Audition Blues

In order to pay for the good time sins of actually doing some acting, I need to go through audition hell. It's much like having to actually write to be a writer (thank you Brandi for that fiery brand of "walk the walk" bullshit eradication), I mean not as fundamental as that, but still pretty damned necessary.

I don't tend to audition well. It's not that I get nervous, though auditioning is far, FAR more nerve wracking than actually performing, it’s that I don't cold read well. If I have a chance to look at the scene beforehand, I can get a better sense of the character and what I need to do to get it across. Better yet, if I go to an audition that involves doing a prepared monologue, I will actorate all over the place, I will kick you in the face with my acting love.

Did I telegraph that enough for you?

So, an audition for a film pretty much fell in my lap and I took Saturday off of work to go do my thang. It felt so good to be going out and doing something acting related after only a few short months of baby time off, that I really didn't let it phase me that I knew nothing about the film or the part I was reading for. I half heartedly checked my email for the audition sides that were half heartedly offered.

I got to where the audition was being held (not nearly as sick to my stomach nervous as I have been in past situations) and learned that the film dealt with janitors and hallucinogenic cookies. I should have known things would tilt when the assistant gave me script pages to read, but had that questioning look on his face that seemed to say he did not see me in the part I would be reading for.

I had about 10 minutes to go over the lines, figure out who this guy was. This was slightly impeded by short visits to other folks there for the audition that I have worked with before, hugs and falling back into improvised bits and that general feeling of being near someone who you have gone through a heavy experience with. The director came out, soul patch and hip frames, and immediately shook his head when the assistant said I was reading for OC. "Nope," he said. "I want him to read for Weird William." Well, I've got the name anyway...

Cold reading? Check. Any semblance of preparing for a reading tossed out the window? Check. My biggest audition fear coming true for my first film audition? Check and check.

I read the script page literally for the first time for the audition with the director. He asked me to do things in a different way, videotaped a run and promptly forgot my name on the way out (always a good sign).

So, I have no illusions of that videotaped audition cropping up on a 20th Anniversary edition DVD of the cookie janitor film, I would not really be at all surprised if I never heard anything at all. And I don't know if it's a defense mechanism that I've forged to keep myself from falling into precarious chasms of depression when I don't get parts, but I'm really beginning to have a pretty fatalistic view on the audition process.

"If I was meant to have the part, I will get the part."

Sounds good when you're reading over your monologue for a general audition you have in a couple weeks, but sort of sounds like bullshit when you shine a little light on it.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Interstate 8 by Modest Mouse