middle of his face….I never got over that…What one person could do for another, fix him up – sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world…
I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know – and make them whole again. This was truly being God… It used to be so important to me. It used to matter. I used to care. Yes – I think [I stopped). Because it doesn’t seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind! It was a child’s way of seeing things – or an idealist’s.
No—I wanted to cure. It used to be so important to me. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their bodies hurt…
I think I stopped.
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A Last Word on Monologues for Auditions
Memorize your monologue even if you’re told it’s ok to have the script with you. Why? Because in this way you can concentrate on the nuances of your performance. Rehearse it over and over and over again, but not just by yourself. Have family or friends watch. Ask them to critique your performance or to flag something if they don’t understand what you are trying to say.
