11:15 pm - Weds 12/5/12
The short answer

I'd better say this now, and have it committed to writing; The past couple weeks have been a very good time for me as an actor.

The past month-plus, really - I started November with a shoot (For American Horror Story), ended it with another shoot (For Southland), and had five auditions and a callback (And for auditions this year, that's about as good as it's gotten).

And in just the past two weeks or so, four commercial auditions have led to two callbacks.

I may want more to be happening, I may feel I need more to be happening financially, but it would be insane to say that nothing's happening, or that I haven't done a good job of making things happen, when given the opportunity.

Important to say that tonight, because I had a commercial callback for Mio today, and if it doesn't go my way, I'm going to be very disappointed.

And in that disappointment, it will be very easy to "awful-ize" about my current state-of-affairs, and minimize the successes I've had lately.

So it begins - In spite of myself, whatever I do today (Mostly I'm doing WW today - I'm working two meetings this morning and my regular one this evening), it's going to be all about waiting for "the call that may never come", telling me I've booked Mio.

Again, I'd better commit this to writing, because it'll be easy to forget if I don't - This was a really fun audition, and I did the best I could with it.

I went in on Saturday for the role of "audience member" - the spot is styled like a late-night infomercial - but then they had me come back on Monday for the role of "Quirky Infomercial Host" (Along with me, I saw a guy who looked like "Uncle Fester" from The Addams Family, two older Asian men, and a blonde guy half my age with no chin. Not quite a collection of circus freaks, but definitely not who you think of when you think "Infomercial Host").

The spot's being directed by the guy who directed the "Bahamavention" spot I did years back (Marty somebody...?) - which I find vaguely "meaningful" (In a "Look how long I've been 'in the business' now" way) - and he's a funny guy, way funnier than me.

Got the call I wanted to get this morning - I'm "on avail" foe the Mio spot!

Okay, that's not exactly "the call I wanted to get" - for one thing, it was actually an email.

And I didn't really want a call telling me I'm a "finalist"; three auditions is enough foreplay, in my opinion, so I'm ready to be told I booked the gig already.

But that said, it's a positive thing, because it means I'm "in the game", competitive, and that's always the way I want to think of myself.

I like that my opinion of how things went in the room was validated (Cause I felt very good about what happened in the room; it was only after I left and was riding my bike home that my insecurities "came out to play", like worrying I hadn't spent as much time in the room as some others, so perhaps was "not being seriously considered").

So what went right here? (And even if I don't ultimately book this gig, things clearly did "go right" - and again, it's important I "commit that to print" now).

It didn't hurt that the director remembered me from the "Bahamavention" spot, and seemed to have good memories of the experience.

And I gave a really strong reading of the copy - I knew what I wanted to do, and felt very confident in my ability to do it.

Then when the director asked if I could do an Australian/English accent, something along those lines, I gave them what I had - which I'd described in the moment as "something that kinda sounds like something" (I'd say it's probably a mishmash of "Australian" and "Cockney") - and was fully committed to my bullshit "accent".

After that, the Director had me do something I can't quite "do justice to" in print...but basically, he had me pretend to take a drink of Mio-infused water, then say "EEE-Yeeeeeeeeesssss!", a la the late character actor Frank Nelson (ed. I had to look up the actor's name just now - Google is amazing - though I definitely remembered the actor's face and the bit from my youth; the Director was thinking of a Frank Nelson-inspired Hanna-Barbara cartoon character who did the schtick, though he couldn't remember the character's name).

The Director had me do it a number of times over, doing it himself to give me an idea of what he was talking about (And I never quite "got it" to his satisfaction...which, to be honest, was my memory of the "Bahamavention" shoot, spending the day feeling like I wasn't quite managing to get to where he wanted me to go; as I said before, the Director is a funny guy, and possibly better at this kind of funny business than I am).

So I showed them I had some chops, that I was "direct-able", and that I knew how to have fun with the material.

Hopefully, that's gonna get me "all the way home", and I'll book this job.

I really want it.

I did my job. I did a really good job.

Now it's time for the decision-makers to do their job.

Hopefully, they'll make the right decision...but if not?

There will be other jobs.

It's important to get this stuff down in writing, cause otherwise, it's very easy to forget.

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