Big New Comedy Week

So – in honor of almost the one year anniversary of not writing in this blog, I thought I’d…start writing in this blog again. A lot has happened in the past year, and I will not waste your time by giving you an in-depth update on everything I’ve done in the meantime. I’ll pick up in the now and if I need to give some contextual information to make something make sense, I will. I also won’t beg you to trust me that I’ll post regularly again, because that would be unfair. I’m not a consistent poster. I will try to be, but I don’t want to build any expectations that are too high.

So—without further ado—the continuation of…my silly little blog where I give too much information about my day to day endeavors to act and write and exist in LA-- today, I will tell you about...

My First Job:

So—a note of context—at the end of January, I signed with a commercial agent, and I’ve been going on (as you can probably gather) commercial auditions. The world of commercial auditioning has been, in a word--- short. Every audition is short. Extremely short. I had an audition last week wherein I drove to Santa Monica in almost rush hour so I could literally pretend to pump gas for ten seconds. I was supposed to pump gas with an attitude that was “Pleasant. Not necessarily smiling, but happy. You’re in a good mood. Not amazing, but good.” I did get the chance to try it more than once— the second time around, I was asked to move my eyes a little bit. I did not get a callback for this role.

But this story is not about the gas pumping audition— it’s about the first (and so far the only) commercial job I’ve booked—It was the second commercial I auditioned for, a promo for CMT’s “Big New Comedy Week.” CMT as in Country Music Television. In this audition, I read for “girl in bar,” and I did this:

Girl in Bar:
Why can’t I meet the right kind of guys?

CMT Spokesman:
Here try this- it’s CMT’s Big New Comedy Week in a Can!

Spokesman then hands me a large can (or in the case of the audition, a tiny Dixie cup) of water, and my job is to take a sip and then do a spit take, laughing uncontrollably and saying “that tastes funny!” They had a plastic trash can filled with water for us to spit the spittakes into. It was a really fun audition because I was instructed to “make it big,” or to over-act…which I’m quickly learning is the only kind of acting I really do. I’m shooting a web series with some friends right now, and as I watch the footage, I’ve realized that I have an unfortunate acting tick—some people blink too much while acting, some people take unnecessary deep breaths, some people mumble—I embody a full-on crazy person. In about half of our takes, I look like I’m trying to re-enact one of the more intense scenes of Shutter Island.

Anyway—I hit a wonderful stroke of good luck and booked the Comedy Week Commercial—I was obviously thrilled— my first paying job, my first commercial, my second commercial audition booked— I was on cloud nine.

I was also excited to be cast in the role of a cute girl in a bar—I thought, "take that, Hollywood, with all of your unfair standards of beauty and body. Take that—I thought I’d only be eligible for character roles and especially forgiving roles of “cute indy girls.” But no—I can be a regular girl, looking for love in a bar. Just a normal, reasonably attractive girl. In a bar. That’s me."

On the day before the shoot, I got a call from the wardrobe guy, and I was ready for him to tell me all the kinds of cute girl in bar clothes that they were going to fit me for, and all he said was, “Well, it looks like you’re going to be in a hospital gown. So, bring clothes that you could wear under a hospital gown…and maybe some business clothes too.” I imagined a surreal version of this commercial, in which I was actually wearing a hospital gown in a bar, and the CMT spokesman was in a chicken suit, and he handed me a balloon full of water that I popped all over everyone before the frame flipped upside down and a soundtrack of Mahler's Fifth started to play.

That’s not what happened in the commercial— What actually happened is that I arrived at a warehouse of a lot in Downtown LA, and I discovered that I was actually playing a person in the hospital. The hair and makeup people put me in pale makeup and pulled my hair back in a messy sick person ponytail. Then, I went to wardrobe, where the wardrobe lady tried a blue hospital gown and a yellow hospital gown before settling on the blue. I had to put on a pair of men’s boxers underneath the hospital gown so I wasn’t in my underwear. She gave me a down dive jacket to wear between takes because it was about 40 degrees inside the warehouse.

The scene went like this:

Doctor:
You know what your problem is?
You need to laugh more.
Here- try this.

(he hands me the big can of comedy, filled with seltzer. I take a sip, spit it out, trying not to ruin the thousands of dollars of camera equipment surrounding me, and say…)

Patient:
That tastes really funny!

Doctor:
Also, you have gout.

(I laugh even harder at the fact that I have the disease once known as the “disease of kings.”)

That was it— it went well, and it was fun. We did another scene where I reacted to the doctor’s spittake, and that was also fun. The rest of the cast and crew was talented, the directors were both really nice, and it was overall an incredibly positive experience. Until the gynecology stirrups. The final shot, the coup de grace, was a shot of the doctor facing the camera saying, “As an actor playing a doctor, I can tell you it really works!”

My legs are propped up in the background on the infamous stirrups used for spreading a lady’s legs so a doctor can look at her unmentionables. What you can’t tell from tv is that my legs are certainly unshaven and that behind that hospital down is a loose pair of men’s boxers. And that opposite my spread-eagle legs is a grip trying not to make eye-contact with me—which I appreciate. And my line is, "Actor?!?!?" Because I'm upset/appalled that the guy who just gave me a pap smear wasn't actually a doctor. Get it?

This was the unexpected part of the shoot, and it taught me lesson #1 of being a “working actress” in Hollywood: Always shave your legs, because you never know when you're going to be put in a hospital gown and stirrups.

And, as a reward for those of you that have read this entire, rambling post, here’s a link to the commercial, recorded off my teeny, tiny TV. Take the crappy quality as a confirmation that this was in fact on TV. (mostly during “Extreme Make-Over Home Edition.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljwlg5kSITg

Until next time, thank you for watching,

The One With Gout