Oh, the HORROR!

I know I haven’t spent a lot of time on this blog talking about my life as an actress here in Hollywood. Part of that is because I want people to see that not all of us out here pursuing this dream are living the stereotypical kind of life that most people think we are. I have a lot of other things that I am interested in and I do a lot more than sit around collecting unemployment and waiting for auditions or projects to come around. The other reason I haven’t written much about this particular aspect of my life is, quite frankly, there’s not a lot of that going on for me these days. It’s a slow time of year in one of the slowest years EVER in our industry, so I’ve been busying myself with other projects (like cupcakes and scrapbooks and jar candles).

My text message notification!

With so little going on in my acting world, you can imagine how excited I was to receive notice from my agent last week that I had an audition. Not for a commercial, but for a SHORT FILM. Woohoo! And it wasn’t just any audition; it was a straight-to-callbacks kind of audition. Casting was by-passing the whole initial audition process and sending me straight in to the director/producer. Wholly smokes, I must be doing something right! I didn’t even care that they were calling me the night before at 6pm and only had a few hours that evening to prepare the scene. I didn’t care that I had plans the next morning and, therefore, would have to rearrange my entire day’s schedule. All that mattered was that I had an audition…from my agent…finally!

I confirmed my availability for the audition, I printed out my sides (for my non-actor-speak fluent friends, this means the scene I would need to prepare for the audition), printed out a fresh copy of my resume, and went to work on the scene.

Right away, the character description seemed right up my alley, “Laura (lead) Wonderful actress, fit healthy, naturally beautiful and appealing. Very intelligent. Very expressive!” Sounds like me. The scene was okay, not great but not terrible either. It read as a light romantic comedy with a twist which would keep the two characters from being together in the end. So far, so good. The scene would take place in the park and the two characters were out for a jog and I was relieved to read this in the notes about my character, “In shape, but not in running shape.” This sounds more like me every minute, it’s like the part was written for me!

I went to bed early that night and even skipped a friend’s birthday party I was supposed to go to in order to ensure that I would be in tip-top shape the next day. So I wake up the next morning, bright and early, with plenty of time to eat breakfast, get dressed (in my best running gear), do my hair and make-up, and make it to my audition at least 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I was feeling great and super excited about what was sure to be a fun audition. But it all went downhill from there!

First of all, the navigation on my phone sent me to the wrong address (I hate it when this happens!) and instead of being comfortably early I was hurriedly on time. After spending several minutes looking for free parking, because I hate paying for parking, I settled for a meter spot right in front of the building figuring that I could put a few coins in to get me through the next 20 minutes and be fine. I walk into a room of about 10 other actors, waiting patiently. No sign in sheet, no information out regarding the audition, no one there to monitor the room, nothing. Just me and the other actors. They informed me that they were just keeping track of the order in which everyone arrived, so I was after the brunette girl in the pink t-shirt. Not the best situation, but everyone seemed nice enough.

It quickly became clear that I was going to be there for a while. The audition team was taking their time with each person and after I waited around for 15 minutes I overheard one of the other actresses saying she had already been waiting there for 45 minutes! It was time to move my car and this time I took the time to find FREE parking because I was going to be there for at least half an hour.

Well, an HOUR later, I finally get called into the room but I’m not discouraged because I’m excited about the scene and I feel like I can really nail this part. So I step into the room with the male actor who will be reading with me and the director gets ready to set up the scene for us. The director turns to the other actor and says, “Okay, so you’re out for a run and you see this girl who is attractive and she seems interested so you want to keep her interested and see where this can go.” Pretty straight forward, that’s exactly how I read the scene. Then he turns to me and he says, “And you are here because you want to kill him.”

Ha! I let out a bit of a laugh, thinking her was being funny, until I realized…he wasn’t. He was totally serious. That was the ACTUAL plot of this film! Once I realized he wasn’t joking, I tried to save face and take in the rest of what he was telling me, but it just kept getting worse. He went on to explain the story of a girl who was upset about something that had gone on through Facebook and that now she was out to kill everyone who “Liked” this one particular page she was mad about. That this whole encounter in the park was part of her evil plan to set this guy up and then kill him. Oh my god! Is it too late to run out of the room?!

The next fifteen minutes in that room were some of the longest minutes of my life! I no longer had any desire to be in the room, nor was this a part I even felt I could still pull off. But it was too late and there I was, reading this ridiculous scene for this ridiculous film and wanting nothing more than to just be done with this audition. I couldn’t quite understand why the director asked us to read the scene again, he clearly did not appreciate the fact that I laughed, but maybe he was liked the actor I was reading with. All I know is that when we were done and I was finally able to leave the room, all I kept thinking was, “Please don’t call me, please don’t call me! I don’t want this part!”

Needless to say, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough and I was happy to go about the rest of my plans for the day. You never know what to expect when it comes to auditioning but this might be my worst experience yet! But seriously, if your horror film reads like a romantic comedy, maybe you need to take another look at the script. Or at least give us a heads up to theof us rest  about major plot points!