I’m here in this room at Broadview in Salt Lake City for three hours. As the seats begin to fill in the small auditorium I’m reminded of college. Oh no, a lecture? But an evening with Glenn Morshower is anything but academic.

The title of the workshop- The Extra Mile- is about breakthrough. It as well as the speaker are organic and entirely honest. He paces right to left like a Baptist preacher calling on the heavens to heal our wounded souls. He encourages us to wear a new set of ears tonight. The 54-year-old actor who’s made a career out of playing service men is now wearing an invisible robe. He has us mesmerized. One by one we become believers.

Glenn has had no specific acting training other than life. His teachings come from paying attention in that life.

He tells us our bodies are trophies and that we need to stop dead-end pursuits and treating our bodies poorly. He raises his fists to smoking- a habit that killed his father. These are hitches in your giddyup he says. Wait a minute, did I stumble into an intervention instead of an audition workshop?

But as Glenn talks it seems strangely connected. Every aspect of our lives is connected. We can’t compartmentalize the bad things we do to ourselves and expect it not to leak into the good things we want to achieve or the people we want to relate to.

I guess if you take the idea that an audition is a meeting the same way as a date or job interview is a meeting then it would make sense to be you rather than a façade of the ‘you’ who ‘acts’ like they’re perfect then goes home and calls their dealer. Do you ‘meet’ your boyfriend’s parents or ‘audition’ for them?, Glenn uses for an example. They should be the same but often an actor treats the audition as something heightened and unnatural. If you don’t get anything else, this is one of the most brilliant nuggets gleaned from tonight, he professes.

Don’t be the actor caught auditioning. Walk in prepared to rock. You’ve already competed with 600 million others, he says; meaning 600 million sperm. We’re already winners because we were born! And so the night begins…..