Miki Yamashita is a writer and actress based in Los Angeles. She has appeared in principal roles on “Law & Order,” “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns,” “iCarly,” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” She was a Series Lead in a cable pilot for the Oxygen Network. She was the creator, writer, and co-host of the figure skating talk show “Lutz Chat,” which was hailed by The Village Voice as “the funniest half-hour on TV.” Theatre credits include leading roles on national tours (“A Chorus Line,”) and top regional venues. Her writing has been published in Backstage and Showfax, and her one-woman show “The Geisha Next Door” was most recently presented at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Hollywood. She can currently be seen in this commercial parody at Funny or Die. As a comedy writer, her contributions have aired on “The Bonnie Hunt Show.” Miki studied drama at Yale University, opera at New England Conservatory of Music, and holds a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Mount Holyoke College. She prefers auditioning and performing in English.

It was my first day ever on the set of a network primetime series, having been cast in a principal role on an episode of Law & Order. Veteran director Jace Alexander had a giant camera pointed at me, and the three people next to me: Jerry Orbach, Jesse L. Martin, and action star Will Yun Lee. They all waited. A massive crew of over 70 people on that day’s set, the lobby of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, all waited. For me. To translate into Japanese a new line that had been given to me moments earlier, by the showrunner. As soon as I could translate this line, this army of people, including the two series leads, would be mobilized, and this scene could be shot.

Are you crapping your pants yet? Well, don’t.

If you’re a bilingual actor, this could be you on any given day that you are hired to perform in a second language. This is the Actor as Translator.

Being bilingual is a skill that can help give you an edge in any profession. Even in the seemingly random roulette wheel of the acting business, a special skill is just that: it makes you special— at least at the moment there is a need for the skill you possess. Being able to speak another language can mean the difference between sitting on your couch watching Law & Order, and being on the set as a working principal actor. “Special talents, skills, languages, etc., will always be another tool to help get an actor in the door for a specific role,” says Annie Schwartz, commercial and theatrical agent and co-owner of Origin Talent in Los Angeles (full disclosure: Annie represents me commercially).

But first, let’s clarify a few vital matters. The bilingual actor often finds herself wading in murky waters. What exactly are her responsibilities? I’ve learned over the years through trial, error, and near pants-crapping experiences, that most television, film, and commercial production staff hold the following assumption: if you are an actor who is bilingual, you are also a professional-level interpreter.

Got that? That’s number one. In other industries, it is understood that translation is an extremely specialized profession that is entirely separate from an individual who simply speaks a second language. But this is showbiz. So translate you must. “When a specific breakdown from a casting director requests actors who speak a specific language, they are very specific on the needs of their client,” relates Annie. “If you are well represented, your agent should be aware or find out your qualifications and abilities, so that he can become a trusted source for the casting community.”

Communication of this information from CD to agent to actor is key. You’d be surprised how often this doesn’t happen. I once had a co-star audition for Heroes and my theatrical agent (not the above-mentioned Annie Schwartz), haphazardly read me a section of the breakdown over the phone: “Must be Japanese.” Well, I downloaded the English sides, and prepared to read with a Japanese accent, and without. I got there and found out that the breakdown actually specified “Must speak Japanese.” I had a total of ten minutes to translate the lines, rehearse them in my mind, and perform them on camera.

If you’re lucky, the sides you download will specify the language in the scene description prior to your character’s first line. For example, it will look like this:

INT. IMMIGRATION OFFICE – DAY

JUNKO YAMADA, immigration attorney, sits across from her client. In Japanese:

JUNKO YAMADA

The judge will not hear your case for quite some time.

You could be detained up to a year.

Okay, so even if your agent drops the ball, the sides will hopefully let you know that you are expected to translate and perform in the second language.

First, divide your workload. Focus on translation first, then rehearsal. As with any audition, try to get as much information as possible about the character, their economic class, their profession, and whom they are speaking to and in what setting. Ewan Chung, a Los Angeles actor who is fluent in both Mandarin and French, says that about 25 percent of his audition opportunities require his language skills. “Find the most succinct way to express the same things as in English. Then tweak it to fit the character. Idiomatic expressions will always throw you off, so sometimes you have to get creative and approach lines from a different angle. Anything that’s slang-riddled will be much more challenging. And profession-specific terminology can be the most daunting.”

