4 posts tagged “callbacks”
The primary filming for Hockey Buddy went well, although apparently I failed to take into account the simple fact that feet tend to grow past the time when one was 13 and ice skating every day. Hence, the four hours spent in my old ice skates....well, lets just say it was some time before my feet forgave me.
It happened again today. I decided, for some suicidal reason, to book myself for tomorrow on CSI Miami, only to get a call from my agent at 6:45pm telling me I had an audition tomorrow! And not only any audition, but a SAG AT&T Commercial directed by none other than David LaChapelle.
There's no way I can miss this audition in good conscience. And no way I can do both. So I call to cancel the background work for tomorrow, which I HATE doing. Not only because it really does reflect badly on me, but also because I know how much of a pain in the ass it is for the casting director to have to go back and find a replacement for me on the show. Especially this late at night.
That's it. No more booking myself on shows until after 9pm. I can always put myself on the rush call list for the next day (essentially, putting myself out there as a possible replacement for flakes like myself on other shows). Yes, this means getting calls at ALL hours of the morning, assuming I actually do book something. Yes, this means I never have any idea what time I should be going to sleep, as call times can range anywhere from 5am to....well, anytime during the day or night. Yes, it means there is always a distinct possibility they won't find a booking for me and I won't be able to work at all.
But it's better than being this irresponsible and unreliable.
David LaChapelle! Neat!
I'm currently in callbacks for a role in yet another horror movie. However, the cool thing is that apparently some wires got crossed in the original casting process. I apparently was slated to go in as the main 'heroine, girl next door, yadda yadda yadda' role, however, my agent's message to me was for "Gaby, the pale goth girl full of guilt".
Rock ON. Another role completely against my normal "type". I love it!
And I will humbly say that my callback for the director kicked all kinds of hardcore ASS. The guilty tear ran down my guilty cheek as I remembered my family that I was guiltily partially responsible for killing.
Granted, the tears were due in part to the insane amount of gothic makeup I was wearing around my eyes, and the distinct lack of sleep I had gotten the night before, but that is what we call METHOD, baby.
I really am hoping to book this, as this would be perfect reel material, and the casting office itself is a big one. They cast from the CBS studios! There were people going in for CSI: NY right next door!
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The Riches
Oh I was EXCITED when I heard about this show coming out. Eddie Izzard! Minnie Driver! Did I mention the Eddie?!
I'm happy to say the pilot totally did NOT disappoint. The accent kept coming out at weird times from Eddie, but luckily his character was written a tad grandiose, compensating nicely. Great work from MD as well and the kids. The characters were fabulously written, the plot was interesting, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here!
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October Road
Where did this come from? One minute Six Degrees is cancelled, then it's replaced by Men in Trees, then I hear Six Degrees is coming BACK, then I start seeing promos with the cute redhead from That 70s Show all blown out and blonde! WTF?
Still, I was willing to give it a shot. I love character driven drama, and that seemed just what this was all about.
Nick Garrett (Bryan Greenberg from One Tree Hill, a show which I am moderately proud of saying I never set eyes on) went away from his small town home supposedly for six weeks to find himself in Europe, only to discover that oops! He doesn't particularly feel like going back home at all.
For like, ten years.
In that time he wrote a best selling novel featuring, none too kindly, his friends back home, including his girlfriend Hannah (Laura Prepon, who I am sad to say, I hate as a blond. I thought her skin tone looked awesome with red hair, and the lighter color just washes her out. It constantly bugs me. Because I am shallow.)
And of course, naturally, when he gets there, he finds that some people have stayed the same (his dad, played by the always fabulous Tom Berenger), and some have moved on (like Hannah, of course). The complication is that Hannah also has a ten year old son which she's told everyone is not Nick's, but who just happens to share Nick's hereditary peanut allergy. And oh yeah, she seems to be shacking up with the kind-of-creepy town jerkoff, Ray Cataldo.
Ok. Honestly? I wasn't too impressed by the first episode. The writing seemed a bit rushed and heavy handed. Did we really need to be informed in two different scenes, by two different characters, that EVERY male in Nick's family has a nut allergy? And then be "suprised" when Hannah's son is revealed to fear the evil death-causing nuts as well?
Are we really expected to believe, simultaneously, that Hannah was so very much in love with Nick, and yet everyone believed her when she said she had a fling with an "older Boston College guy" that resulted in her son's interestingly timed birth? Or that his old high school buddies would throw an impromptu air-band concert the first day Nick gets back after ten years? (Which, ok, admittedly made me smile. Because "The Boys Are Back in Town" will ALWAYS do that to me. No matter what. And boys are adorable lip synching to it.)
The Bill Bellamy character? Totally unnecessary. There was no hint of any real friendship between him and Nick, which, ok, I can accept. Bill Bellamy is the NYC party boy. But then why have the conversation at the end of the episode where Nick explains his deep emotional pull back to that sweet town of Knights Ridge?
Still, I was interested in some of the numerous plots the writers decided to throw at the wall for us to peel off. I liked the Aubrey character quite a bit, and whether its the One Tree Hill training Bryan Greenberg had or not, Nick definitely had a fun chemistry with her that I was a bit more interested in watching than him and the tortured Hannah.
