Casting (About)

Right. So I'm working as an assistant to a casting director this summer. It's a great way to learn the minutae of one aspect of the world of film and the--what--maximi? (Sarah?) of the central idea that anyone who works in film is crazy, including me.

I have three stories, and we'll go in reverse chronological order, building up to the final and most exciting story. Think of each paragraph as an Act and each blank space as a Turning Point, kay?

In auditions yesterday afternoon for a indy feature, I got to be adminstrative with several vagely familiar faces and some quite familiar faces, including two people who are sorry the X-Files are over, namely Agent Alex Krychek and one of the Lone Gunmen (the one with the beard). I have a former roommate who probably scream aloud if I told her that I got to exchange words with Krychek as she was rather fanatically in love with him back in 1999 (see first paragraph). I also got to chat briefly with Dean Paul Gibson, a very good actor and director whose two plays, Hamlet and Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead are opening at Bard on the Beach this week.

In auditions yesterday afternoon for an indy feature, one of roles was for this, like Indian Chief-type character. It was only when my office (ie: the waiting room) had several First Nations guys in it that I had time to read the sides, which included mentions of peace pipes and the Great Spirit. All I can say is, if it were me going into that audition, I'd be wearing freaking grease paint stripes on my face and I'd stick my hand up and say "how" and offer to sell my own head for a jar of beads. It's so good to know we've come such a long way since John Wayne. I was so embarrassed I actually blushed what I'm sure was bright red and had to sit behind my desk and try to stay cool.

In auditions last week for a TV pilot, we were looking for two actors to play a skanky couple who get caught making out in front of the door to the hot tub. They react to the protagonist who catches them by saying a couple lines and then running off. So my boss reads the protagonist lines but guess who gets to stand in as the other half of the skanky couple! Yes! So completely uncomfortable-making! My boss is like, "don't be kissing, you can just hold hands", but it's still mortifying. Especially for this one audition, in which this woman comes in to read, so I have to be the guy, and the boss is like, "hands" but no, she slings both her arms around my neck and makes kissy faces. Nnnnnnnnnnnnno! But it was only the next day when I saw her picture in the paper that I realised that, gosh, I had had a somewhat notorious view. Cause she was none other than the mysterious (or not so ~, especially after the National Inquirer interview) stripper from Brandy's who Ben Affleck got all Ben Afflecky (ie: nasty) with, thereby irking JLo, thereby crashing that relationship into a wall, thereby causing Ben Affleck to Ben Affleck all over Jennifer Garner and JLo to JLo up Marc Anthony thereby causing considerable fodder for celebrity magazines in North American markets, thereby giving me lots to read in the grocery store line-up. History is what I am talking about my friends. History and celebrity bullshit. It's a wonderful thing. Just not hanging about my neck.