series: ridiculous auditions

there are few things so consistently bad and/or hilarious in my life that they would require a series on this blog, and certainly acting and auditions are an area ripe for the picking. so ripe that produce is rotten.

for some unknown ungodly reason, or perhaps just to torture me, my manager/agent decided yesterday to send me to an audition for the Grill Wave. yes, a countertop grill. this isn't even the George Foreman. at least GFG appeals to the masses. they were looking for middle-aged QVC or HSN style women to hawk their products and close up on their preserved manicured diamond fingered botox hands as they fondled the removable fat reserving tray to demonstrate how you can add a bit of flour and make a fresh gravy!

first of all, i'm completely wrong for the part. what 40 year old American mother would want to buy an indoor cooking appliance from a mid-20s, flat-chested Chinese girl who has no kids and barely knows how to cook?

secondly, WHY on earth would i even want to be IN an infomercial? unless they were about to pay me a crapload of money, would it make sense that the same girl who co-hosts alongside President Carter's chief speechwriter ALSO sells...countertop grills? and demonstrates in the infomercial how easy it is to clean off crusty food particles? yes, that is a direct quote from the script.

it's not that i think i'm above it, but i seriously question the choices being made for me. i don't think i'm at that place where I'm willing to just "take anything"; i want to do this to try and make a living but also have some sense of direction for where I actually want to go; not just become a screen whore for any opportunity that pops up. ie, i'm not taking some spot on Flavor of Love just for the screen time.

i went anyway to not cause any bad blood between me and the agie, but going seriously made me begin to question why i do this. the casting director took one look at me and pretty much cut me off mid-sentence with a 'THANK YOU.'

last year in a scene study class, i played franny in a scene from J.D. Salinger's Franny & Zooey (aside: people usually fall into 2 categories: Catcher in the Rye people or Franny & Zooey people. I am decidedly a Franny & Zooey person, despite the fact that I now realize Wes Anderson all but ripped off Royal Tenenbaums completely from F&Z). One of my favorite parts was to say these lines aloud to an audience of actors:

"I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right."