I loved the (although disappointingly short) interaction Nick had with his father (have I MENTIONED the love I have for Tom Berenger?). I want to see more of the family dynamic develop there, especially with Nick trying to incorporate himself into the beer drinking, fried eggs and pork chop eatin, ice hockey watchin' alpha male deal they got goin on there.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the Jay Paulson character "Physical Phil". I'm hoping they don't treat his odd reclusiveness after 9/11 as a simple quirky joke. The actor seems capable of a lot more.
All in all, I'm hoping the writing improves as the series settles in and they learn to focus on a few plot threads at a time. Ikey had a one night stand with Owen's wife? Ok, god forbid anyone be truly HAPPY in Nick's absence....
Eddie's shoveling manure and possibly having an illicit affair with "Janice the Planet", the sizable barmaid of the local pub? Got it....
But one thing I must insist on. Get RID of that ridiculous 'this thing's in diapers' phrase. It sounds more and more idiotic every time it clunks out of someone's mouth.
Hooray! I have a callback for Hallmark tomorrow @ Francine Selkirk Casting! The tiny issue? It's at 2:15pm. I work at The Restaurant at 10:30am tomorrow morning, which, even though I'm opener, generally means I won't get out until 3pm. And I can't switch to a later shift because I am shooting the final day for the Cheerleader Massacre II movie with a call time of 8pm. I can't call out of the shift because I already did that on Thursday for the second-to-last day of shooting for the movie.
Constant schedule rearrangement. It happens. Constantly.
My best bet is to email my manager to see if there's a later time available for the callback, say I have an earlier audition or some such. The problem is that I know they're swamped lately, I think they're low on staffing options, and I hate to bother them with this. But there's no way to schedule for auditions, because they're constantly changing. The audition on Wednesday that I had for TJ Maxx was at 620pm!
Still, it's much better than simply passive-aggressively being late for the callback.
2:15pm
Crap. Well, apparently the callback time window is only 45 minutes, which means be there or be screwed. Pretty much my only recourse is to try and ask the dinner shift opener if they can come in wicked early. Or possibly get someone to cover the shift, but I would rather not lose out on the money. Amazingly enough, the insidiously painful British-pounds-to-American-dollars exchange rate of 2:1 kicked my ASS when I was on vacation, and I didn't even really buy much besides food. Oi.
Haven't heard anything back from the "A Beautiful Life" people, but film can take a few days to get back to you. It's not like TV where you should be hearing back within a couple days if not the same day!
The audition for Debra Zane went as well as I wanted it to. It was just a one-liner, which is often harder than having an entire page of sides for auditions because you can't let yourself overdo it. The audition was for one of a series of promos for HBO, but they're being directed by Sam Mendes! Dude. The director of AMERICAN BEAUTY is probably going to be seeing ME. MY TAPE. eek! How freakin cool is that?
In this case I'm sure it's going to come down to a 'look' thing, and to be honest, since it shoots in NYC and it's a SAG job, I doubt I'll get it. They'll probably want to go with someone already SAG, but the fact I got in the office to begin with is big! So I have to send them a postcard now, make sure I stay on Debra's radar! I would love to get cast by her.....
In other news, look at this! This was only a matter of time...
Callback: A Beautiful Life at Anna Miller-Sharma Casting --- This is from one of the three auditions I went on last week, and the one I felt the best about. I left the office the last time with the best feeling for me; which is: 'If they don't hire me, they're idiots." The sides for the callback are different than the original audition, which makes sense considering it's a feature film. It also calls attention to the fact that Julie, the character I'd be playing, is wearing "a simple black dress", so I think a change of wardrobe is in order from the original audition as well. Normally it's a good idea to wear the same thing to the callback as the audition, to refix your image in the CD's mind, but I think these new sides demand a different wardrobe.
I also met with another photographer this morning about doing a TFP shoot (Time for Prints, basically we both work for free to get the prints/CD out of it, more work for each of our portfolios). Tentatively we're scheduled for Sunday morning.
Oh! Oh! Before I forget, I got an audition scheduled for Monday for an HBO promo, which not only would be SAG, but would be for the illustrious and famous Casting Director Debra Zane! I mean, you don't get too much bigger than her, and it's the first time I'll have been in her office, so I'm so excited and nervous! It's so important to make a great first impression on a casting director. Anything to get and stay on her radar! There are sides available at her office, so I'm DEFINITELY getting those beforehand and working on them!
I was at the Glendale Galleria to get a haircut (five days before the photo shoot! Just need to ditch those split ends!) and I had some time before my appointment, so I was browsing a coffee shop to get ideas for the family Christmas presents. I came across two mugs, one with my sign, Scorpio, and another with my name. Both described me as 'resolved, driven and resourceful'. It got me thinking. There've been points in my life where I haven't been as industrious as I wanted to be with this career. And dammit, that's what I want to be with my acting career. I see SO many people who haven't the first clue what they're doing, but the main problem is that they don't seem very driven to find out! And I'm resolved (See what I did there?) to not be like that. To keep my positive attitude going, to never be 'bored', to always keep busy! Because lets face it, there is always SOMETHING more I could be doing to further my career. The key is to keep seeking out what that is.
And dammit, I'm going to keep doing that. Boo yah.
