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8:47 AM - Weds 10.14.20
In short, I'm not expecting a great deal from myself today. (But who knows? Maybe I'll exceed my own expectations. But that seems unlikely.) Anyway... Yesterday's relatively "old school" commercial audition was a lot of fun. I felt bad for the actors coming in for the "Mom" role in the spot who were then told they were actually supposed to self-tape their auditions (The instructions in their email were a real mess, apparently, both providing self-tape instructions and, at the same time, telling the actors - "With three exclamation points", as one actor noted - that the audition was at the casting studio). Before the snafu became apparent, I'd spent five or ten minutes chatting with the first woman who had come in, the two of us bonding over how happy we were to be there, doing "a real audition". So I felt pretty bad for her when the shit hit the fan (Though she actually seemed more upbeat about it than some of the others, with an "Oh well, at least it got me out of the house...!" attitude). Happily, I was not sent home to self-tape my audition - I don't think I would have been as "upbeat" about it as my new friend had been. I was the first one in the room to audition, which is not, I'd say, a good thing - While you might think a casting office would know how they are going to "stage" an audition before they start bringing actors in, they often don't. This means the first actor in can function as the "guinea pig" for how the rest of the audition is going to be run...which is not the role you want to be playing in the proceedings (Particularly if they decide to change-it-up after you've gotten in your car and drove away, which I have seen happen). That said, it seemed to go well - I did two takes of the bit I was supposed to do, and they seemed amused (And it was a "they", where typically at an initial audition it's just the camera operator. Which makes me wonder if the second guy wasn't the actual Director of the spot. Would be cool if he was, and this "initial audition" was, in fact, the audition. But anyway...). After the audition I had my Doctor's appt - I've had chronic heel pain for a while now, but when I got up yesterday morning it was so bad I could barely walk (Which is a little...worrisome when you have an audition at mid-morning), so I thought I should "get it checked out". Had a little time to kill between the Doctor's appointment and the audition, but no big deal (The Doctor's office, at Bob Hope Medical, is maybe four blocks down from the casting place at South LaBrea), and the visit itself was fairly pleasant. While I guess a diagnosis of plantar fasciitis is better than, I don't know, "foot cancer", I always feel a twinge of regret when I finally get myself to a doctor about an ongoing problem, and there's really nothing for them to do (At this writing, I'm a little unclear about what I'm supposed to do about it - While I bought some over-the-counter orthotics yesterday afternoon, and am considering a new pair of shoes altogether, the article I read online this morning seemed to say that anything that has to do with "stretching the ligament" is a bad idea. But I have the sense that my being barefoot as little as possible is a good idea, as is buying decent shoes on a regular basis). So I had another day that was, like, "half a good day". On the one hand, the audition felt really good. It was nice to be out and about doing an "actor thing" and I enjoyed the process (A process I haven't experienced since January). And while plantar fasciitis feels quite a bit less good, I was actually happy I was trying to "take care of myself" (Which is a thing I wrestle with). But within a couple hours, the rosy glow of the audition had faded (Which is a thing that happens) and I spent the rest of the day checking my phone over and over - Not so much to see if I'd gotten a callback or booked the job (That would have been "premature"), but looking for another audition. (There's really no better way to "put an audition behind you" - and you need to do that for your sanity's sake - than to have another audition right behind it to focus on. But alas, there were no other auditions.) And even if I was pleased with myself for getting "checked out", it didn't exactly make the. pain go away - I wasn't in agony when I walked to Rite Aid later in the afternoon, but it wasn't that much fun either (Right now I feel a tad ridiculous, writing this in my undies while wearing my shoes-and-socks. But the orthotics do seem to be making a difference - at least between them and bare feet - though I guess the "acid test" will be walking a little further than from my computer to the fridge or the bathroom). And the small "downside" to having actual things to do yesterday morning was that I couldn't nap (Which my body doesn't really let me do anyway to any real extent...but it does seem to help sometimes just to lie down and doze fitfully). But anyway... Well, I still haven't found out when I'm shooting my next Shameless, but I have found out when the show will start airing this final season - December 6th. (I didn't find out any sooner than anyone else - It was just in the news.) I'm pleased to know - I don't think it makes any difference to me in terms of acting, but I like that, in all likelihood, the documentary will be starting to make the rounds while "Kermit" and Shameless are still a thing. (I have no experience with "putting a film out there", the "film-festival circuit" - and if there will even be one under our current circumstances - mounting a publicity campaign, or anything else documentary-related. But I have to believe, if only by a fraction of a percent, that if we have me currently being on TV as a "hook", we're better off.) I am very eager to have the film be completed and to see what happens next. Mostly, I just want people to start being able to see the thing - I have never had an experience before where I've waited years for a project to actually see the light of days (And I've never been the focal point of a project) and it's driving me a little crazy. Though at the same time, like how the Shameless debut makes it harder not to "fast forward" to the end of Shameless, once the documentary starts on its path, that will undoubtedly trigger a lot of anxiety about what the documentary is-or-isn't going to "do" (For Jane, for me, and for us), and cause me to struggle, again, not to "fast forward" to the time when the documentary will have done whatever it's going to do and will be in our rear-view mirror. But right now, it's all "possibility". And on that note, I got even less sleep last night than the night before, so I'm gonna try to do some of that "dozing fitfully" I mentioned earlier. Till next time...
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