Cranky read with outraged horror about a casting director who was Twittering nasty comments during an audition. She was making her personal casting dos and don’ts list while watching performers open their hearts to her. She was thinking about her following more that the people in the room. The people who spent hours learning something to show her. The people that got dressed up to meet her. The people who traveled on the Africa hot subway in the New York summer. One of her Tweets was; “Multitasking. Auditioning #50 of the day and sending out an e-mail blast!” Nice. So glad they have half your attention. Then there was the tweet about how listening to the singing made her feel like her “ears were bleeding.” Girlfriend, you don’t belong in the biz. You gotta have heart.
We don’t tweet about THEM. Because them might give us our next job. Even though a lot of them are weirdos with major personality defects, which are aggravated by the power over people they feel, often leading to advanced megalomania. You know who I’m talking about. The ones who act like mean bulldogs just because they can. The ones who hate you if you look a little too happy when you walk into the room.
Like the other day when I had a callback for The Onion News Network. I love the Onion. I was excited to be a part of it because it is sooooo funny. I had the funnest audition. The casting director was a doll. The woman running the camera was a cutie. They were laughing while I did the sides. I got clear direction. I felt good.
Then came the callback. They had me in so “I could meet the director.” The minute I walked into the room she gave me major bad vibes. I think I looked too relaxed and happy to see the casting director. So Ms. Director was gonna show who was really in charge. She had long thick dark curly hair covering half of her face. Never trust that. And she did not introduce herself. Hate that.
She started talking on and on and on about where my character was and how she was feeling and where she was and Republican this blah blah blah blah blah. It became mesmerizing. Then she says, “So how do you feel about that?” “Huh?” I think, “Um, ah well it makes sense,” I say, “These are the people who love Ann Coulter.” “NO,” she says, “How do YOU feel about it?” My mind is like, “Wait. What does she mean? Me the person or me the character? Maybe she wants to know how my character feels about it.” So I describe in detail how excited my character is about what is going on. When I finish she looks exasperated and says, “That’s nice but could you use some of the dialogue from the script?”
I am now the retard in the room. The audition had begun unbeknownst by me. She was just blabbering and her last sentence was supposed to be followed by the dialogue from the script. This is a first. It’s usually, “Slate your name. I’ll ask you a question and you reply.” But Ms. Director wants to screw me up and show how smart she is. So I do the dialogue. I have memorized it, but at the end I use the word desiccated instead of the word decomposed, because she has rattled me. And to make it worse I point up that I switched words. I do it again. I use the correct word but can’t even remember what I said. “Did I say desiccated?” I ask. “No” she says. “Thank you,” she says. I get up and leave the room. That was AWFUL. I had to go straight to Sephora across the street and get a new lipstick to cheer myself up.
It’s amazing that someone completely humorless is a director at The Onion. How did that happen? I think she has them snowed into thinking she’s an ARTISTE.
I once went to an audition for a print ad and when I was in the room I assumed they were taking stills, so I moved and freezed, moved and freezed, moved and freezed. They were filming! I was doing a robot fucking dance and they were filming. Oh hell. But later they ended up casting me for an editorial print job. They are two funny guys who are both very Seth Rogen. They walk around the casting office in socks. I have this terrible feeling they went home that night and smoked joints with their friends and watched the robot lady audition tape and rolled on the floor laughing. But that’s like my job right? To be entertaining. Even if I didn’t mean it.
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