There'd be weeks like this, my mama said.
The week began with me wondering why on earth Netflix would neglect to include a cinematic classic, Pootie Tang, on their instant cue. The week ended ended with another one of my scary Mel Gibson dreams. A giant mess of a week reared its ugly head in between and made me question the fiber of what I’m made of.
First, I found out that an offer for a project that I had supposedly booked had been rescinded on the grounds that the producers were “taking the part in a new direction” and were “looking for someone who was more ‘mainstream and pretty.”
I tracked down the actress they had gone with on the internet. One look at her head shot said everything. She was forever seventeen and gorgeous. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and what a collagen envying friend of mine would refer to as “big ass lips.” I stared at her head shots, taking in each look and pose she had done. She had it all covered: pouty, girly, serious, emotional, and fun. I don’t know which is worse; the fact that they rescinded an offer because of this girl - or the fact that, deep down, I didn’t blame them. This was a girl who didn’t run into doorways. This was a girl who never answered the door to the Schwann’s man and accidentally stripped because she forgot that she wasn’t wearing a tank top under her t-shirt. There was no comparison.
It’s not even like I exclusively want top notch work. I watched a commercial for QuickTrip chicken nuggets the other day. It featured five actors squawking and flapping their arms up and down as they bobbed their necks back and forth. Nuggets of chicken zoomed around the white space, taunting them with their crispiness and affordability.
"God," I thought, gazing at a joyful, young woman who caught a nugget in her teeth, "if I could only book that."
A couple of days later, I was leaving one of my jobs when my agent called and said,
“Janice wants to see you for a film audition tomorrow. She asked for you by name.”
Janice asked for me by name once before. It was to come in and read for a “video vixen.” It should go without saying that I didn’t book that one. I make about as much sense in a gold chain as Kristin Wiig.
“What does she want to see me for?”
“Oh,” my agent gushed, “You’re going to love it.”
Turns out the film was a project that had been sitting in development hell for the past two years. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you that it’s a comedy about having babies. It’s about having lots of babies. It’s about having, like, eight million babies.
My interpretation of mainstream comedy in recent years has been that it is acceptable to go in an unconventional direction to earn your keep; watch Brides Maids or any Jim Carrey film and take note of their box-office revenue if you don’t believe me. Janice, however, has a different view on the matter. I stood in the casting room, ready to blow them away with my exquisite interpretation of an especially quirky character, and fired off as soon as she waved me to start.
The scene began with the main character, a successful woman in the baby business, having one of those weird pregnant lady dreams where she has a set of gills. Her assistant, rustled from her desk by the sound of her boss’s make-believe gurgles, comes in and wakes her.
I almost missed my entrance. The cue line was supposed to be, “I dreamt that I had gills. Do I have gills?”
What I heard was,
“(Mmmm) (mmmmmph) (mmmmmmph). (Mmpph)?”
This is why you always learn your sides backwards and forwards whenever you have them far enough in advance. Janice happens to be one of those casting directors that reads the producers’ directions of “Would prefer talent to be louder than their reader” and interprets them as, “If I hear the voice of the reader, I will hex their progeny for generations to come.”
The best way to overcome this problem is to know your sides so well that you sweat the words. When the sound stops coming from the general direction of the reader, you say whatever the hell it is you’re supposed to say - preferably in character.
“No, you don’t have gills on your face,” I said, before staring to the side and saying under my breath in a raspy, dorkish voice, “but that be awesome...”
“No, now you’re over acting,” Janice said, motioning to her assistant to switch off the camera.
I did it one more time in what seemed like the most lifeless, unfunny audition of my life.
“Much better,” Janice said, turning off the camera. She didn’t let me read for the other character.
I called my agent on the way home and explained what had happened.
“I don’t think she’s even going to submit me. Is there any way we can go around Janice?”
“I can submit you directly to the LA casting,” she replied, “but if they want to see more of you, I’m probably going to have to come up with a reason for why you didn’t show up in the Atlanta submissions.”
“Could you?”
“Of course. We had to do this with the supernatural show, too. Just record the sides - both of them - and get them to me by tomorrow morning.”
Two days later, we still hadn’t heard back from either coast about any callbacks.
Apparently I’m too quirky for everyone.
The week took another stride south a woman called me a red headed devil while I was on my lunch break because I couldn’t tell her the release date of some product that one of my employers makes. I was appalled; I do not have red hair.
By the middle of the week, I was running on three to four hours of sleep because I was working two jobs and going to rehearsal until midnight. I drank coffee in the morning to keep me sounding zesty whenever I answered the phone and said,
“Hello, you have reached the office of wherever I’m temping at today, how may I direct your call?”
or:
“Welcome! Let me tell you about one of the many awesome products you can buy at this store! Let me hook you up with an ambassador of knowledge! Let me take a look at your device and see if there’s anything wrong. Ma’am, I apologize about being a red haired devil, but allow me to direct you to a location where you can be assisted by your pick of devils just like me - except with a hair color that suits you better.”
The week seemed to get worse and worse with each passing moment.
My car broke down twice.
I started getting a fever.
I started menstruating and when I asked this girl for a tampon she handed me one labeled ultra light and giggled when said, “This is all I have!”
I wanted to hand her a question mark in return for her generosity.
I drank more coffee after work so that I could be more alert during rehearsals for a show that launched this week. It smelled like a Starbucks when I sweat. I’d rehearse until eleven, drive home, shower (or not shower), and finally lie in bed, too caffeinated to go to fall asleep. Then I would wake up, go to one of my jobs, and cross my fingers that I would get a magical phone call telling me that I was pretty enough to be seen in person.
I have been considering coloring my hair again.
I was a blonde baby, dammit.
Why is auburn hair not considered mainstream?
What do I need to do?
I need to get off of my ass.
These thoughts and other completely unwarranted worries plagued my mind until I woke up in the middle of the night because Mel Gibson was chasing after me with an industrial powered blow torch screaming, “YOU’RE MINE, BITCH!”
When Mel Gibson comes after you in your sleep, it’s time for a change.
I woke up the next morning and put in my two weeks notice at my retail job, got my car fixed with the help of a kind soul in the Atlanta theater community, and got a nap.
Then I walked my happy ass into our tech rehearsal.
Screw you, Hollywood. I’m pretty.
And this girl has a show to do.
