12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

Auditions from the Other Side of the Table

I’ve been auditioning for a long time. In college I auditioned for Carlyn Davis Casting and was so nervous that I kept transposing the paragraphs from the monologue I thought I had learned cold the day before. After three minutes of narrative incoherence, the casting agent said, “I have no idea what you just said,” which was totally fine, because neither did I. But for some reason, he allowed me into his database. I guess he knew what he was talking about since I got cast in a regional anti-drug infomercial a few months later. I had no lines – I just got cuffed and pushed into the back of a police cruiser. I made more money that day in 2002 than I have in my nine years of acting since. I even made residuals. God bless the American war on drugs.

Playing a casting agent for a day was an illuminating experience. So many people tried to wow us (probably because we welcomed them to “wow” us in the audition notice), but what I really wanted to see was them being themselves. As big a fan as I am of Bruce Campbell, I did not want to see a rendition of his monologue from Army of Darkness. Even when he did it, it was kind of ridiculous. That said, an actor can be lousy in a monologue and great in a scene and vice versa. But since most of the scripts are as of yet unwritten the monologue system was really the only way to do it.

At least now we know what we’re working with. It’s like SNL in a way: you gather a team and write for them and see how that turns out. If we get a crazy person and fire them in the middle of the shoot, at least that’ll make for an interesting blog entry or police report.

On we go!

Posted by Mike