Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Blowing an audition

This poignant post by Wil Wheaton reminded me of every time I've failed at an audition. In general I'm pretty good about not fretting when I don't get a role. As long as I've done my best I know the rest is out of my hands. But I have badly blown an audition and a couple of times I've been a little distracted and not done as well as I wanted to.

Years ago I went to an audition at Ford's theater. It was for the Christmas Carol I think. I knew someone who got in for an audition and I called and was told they were only seeing people who had agents or were union or something that I wasn't or didn't have at the time. I told them I knew they were seeing those people because a friend was auditioning and had the same credentials I did. So they said I had a lot of balls and gave me an audition time.

And when I got to the building I started thinking about how Lincoln had been killed in the theater and I felt this weight of the history and I couldn't stop thinking about how horrible it must have been for his wife and all of the theatergoers and the other actors and that's all I could think about. Then when I went in to do my monologue and I blanked. It's the only time I've ever blanked.

They let me start over and the same thing happened, at the same spot in the monologue. So I made up a crazy story about how my kid had vanished from day care and had been found a block away and I was still shaken from worry and I burst into tears and I turned down the chance to try again and I left and they never knew that I did some real acting in my panic over screwing up.

The other problem I've had is when I'm trying out for something and the writing is bad. I auditioned for a film a few years ago that went on to be very, very big but the part I was reading was just awful, all as you know Bob and I couldn't give it my all because I kept mentally rewriting the lines. As I told someone at a different audition, if I were a worse writer I'd be a better actress.

I'm not sure if there's a moral to this story. If you think of one do let me know.

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