Unlike English, foreign languages tend to have many distinct layers of formality that are accounted for, depending on who is speaking, and to whom. If you can’t get all the information you need, do the best with what you have, and then remain flexible. I like to write down in the margin next to the English lines the translation, in the level of Japanese that I can easily read. Sometimes I don’t have enough space, in which case I scrap the original copy and rewrite the entire scene by hand. If you can’t read or write in the second language, you will have to find another way that works for you. “I don’t write Korean,” says Rose Bae, an L.A. actress. “So I read the line silently in English, and say the line in Korean, and practice that way.” The diverse levels of ability amongst actors can make things pretty hairy. “I often get anxious when asked to audition for a Korean-speaking role, because sometimes there is a disparity between what facility level is expected of me, and what I can actually do. And frankly, if you don’t have the goods, it can be humiliating.” Annie Schwartz stresses that the client and agent really need to be on the same page: “Be honest about how well or proficient you are in a language or any skill for that matter. This is what will give your agent and the casting company the confidence that you don’t waste anyone’s time and that when they do call you in you deliver.”

Keep in mind while rehearsing for the audition that in most cases, no one in the audition room will know what the heck you are saying! So naturally, this can cause a few issues. Be prepared for the fact that the reader is going to respond to your foreign language lines in English. Unless you remain aware of that while rehearsing, it can be jarring in the audition room. Another problem is that they may cut you off before you are finished with your line, because they don’t know that you aren’t finished! Be aware that all pauses between sentences need to be briefer than when you perform in English; anticipate the next portion of your line, or jump the pause by just a hair so the reader does not cut you off. But of course, stay true to the intention of your character and what is appropriate for the scene.

So. Figuring out what level of language skill the role requires, how your character would speak (given their history, status, the other character in the scene), rewriting entire scenes by hand, rehearsing with the audition environment in mind; all of this can be extremely time consuming. But here’s the thing. Like with most auditions, you will almost never have as much time as you need. “One-day turnarounds are the worst,” says Ewan. “I wish production would be aware of that and allow as much prep time as possible.” Rose describes the worst time-crunch she ever faced: “I got the sides in English at 6pm for a 10am audition the following day. Let’s just say it was a long night.”

Know that your job might not be over after the audition. If you book the job, you’ll be wishing you were lucky enough to have a 16-hour translation turnaround. Once you’re on-set, anything goes. Remember, I personally had Jerry Orbach and 70 crew members at a standstill (albeit briefly, because I got the job done, and fast). “Be good at translating quickly, or have access to people who can help you. Bring a dictionary to the audition, and to the set. And have your mom readily available,” Ewan says, half-jokingly. But seriously. I was lucky that the line I was given on the Law & Order set was simple enough for me to translate on the spot without help. But it’s best to have on hand someone who has a higher level of fluency than you do. Because my parents are both bilingual, and are also teachers by trade, their help and expertise make it possible for me to seek top-level counsel before an audition in Japanese. And they would have been reachable by cell phone had I needed immediate advice between takes.

It’s not always a stress-fest. Estella Perez is an L.A. actress who constantly auditions for market-specific commercials that are entirely in Spanish. Because Spanish is a more widely used alternate language in the United States, Estella says that even though she has more facility in English, she speaks Spanish almost every day, so she is accustomed to switching gears quickly. “Fifty percent of the time, the sides are provided in Spanish for commercial auditions,” she says, “but I show up ready to translate on the spot.” Annie Schwartz constantly fields requests for Hispanic actors: “If it’s a Spanish speaking commercial, a casting person will highlight the parameters to the agent on the breakdown exactly what they need.”

Compared to commercial auditions, however, Estella finds that when her translation skills are called upon in theatrical auditions, there is often a missing link. “Latinos are so broad-based, and there are different dialects. Is the character from Central America? From Spain? There are so many possibilities if the information is not provided.” Again, communicate with your agent and get as much information as possible.

Pulling double-duty as translator and actor is both a blessing and a curse. Estella struggles with being pigeon-holed in the Hispanic category when she could easily play other ethnicities. “Because of my surname being ‘Perez,’ I can get lumped in with other Hispanics, but I would love to be able to read for more roles that are ‘ethnicity open.’”

Still, she says, “if I have a special skill that gets me an audition, the point is, I got the audition.”

For the bilingual actor, regardless of the additional responsibility of translation, some factors will remain constant. You are portraying a character with specific circumstances, history, and a specific objective in the scene. In fact, it can be liberating to look into the eyes of a reader who hears your utterances as gibberish, and having to use the rest of your being to communicate your character’s intention. It’s almost a classic acting exercise. “Just be a good actor,” says Rose. “The camera and the casting director will see that, even if they don’t understand the language. If you are a good actor, the challenge can be met.”