Auditions

Auditions are a strange animal.

I don't think many people like them, but they are a necessity. They weed out the bad [ideally] and keep the good, the great, the best. They also scare the bejeezus out of most, too.

So you walk in, you sign in. You drop off your info, or have an on-site snap-shot taken. You get your lines, or you already have them. You give the entire room a once-over, a double-take....heck, you rubberneck that whole damn room until you've picked a small flaw out of just about everyone there. You beef yourself up, feel confident running the lines, you can say them backwards, forwards, fast and slow, with a good Southern drawl, and hopefully how the client wants to hear them.

You take deep breaths and keep your heart rate down, every time the dude comes out of the room to call new names. You play with your hands, your hair, your keys, your phone. You temporarily forget the lines, so you reread them, and find yourself dropping words, forgetting the flow, forgetting who you are auditioning for. Then, when you are nervously shuffling through papers, or feeling the need to use the washroom, they call your name - it's usually pronounced wrong, and you smile and walk into the room like you are cool as a cuke.

From this point onward, it can either go terribly well, or terrible. You can look the client, the camera, and your possible on-screen boyfriend in the eye with confidence, nail ALL of your lines and visual cues, and leave feeling like a kid on valium. Or worst case, you can flub most of your lines, accidentally wink at one of the head honchos, get a really pasty/dry mouth from nervousness and lisp your way through a few lines, remember that you forgot to apply deodorant when you got up that morning and fret about pit stains for those golden 5 minutes, make a really funny Freudian slip on your lines that makes the entire casting room laugh [but not call you back], or you could fart. On camera. Nope, this hasn't happened to me, but if all goes well, and I live 'til some ripe old age, I could very well be living this kind of embarassment. And with my luck, it will be played all over the internet, and on classy shows that Spike TV airs.

So, despite all that stress and drawn-out anxiety, I love going through this. The sleepless nights, replaying things over and over in your head, looking like a crazy person in public, risking utter defeat if you aren't chosen - it's all worth it.:)