Reject Shop

I fling open the door and throw myself onto my bed, weeping inconsolably into my medium density latex pillow. “Why me?’ I cry. ‘Why me?’ Actually I should be crying, ‘Why not me?’ for I am once again an audition reject.

If only it were that decisive. The thing is, no-one ever calls to say, ‘Thanks for trying, but we chose someone else.’ You leave the casting office doing a mental post mortem on your audition, then you try to put it out of your mind. But you’ve cleared a spot in your diary and you find yourself holding onto that fragile little bit of hope even when you know it’s gone past the practical deadline for your agent to contact you in time for the shoot. It’s like there’s no ending, the film just goes out of focus.

I can’t even get a lowly paid online one liner. It’s a video audition, which I film at home on my laptop. The role is a newsreader. I do my hair and make up, put on a professional looking shirt and do my best Tracy Grimshaw / Curo voice but it’s all to no avail. Might as well have done it in my pjs with morning hair.

After my spectacular three line debut on Neighbours last year, I am rejected at my next two auditions (yes they do recycle their actors!). Mind you, one was for the mother of a regular character who happens to be tall, blond, thin, tanned and Nordic looking, so it was no surprise. But like I said, the optimist in me fools the realist into retaining some desperate hope.

Am I not pretty enough? Is it my over active Jim Carrey eyebrows? Do my anglo looks not appeal to the multicultural target audience? Did I not convince them that the pav really was delicious? Why did they tell me to come single to the audition for an over 50s insurance ad if they were always going to cast a real life couple? And what hope is there for me when I, a teacher with thirty years' experience, can't even win the role of a wordless university lecturer?

Alas, I will never know. And so I return to my tear sodden pillow, vowing never to believe the casting person who says. ‘That was great.’

Merry Christmas.

Murder and Management Mayhem

February 2013

My first two acting jobs this year are worlds apart. It's lucky I'm so versatile. In the first gig I do a scene that involves running screaming across a vacant lot to my 'son' who is lying dead on the ground, the victim of an out of control drug dealer. This comes quite naturally to me.

For the second, I must centre myself and find my character's motivation, summoning my naturalistic acting skills—the result of much study of Stanislavksi's method—to play a senior manager delivering advice about employee 'development plans' and 'potential matrixes' via an autocue, for a corporate video.

And not only am I a versatile actor. I’ve got a wardrobe to match. A cardi for the ‘mum’, a suit for the ‘manager’. Perfect.

The truth is, both jobs are great experience but the first is a lot more fun, even though there's no pay! I get to work with a bunch of very switched on VCA students on an independent feature film (This Little Piggy) and the role is small, but I love the dramatic challenge. The corporate video requires me to do literally pages of a script, mainly to camera, and to make management jargon sound conversational! My task is not aided by the fact that I get the script less than two days before the shoot (agent's bungle) and barely get through the dialogues I have to learn by heart. It's a paid gig so I feel bad I'm not as prepared as I should be, but on the other hand, they're not paying me enough to feel really, really bad! (And it’s not like the job gave me anything I could use for my showreel, you know.)

Incidentally, the film role came about through one of the lead guys from Monster Pies (which just won Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film in the recent Melbourne Queer Film Festival). Who knows what's next? But hopefully my new agent and new headshots will be a step in the right direction on my journey from anonymity to stardom!

Agony and Ecstasy

Date: July 2010
Job: None
Location: Nowhere

May and June turned out to be a busy time for the world of film and TV in Victoria. I had seven days’ work in seven weeks. I had to turn down five jobs in one week because I couldn’t take time off work. (A bit different from the one and a half days’ work in my first six months) And now, nothing. It’s been four weeks since my last call and I’m going through withdrawal.

I repeatedly check my phone and my emails for my next fix. In the meantime I write this blog and apply for unpaid speaking roles in student films. So far I’ve got three auditions. Seems there’s a lot of ‘mum’ roles. Could be good experience. Anyway, I’ll let you know what happens. Wish me luck.