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.