3:21 pm - Thurs 7.23.2009
I'm A \"Mad Man\"

Well, to those of you who follow me on Facebook, this is old news, but if you don't, I booked Mad Men!

After my producer session for Eastwick - more on that in a bit - I turned my cell back on, and there was a message from my agent, telling me they wanted me for Mad Men, and to call her back to let her know if I was good with the "deal".

(Basically, they were going to give me a $50 "bump" above my "quote" - your "quote" is the most money you've made in the past on a similar job - which was fine by me, since they could have just offered scale, take it or leave it, and what was I gonna do, say no? Anyway...)

The shoot is a week from Monday, and there's a table read tonight at 8:30 (A short time ago, I had a burst of anxiety, thinking maybe I screwed up and the table read was 8:30 this morning. But I'm 99.9 certain when the production person called yesterday, she said 8:30 "tomorrow night". But anyway...)

And to answer the question you haven't asked yet - because some people on FB have asked me - I have no idea when the episode in question will air (But you can be assured that, unless my scene gets cut, I will be singing the air date from the mountaintops as soon as I find out).

To say I'm a very happy camper about this news would be a big understatement - I've gone a long time with nothing in the "win" column, and this feels like a very big "win" to me.

Now, with any luck, I'll book Eastwick, and I can officially say I'm on a roll.

And regarding the Eastwick audition/producer session, I'm hard-pressed to see how it could have gone any better...

In the morning, I went to the casting office for a "pre-read".

I did my thing, the casting director asked me to pick up the pace, I did it again, and she said she was sending me to the producers in the afternoon (At Warner Brothers, where I've been a number of times before, and where I'm going again on Monday for The Mentalist).

(The pre-read was at 11:00; the producer session was at 4:00.)

Barry Livingston ("Chip" from My Three Sons) was also auditioning for the role, and went in before me.

(I surreptitiously "pressed my ear to the wall" to hear him, and thought he was okay...but I actually liked my take on it better.)

When my time came, I did the lines, remembering to keep it moving (But at the same time, to not lose what was clearly working in my delivery), and when I was done, the director said "That was excellent!".

Hard to see how it gets better than that.

I joked about "18 years of Sunday School finally paying off", which got a laugh.

Then I wished him and the casting person and the assistant a nice day, and that was that.

(The "Sunday School" joke didn't really make sense, I realized afterward, and I worried briefly about having seemed too cocky. But I'm pretty sure they took it in "the spirit with which it was intended", cause the whole "vibe" in the room was pretty upbeat.)

I was kind of hoping I'd get a call today, but it's super-early to rule anything out; I don't know if the show is even in production yet, so I don't have any sense of a "time frame" here.

But I'd like to book it. It's a cool little part, and the possibility of "recurring" is tantalizing indeed.

(As I was writing, I just an email from the Mad Men production coordinator, containing my scene pages, and a note to call with any questions/concerns. Pretty cool...!)

(Probably can't divulge much here - and don't really want to - but I'm realizing the scene in question is more important than I first realized, which is exciting, cause it means it's that much less likely to get cut.)

Well, I'm tempted to exult in my good fortune some more, but I'll save it for next time - Right now, I'm going to just "kick back", relax, and maybe take a nap before tonite's excitement...

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