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12:19 am - Thu 5/15/03
Strong Medicine

I Think I Need Some "Strong Medicine"

The above picture is from 1984. It was the lobby shot for when I was in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Okemos Barn Theater (I played "Annas", one of the evil priests. One of my better theater experiences).

I miss that hair...

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Here's a little offline excerpt:

FRI 5/09/03 2:55 pm

(Listening to the commentary track for Chasing Amy, one of three dvds I recently bought at the bookstore with my past two month's worth of book credits. For the record, the other two were Reservoir Dogs and The Graduate.)

The audition for Disney today felt completely pointless, and as a result, left me feeling moderately depressed afterwards.

I won't bore you to death by describing the commercial itself, since there wasn't much of interest to describe (It was pretty stupid). But basically, I was there to audition for the unironic, unfunny, nonspeaking "Grandpa". And I was the youngest "Grandpa" in the room by at least twenty years (And the "Grandma" they paired me with, while an attractive woman, was at least ten or fifteen years older than me).

Not exactly sure why I'm still feeling a residual unhappiness. It's not a big deal, really. Certainly not the first time I left an audition out here thinking "Well, I won't be booking this one...".

But I'm feeling depressed, nevertheless. And frustrated; How did my going out on this casting do anything but waste everyone's time? I'll be absolutely stunned if I get this. Flabbergasted.

But, I got a call earlier this afternoon for a casting Monday at Westside, for an anti-drug PSA.

I'd be playing "Dad", and that makes a lot more sense to me. The idea of doing an anti-drug spot also amuses me a great deal; I don't have a history of drug abuse or anything like that, but still, I'm just not the first person I'd think of for an anti-drug spot! I'm no Robert Downey Jr., but on a number of occasions in the past, I've "Just Said Yes" to drugs).

Anyway, more later. Gotta go to work right now (Speaking of things to be depressed about...)

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Well, the drug PSA ended up being kind of disappointing. There wasn't even any copy; they just called me in, asked a couple questions on camera, and that was that. It was hard to imagine an actual job coming out of it.

But making up for the rather disappointing commercial auditions so far this month was the experience I had today...

I got a page from JS yesterday afternoon, for a Lifetime Network tv show called Strong Medicine (Only the second time, I think, that JS has sent me out on a non-commercial thing).

When I got home from work, I downloaded the sides off Showfax.

It was a fun little scene. I was reading for "Finkelstein", a CSI-like guy, at a murder scene. Just two lines, but fun. And I was just thrilled to be auditioning for a tv show.

The audition was today at 11:15, in Sherman Oaks.

I thought it had went well, but nevertheless, I was very surprised when I got a page from JS within an hour after I got back home, saying I had a callback at 3:00 (It's the first time I've had a callback for something the same day as the initial audition).

The callback was on the actual Strong Medicine set in Culver City, and it was pretty cool; I guess it was an actual hospital at one time, which actually threw me for a moment, till the lightbulb came on (I was only given an address intially, so I didn't know if I was going to a studio, an office building, or what).

Two of the guys from the morning were there, and another guy came in a short time later.

I was a bit nonplussed when I learned the other two guys from the morning had been told about callbacks immediately after their audition, and given maps to the the set besides. But I guess as long as I was there, it was all good.

I was the first one to read, and I thought it went pretty well.

The casting director had me do it again, instructing me this time that I really didn't like the cop who was asking me questions.

I thought I worked with his directions pretty well. So we'll see. As you can imagine, I'd be pretty geeked if I got this one.

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I don't want to do a big rap on how it's my birthday, because I'm not really feeling it--at least not just yet--but I did want to mention one thing...

I got a package from Mark and Jane for my birthday, and along with a bunch of insanely good cookies Jane made (Some kind of "Ultra Orgasmic Chocolate Chip Extravaganza"), there was a very big check, a "scholarship" for acting classes.

I'm not going to say how much it was, because I think that would be sort of tacky, but let's just say that I have never, in my life, been given such a substantial gift.

When I told Lauren, she said "They're your fairy godparents...!"

I think that's a pretty apt description.

And I'm pulling a serious fade here, so I think I'm going to call it a night.

 

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