It wasn't just me

Oh man, I had two commercial auditions today. They were spread out nicely so that I could go from work, do one, go back to work for a bit, then go to the other, then go back to work to finish off my work day. Little did I realize that the first would take much (much!) longer than anyone had anticipated. It was for a cereal company, and casting was trying to match the little kids/babies as close to the actor moms as possible. With quite a number of asian moms, and what seemed to be a shortage of asian children, I waited about 45 minutes to finally get a girl who was "close" to me in looks. She wasn't asian, but we did look like we fit. Once we were paired, we still had about a 1/2 hour wait until we were up. "Great!" I thought... this will give us some time to get to know each other. But this girl was just not up to being social. By the end of our half hour wait I did manage to get some good high-fives out of her, and a couple of good smiles and giggles, but that was about it.

We went into the audition room and did our slates. Then the casting director asked the little girl what cereal she wanted to eat and got a blank stare back as a response. She asked her again and got... nothing. So I knelt down and tried to bring some fun to it by saying she got to pick whichever one she wanted! Still nothing. Then the casting director asked her point blank, "Do you want to do this? Do you want to be here?" The answer was a pretty clear, "No." So the casting director simply said, "OK, that's fine. You're done!" and whisked her out of the room. Now I have to say, I felt somewhat dejected, yet relieved at the same time. It wasn't just me that was getting no response from the little girl. Whew!

As fast as the girl was whisked out, a replacement little boy was whisked in. A cute, dirty-blond little boy, probably about 4 years old. The change in the room was remarkable. We had energy, we did our scene, then the casting director noted how great we were together. OK, not the blond-boy-with-the-asian-mom thing, but she commented on how nicely we worked together and how nice the scene was. Ahh, redemption. Plus, this casting director is known for her tendency to be realllly nit-picky with her actors.

So I was finally finished my first audition. I could have easily stayed in the area, as my second audition was quickly approaching and was just down the street. However, my change of clothes was back at the office, since I had planned on going back to get some work done, then changing there. So I rushed back to the office, ate a quarter of my sandwich that my husband had lovingly prepared for me, changed, then headed back out.

My second audition was at 2nd Avenue Studios, and for anyone who auditions there regularly, you know how crazy it is to find parking. I circled around some, then finally found a parking spot, changed my shoes, and headed in. I wasn't late (I got in just in time for my call time), but I normally like to arrive about 10 mins early to get settled, see what's going on, etc. Anyway, the mood was totally different from my earlier audition - only a few of us, very calm, serene...

Anyway, I did my fun little scene and was out of there in no time. Headed back to work, ate the rest of my sandwich, and completed my last hour and a half for the day. What a fun way to start the long weekend! And I'm so glad it wasn't just me who got no reaction from that little girl.