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This morning I had an audition for a small part in a major motion picture. I had worked pretty hard on the two pages of script that I'd been sent (which due to heavy security issues I am not allowed to discuss and which I basically had to solve the Da Vinci code (not a hint to what the film was) to access. I had decided to learn the lines so that I could give the best possible performance, so was a bit annoyed when last night, about 90 minutes after I'd got the script and learned it and worked out some funny jokes I could do, they emailed me, apologising and told me that they'd sent me the wrong version. The new script was almost 100% different, though it was set in the same location and shared some of the same information and had one line that was the same. I think I slightly preferred the first version (but that might just be because I'd learned it) and was amazed and amused that the writing of something as expensive and highly organised as a film is as last minute as all the stuff that I do. Tellingly also, the scene I was auditioning for is to be shot on Saturday, so either someone dropped out, or more likely everything is as last minute as the script writing. I was pretty sure I was physically wrong for the role, but it would be exciting to get it and to see what it's like on a film set of something as high profile as this, but I'd probably have to cancel my gig in Havant if I got it and I am such an idiot that I'd probably prefer to not do that than have international superstardom (for about 90 seconds).
I would like to do more acting though, so wanted to do a good job. But I failed to do as well as I had done it at home, choking on the second line, partly because I'd been given the script to hold and knowing it was there made it too tempting to attempt to half read it. The casting was just at someone's house and I sat on a rickety sofa as I was filmed by the one person taking the audition. It was hard to bounce off anything or to feel like this was real and I was surprised that they didn't just ask me to film the lines myself at home and then only ask me in if they thought I was close. Although I was asked to do the scene three times, which is a goodish sign, I don't think I really managed to take on board the direction I was given and I am pretty confident that I won't have to choose between Hollywood and Havant this time.
Acting is a really tough gig and I have a lot of sympathy for the people for whom this is their main line of work. To get to the stage where you're receiving scripts at the last minute and then the script is changed and then you have to spend a morning going to someone's house, only for them to realise that you're not right for the part and to realise that even being seen makes you one of the most successful (albeit unpaid) in your profession must be hard to cope with.
Then in the afternoon I was off to do a job which showed how easy, comparatively, the life of a comedian is, when I had to sit on a sofa with David Baddiel and watch some clips of TV comedy and then say what we thought about them. This too was in someone's house (I think it was meant to be one of our houses though we couldn't work out who's). They gave us beer and Doritos, as if trying to construct the perfect scenario for my dad to mispronounce (eating Doritoss with David Bad-deal) and then we spent three hours watching telly and saying what we thought about it for an unbroadcast pilot. I hope one day to make a living from writing scripts that are never produced and appearing in non-broadcast pilots for TV shows, thus being able to do the job I love without any of the downside of attracting unwanted fame.
