Say Good-bye to Hollywood

Date: February 2010
Job: Neighbours Audition
Location: Casting Office

It’s day one of a new teaching job, the week before classes start, and out of the blue I get a call telling me I’ve got an audition for a well known soapie on Tuesday at 2.15. I know I can’t say no and I don’t really want to but it’s during the first week of classes at a new school and I’m worried about asking for time off. Luckily the co-ordinator is fine about it. In fact, he turns out to be very supportive as the year goes on. I think he likes the idea of associating with an actor. Not that I would describe myself as an actor. Background artiste I think I’m called.

The script is emailed to me and I learn my lines. It’s a scene about an internet date. My character is pretending to be somebody she’s not. Ooh, intrigue. A soapie within a soapie. Just like Shakespeare. I practise at home, not really knowing how they want it. Comic or mysterious? It’s hard work getting it to sound natural so I practise with my husband, who has not one acting sinew in his body, but somehow it helps. My daughter cannot understand how someone like me could get an audition. I'm not sure myself.

I go along to the audition deliberately wearing something I think the character would wear, that is, something middle aged (no idea how it got in my wardrobe). I am led into a tiny white walled room with a chair, a video camera and a computer on a small desk. Hollywood here I come. The camera checks me out like a mechanical sleaze, its single eye vertically scanning my body, right down to my fat, sweaty little toes (it’s hot, okay) and back up again. I wish I’d worn something a bit more se-I mean, attractive. I think the camera would have been impressed. I play the scene with a woman who performs both the role of the male character and the camera operator. For some reason I find it a little hard to act like we’re on a date. She gives me a bit of direction, we run through it a few times and then it’s thanks and good-bye.

I realise my chances of winning the role are slim due to my lack of experience, which is a relief because I don’t know how I will get time off work and I’m afraid people will laugh at me for being on the soapie. It’s not as if it’s an aspiration of mine. On the other hand, what a great opportunity! And after all, look at all the actors who started out in soapies and made it big in Hollywood. There’s heaps... Really.

Okay, I’ll get back to you.

Unlike the casting lady. Alas, soapie stardom will have to wait for another day.