EPISODE 4: My TV Pilot Audition
Journals Transcript portion below
June 19, 2001, Tuesday
Los Angeles:
Yesterday I called a radio producer, Deena, who I finally met in person at the Columbia alumni party last month on the CBS Radford lot in Studio City. She produced an iconic morning show in the ‘80s and ‘90s and she was one of the highlights of a very dry Industry gathering that evening. I gave her a production guide since I knew that she wanted to make the leap from radio into other avenues, television or films, I assumed.
I didn’t hear from her for about two weeks after the party and I figured I’d check on her as time went by. She called me recently and left me a mock message saying, “This is the Trueblood Agency and we have a part for you we’d like you to come in and read for!” Then she laughed, as if it was all in jest, and said, “Please hold onto my number because I’ll sure hold onto yours.”
I also heard her say that she had gotten a couple of jobs from that party and I was happy for her. I quit my job three days after that party and have spent all of May changing jobs and temping now. I really thought she was kidding around with that “Trueblood Agency” stuff and wasn’t in a mood to joke. All of my winter and spring actor submission campaigns between me and my talent agency in Hollywood were done.
June 20, 2001, Wednesday
My temp assignment at Midway Hospital is over. The patient census fell to 1/3 capacity and I was released for the day, even though they had booked me for the week, irrespective of the census, but it’s not like I want people to be sick for me to have a job. They could have told my employment agency that it was census-contingent but it goes with the territory. I forfeited the job and now have $200 in dress pants I bought.
I left Denise, my supervisor in the C-Suite, a kind message because she was nice and our days were never long and dreary. When I told Bebbles that my job was over he said, “You’re going to go through changes over this.” I told him I wouldn’t. I know there’s a reason that things happen.
June 21, 2001, Thursday
I’ve got another assignment to replace the one I lost yesterday. The marketing agency asked me back. This is in another dept. – Operations – and I’ll be working for Colby Smith. I was glad to take a day’s break but accepted the job because I need the money and they’re a request client. They aren’t bad to work for and the perks are cute when chaos isn’t reigning. I’m reading “The Covenant” by James Michener, about the history of South Africa, so I’m not pre-disposed to power trips. It’ll work.
June 22, 2001, Friday
Contrary to what Josie said at the Terrific Agency, I’m back at the marketing firm in the same department. Riley recommended me to Colby and Colby put me back on the oil companies and gas station product recall. Most of the aspects of the project are completed, but by law there has to be a person to answer consumer hotline calls at least 8 hours a day. They’d initially contracted a call-center in Florida, but there were issues and now I’m a one-man call-center. I have my own office, three phones, no supervisors and a computer by Monday. They’ll give me some database work next week, but they’re nice people here and they’re not trying to get over. It also doesn’t feel like as much pressure as the last time. Riley came in today and shook my hand and gave me one of the most genuinely appreciative smiles I’ve received in a long time. Fiona, another director, came in and told me how much the company likes me, my work and how they were excited to have me back. I mailed Denise her office key yesterday that she’d thought I’d need before that job ended two days ago.
It’s really amazing that this marketing company took so well to me because this was my first big professional challenge in 4 years. They’ve helped set a standard for me at the Terrific Agency because with these repeat gigs and constant booking, it’s set a standard for me. I have success on my side! I have new clothes, and I’ve gotten to this point in just 3 weeks from only knowing how to type and not much else, but I learned it all. This firm left my desk the way I left it two weeks ago. All of my materials were where I left them. I went to get a soda from the machine in the break room and the brother stocking it said, “Take your money back,” and gave me a 20 oz. bottle instead. That was a blessing, too. Human kindness IS overflowing today. Bebbles is at work, too, and looks to be a shoo-in for a permanent position. We had a great morning interlude at around 4 a.m. before he had to go to work and that was hot, hot, hot. We’re just looking to have a laid-back night soon.
Deena just called my cell, and she was essentially hurt (!) that I didn’t call her back over her Trueblood Agency call. She told me she was perplexed that I hadn’t called her back and said she was glad to hear from me despite being befuddled that I had passed on a “potential job.”
“What potential job?” I asked, adding that I thought she was kidding.
“I was kidding about the agency part, but there really is a part you would have been great for,” Deena said.
I had not known about this and gave my apology. She commented that she’d thought she would never hear from me again and had been all but stunned that I would dismiss a potential acting opportunity.
I flat out told her that I’d had no job or professional income for three weeks and that I assumed we’d talk later. I said, “That’s not my style. I’m not dismissive that way.”
Deena laid out a very drawn-out, subtle guilt trip on me. The reason I explained myself is because I am not one of these L.A. performers who blows people off or is that arrogant to diss another peer. I didn’t even earn $1100 for the whole month of May and that she understood.
Once Deena had gotten over the shocking facts of her semi-joke, she finally seemed to sympathize with what I’d been dealing with and mentioned that the role I’d have been good for was still uncast and she is the production coordinator on the show.
The ‘show’ is a pilot – three episodes, deferred payment, and it’s supposed to be, she said, “a gay “Sex in the City,” and I’d be auditioning for the role of Ben.
“Ben is the Hot one,” Deena says, “he has a great body, nice physique. Very handsome and knows it. He’s bisexual. He’s been with women and men but really just wants someone to love,” She told the director that I’d be good in the role and spoke to the director and he agreed to see me tomorrow at a studio in West Hollywood. The scene I’m testing for is against another character, Craig, who is my ex’s current love interest and who Ben wants as well. That pilot audition is tomorrow, Saturday.
Sunday, June 24, 2001
I auditioned for my first pilot yesterday in West Hollywood. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, more because of the stress involved and my indifference to the material.
