Yes. I am an actor. I say this with full confidence and commitment to the twenty odd years I have been an actor. I say this so you will be fully aware when I start talking about actors I too am somewhat commenting on myself-but also speaking to, or rather commenting on things that make me crazy about actors. Specifically, being in a room full of actors. Waiting to meet the director. Or casting director….or anyone else who is in a position to give an actor a job.
Someone once said to me, in a rather snippy better than you sort of way: “What do you know? You are only an actor?”…..and then she turned on her mid-heeled black pump and dismissed me.
I know a lot. I do. And through the course of my adventures in acting, I have learned many things about several things I might not have ever attempted to learn-had I not had to research the topic so I was better prepared to act. I have an unofficial degree in human nature……keen with observation and listening skills-I have fine tuned my instincts. Not to say, it does not fail me at times-but all the same. I can handle my own. And I have. And I do. The ironic thing about me being an actor? I fail miserably when I have to act like I am acting. I do not have the capacity to bullshit and play the game- as some of my fellow actors have perfected. I am pathectically genuine-which is not what others want to see sometimes-and true to my self- I suffer well when I am not supposed to……stick to a script….make it real. Tell the story. OK? OK. I’d rather think of myself as…well…and artist. That said, I totally sound like, well, an actor.
I met with a director yesterday. Big name, big film. Scheduled appointment. I was expected. I had an appointment. I prepared…with my snippets of lines-pertaining to the bigger story I was not privy to-but all the same. I was ready. I knew my lines-I knew my intention-but because of said snippets, I was not real clear on my motivation-except I was reading for the part of “loyal secretary”- who happens to be in this film- loyal secretary to “big name film star” Great. I don’t even look like I could have been someone’s loyal anything for 25 years. But I was chosen- and so off I went. I was “meeting with the director”….just like 25 other actors. Who were just as expected. Who had their own time slots. Who were ready to go and get a job………any job.
I hate being in a waiting room full of actors. Hate it. I will avoid it at all costs. You can smell the desperation-actors talking to walls, saying their own lines out loud-chattering with other actors “Where do I know you from?” “Do I know you?”. Making excuses……putting on airs. Talking way too loud about the job they just booked-the job everyone else wanted-or the job they did not book- though when mentioning that job there is- almost always- an excuse-a justification- that absolves the actor: “welllllll, “they” wanted someone younger, older, prettier……” OR- “welllllllllll, I was not in: good voice, a good place, I wore the wrong shirt, pants……” It is all these things- outloud. Playing manipulation games with other actors in the room and waiting. Waiting to meet the director. Sizing up the room-wondering who else is reading for your part and wondering why “they”, in there behind the closed door, will not just give you the job so everyone else can go home and stop repeating those lines that are already yours to the wall. That was me yesterday. Surrounded by actors in a room. Waiting to meet the director. Usually, I leave if time is running behind and I walk around the block. That way, I don’t have to suffer through my own little voices in my head responding to what I am hearing” audible droppings of everyone else’s little voices. Little voices in my head are not well equipped to overcome out loud voices that activate other voices. I confess, wholeheartedly, I don’t do well in these situations. My insecurities get the best of me and I can not, not listen- to the chattering of actors in a room-or stop my psychoanalysis of everyone else in the room. And then I turn it on myself- and then know in a second I have: worn the wrong shoes, the wrong bra, the wrong everything..and I should have spent more on a good concealer…or saved up for Botox….and I wait. Look over the others who are Botox’d and looking less crinkly than I. Botox nation. On full display. OR, younger versions of us all or different ethnicities of us all-(Obviously, “they” don’t know what they are looking for) we are all saying to ourselves. The men too. Here we are foot tapping,nervous taps, reading over highlighted lines-all waiting to go in and be brilliant.
As time ticked on yesterday I sat there-not able to leave the room. It was freezing outside-so a walk around the block was out of the question. Quick,before I suffer greatly and the hour drive’s worth of self confidence building music does not go to waste. Let me just smile and find a bathroom. A moment of privacy. Yes. I will compose myself in a stall of privacy-and then return to be brilliant. Grab purse and go. Privacy. Check the face. Read the lines. In peace and white tiled quiet.
Just as I made my way back to the room- I hear my name.
“Gloria?” “Where is Gloria?”
OH GREAT.
The casting director is standing there- calling my name. I am messing up her schedule. She will never call me in again. Ever. I am thinking as I am quickening the pace-please don’t let my dress be riding up in the back. Static cling and all that. That happened to me once in New York. Half my ass-although covered in black opaque control top- and yes, mother I was wearing underwear-half my ass was showing half way down the hall as I made my way to the door way of a casting director’s office. There I was at Guiding Light, with the lower half of my dress clinging to the upper half of my ass.
“Here!” I say as I am running through the door. All other actor eyes on me.
There were supposed to be four people in front of me? Check teeth- lines running through my mind-be cool.
“Gloria??”
“Here I am” I say in a singsongy-just let me be composed sort of way as I make my way through the door.
Casting director hurries me along.
I walk in, coat off, headshot out- reading glasses off- big name director at the table- plates of cheese and fruit, bottles of water on the table- camera. Camera guy. All of them unimpressed. Or at least I think so.
“sorry”, I say to big name director, and according to Google, producing partner of big name actor rumored to star in big film.
“I was in the bathroom”. “I. was…..in the bathroom.” Is no one impressed? In a nanosecond I know I should have worn my high heels, and the better bra.
I read through the scene- as asked- with a slight Boston accent. I break my own rule: never do an accent in an interview unless I am asked and unless I know it like the back of my hand.
Big name director says to do it again. Without the accent.
“shit!”, I am thinking. “Who do I think I am doing a Boston accent in front of a guy who is a southie?
I do it again. I am nervous. I am knowing this is not going as I had hoped. It was too fast. have been sized up in a second-well, really, more like three minutes. Big name director is writing something by my name -there on the list. He looks up at me and says-
“Great. That was great.”
Which of course, never means that it was. What is means is that I am not what he was looking for. At all.
I know I have been dismissed. I say my thanks. I leave.
Out into the waiting room. Another actor is already half way into the room before I am out. His turn to take his stab at brilliance.
It is 5:18pm. I will be stuck in traffic for the next hour. 93South will be car to car. Plenty of time for me to think of all the things I should have done. I know I will not be working on this film. But I am sure during the drive home my mind will go to other things.
New day. Grease auditions at the high school. I have 50 kids showing up at 2pm to sing and dance for me in the hopes of securing a lead role in the senior show. The only thing worse than waiting in a room full of adult actors? Being a high school student waiting to go in and sing and dance for the director.