The stressful part was hours getting my hair and clothes right. I missed my bus, stepped in a huge wad of cinnamon gum that, in 90 degrees, stretched a string of melted gum over my new dress pant when I’m trying to pull this off my right boot heel with a piece of paper. Now the gum is on my fingers, I can’t wash my hand, I had dry mouth by this time and by the time my bus comes I’m 15 minutes late for my audition.
I see Deena, who smiles and is friendly. She checked me in an alley above the downstairs stages, and I read my character breakdown for the role I’m up for: Ben. Ben is a bisexual soap opera star who is innocent-looking but a master seducer with no wicked intentions, it’s just who he is. The series is called, “Trysts, Power, and Toddies.”
I get my sides to memorize, sitting outside with the sun reflecting off of my script pages, so I go into a dark theater to audition and am so sunblind it was unreal. I made sure to say so, in advance, to the 4 or so people on the panel. There’s a guy with a video camera, a rinky-dink little affair in the dark corner hub of the set. The director is standing damn near against the wall, downstage left. The director, Michael, is playing – for the audition – Craig, the character who my character, Ben, wants, especially since he’ll be taking him from his ex.
This particular scene calls for me to, as scripted, “tease him with my body.” Which is going to be hard to do since I’m on the set and he’s against the wall. I know, with the limited sight have from the alley sun, that’s I’ll no choice to go outside of my two marks – there were about two I had to hit – and play the scene against him in that darker space, camera placement in the opposite corner be damned.
First, I didn’t care how the resulting tape would show me because I know these taped auditions can come back to haunt you; the less salable the better. Secondly, I have no choice but to do the scene with my body. That’s the scena and he’s not moving.
I did the right thing on a dime. The scene we were about to film takes place in Palm Springs. My character, Ben, is in the kitchen getting a drink, naked, and has to reach over Craig to get glasses. Ben could care less in this moment that Craig is interested in his ex. Did I mention that Ben is sleeping with Craig’s boss, to boot, who is also a soap opera star, a woman called Chanel? Craig is White and Ben is Black, so it’s written that Ben takes the upper hand over Craig’s White prudence and flat out asks, “You want to play?….And I’m not talking about chess.” He also says to Craig, “Let me hit that for a little while.” It’s a total seduction scene and Ben has decided to take Craig around the world.
I’d already negotiated – without my agent, thank you – that there would be no nudity if this show is a go. I did agree to side profile nudity, backside only, with the refrigerator door blocking the front. It’s all a sight gag anyway, it’s in the stage directions, but that was my rider from the beginning.
Now, let me give you a sense of this audition and my reaction to this material.
I was the only Black guy there to read for Ben and they’ve been trying to cast this part for 3 weeks. Yesterday’s auditions were for other featured roles in the pilot. “Queer As Folk” has definitely showed actors the profitability of playing gay, so there’s a visible difference and loose aesthetic in the actors who were trying, months ago, to look like Tom Cruise in The Firm or Jerry Maguire and now all look like they could do revisionist ‘70s porn: they have bangs now, their hair is a little longer and sexier and they don’t wear make up and they wear very tight jeans. So, all the guys yesterday, from what I could see in the dailies, either looked American Pie suburban and read to be gay or they were more laid-back guys giving the edgier but equally cool Bill Bixby look from the denim Hulk and Malibu era. That was refreshing to see. The ripped-jean cliché of the early ‘90s is releasing its grip on some of them.
My reaction to the material was true disappointment. Another Black man seduces a repressed White man role. I’ve been in this business for 16 years and have been playing adult roles for 11 of them since I was 19. The dialogue was nothing a handier porn actor couldn’t handle, and they would be able to do it justice AND ad-lib. There was no challenge in the script and there was no interest on my part in portraying and initiating a stereotypical, cable version of an interracial relationship. That holds no interest for me and of the three recent ones I’ve seen, none registered any real heat that I could notice. The only thing interesting about Ben is that he’s a rich Black bi soap star. You don’t see much of that on TV. Still, that’s small consolation when you have 10 minutes to form a characterization based on an “I-know-I-can-have-you” sexuality. If you’re going to go that theatrical, I can do that in my sleep and it’s boring.
I did the scene, fully clothed, left my mark and my light – since the director, Michael, didn’t want to leave the dark wall that was nowhere near the camera. I walked over and did three stage pulls on the director’s shirt sleeves, wrists, elbows and shoulders – when I’m supposed to tease him with my body. I walked right up to him and did the business with his shirt and the director actually got flustered and uttered a stream of moans and shocked “Oh my God’s” to the point where it was obvious it wasn’t planned, and he was truly feeling overpowered because the producers and the crew in the audience all started laughing. His comic befuddlement is probably what I’ll be remembered for most from that audition. It was a moment, but I still could have cared less.
After that scene, doing the refrigerator blocking – still clothed, of course, throughout, Michael mention me stepping out of my lighting. I cheerfully reminded everyone that I was sunblind and had only basic awareness of the lighting: “I can’t fucking see!” It was also true that he was still standing in the shadows, and I had to go to where he was. It’s a two-person scene. I don’t think a few steps made any difference. My attitude is this: fuck the tape if you can’t retain it in your heads, ok? I don’t care if I get this part anyway since frontal nudity is so not going to happen. It doesn’t even happen for Denzel or Will Smith.
Callbacks are next week and shooting starts in late summer, early fall. I could work out and get in even better shape by then. The next and last scene we test shot was where it’s days later and Ben charmingly apologizes for the Palm Springs incident. That went fine, they all thanked me, I said a little to Deena and went home feeling like I’d wasted my time.
31 years old and I can’t get past poorly written sex comedies. Honestly.
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