First Hollywood Audition and Touristy Things

 

Well, the time has come. I had my first audition (hopefully first of many) while out here. It's for a film titled Donut Planet. I do not know anything about it. The part I read for is an orderly at an insane asylum named "White Shoes." Here's the character breakdown of ol' White Shoes:

50's, male, all ethnicity, 5'5 - 6'0.  White shoes is an orderly for Desert Oaks Psychiatric Care - he has worked there for 20 + years.  He uses his orderly stature to intimidate the patients in order to keep them in line, he also bends the moral rules of conduct from time to time to get want he wants.  White Shoes is a recovering alcoholic but still enjoys the occasional heavy drug if he can thieve it from a patient.  He has a creepy demeanor but has a weird charm about him.  

I really don't like my chances for the role. I don't think I'm even remotely passable for 50's, but I do have a pair of white shoes, so there's that plus.  I submitted electronically (see earlier post as to what this means, if you're confused) my headshot and resume, and I got an email response that they want me to audition, so I auditioned.

 

They sent me the above character description and the "sides" for the role. "Sides" is another name for the audition material, or script, that will be utilized in the actual audition. From what I've gathered out here, you usually get the lines ahead of time so that you can prepare a character instead of "cold-reading" when you show up to the actual audition. I actually like cold-reading and think that I can do it pretty well, but given the chance to practice before showing up, I like being prepared more than being surprised. If you get a chance, check out the above link to see the scene I read. Not a very complicated/complex scene, but it's short and sweet. Well, not so much sweet, more creepy than sweet.  But more about that in just a bit. It reminded me of the Die Hard scene with the Family Matters dad buying twinkies at the gas station before getting the Nokatomi phone call. "They're for my wife." She's pregnant."

 

 

Before I went to the audition, I did some pretty cool touristy things today. I went up to Griffith Park Observatory, which happens to be the setting for one of my favorite comedies, Bowfinger. It turns out there's a little space museum in the observatory. Who knew? Probably everyone that looked at the website. I just put the address in the GPS (Garmin), and off I went not knowing anything about it.

 

 

There's also a bust of James Dean up there, not very space-related, so that caught me off guard. There's a plaque on the bust that says that some scenes for Rebel Without a Cause were filmed at the observatory, and it was the first time the observatory was utilized in a film as an observatory and not some other structure. I found some pics on IMDB from the movie, scroll through a few of them if you're interested in seeing the shots from the observatory.

 



After the observatory, I still had some time to kill before the audition, so I went down to Grauman's Chinese Theatre to walk around. It was very touristy down there. Lots of people, noise, lights, costumed people, etc. It had a real Times Square feel to it. Very flashy and crowded.

 

It's nice to see that they rebuilt the plaza in front of the theatre since Iron Man 3. Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen it, there's a lot of BOOM that happens right in front of the theatre.  Happy (Jon Favreau) nearly dies in the explosion.

 

Oh, and the above picture is for all of you Blazing Saddles fans. I spent a good twenty minutes looking for Hedey Lamarr's concrete slab, and it wasn't there. I think they created one just for the movie, but I did find Mr. Fairbanks. If you were curious who has been immortalized in concrete, check out this link for their location. I wish I'd have searched for this PDF before spending time looking around everywhere. Lesson learned.

And my last stop before heading to the audition, I stopped for a little food on Hollywood Blvd, just north of Hollywood and Vine.  I found a rare parking spot on the street, and quickly parallel parked (which I'm a pro at now). I got out and low-and-behold I was on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I had no idea where it was located, and guess who was next to my car? This guy!

I'll take it! It must be a sign! Thousands of stars it could've been, and it's this guy! I instantly started running through all of his gems from Animal House, man, what a great movie. I grabbed some NY-style pizza at a little hole-in-the-wall, and relaxed before heading to the audition.

 

 

 

Audition-time! Actually, I was about two hours early. Better earlier than late, right? So, I killed thirty minutes listening to the Sox game in the car, and then I thought I'd go check-in. Maybe they can see me earlier than my assigned time, if not, I'll just soak in the audition atmosphere. I signed in and then they told me to go to the waiting room.

 

I made small talk with the people in the sitting room. All white-haired, I knew it was going to be like that. People that actually look like they're in their fifties. I feel it is a lost cause, but I'm here to experience the audition process. The rejection...the futility...all of it. So, I sit there for about fifteen minutes before they call me back into the little room.  I figure, I'm going to go "big" because I'm surely going home as this part isn't right for me. So, I start revising what I was initially going to do.

The time comes! They introduce me to the producers and writers, and we start chatting.  I think to myself, "Good, chit-chat. I can do this really well." We talked for a good 5-10 minutes, and I'm cracking them up left-and-right. They start talking about how the character is "disturbed," and I give them my little theory as to his purchases in the scene, and what he's going to do with them (see the above "sides," I'm being vague because children might be reading this). One of the producers shouted, "YES! That's what I'm talking about. No one else has thought of that. These guys (indicates the others in the room) thought I was crazy." I said that the thought came to me pretty quickly, and I cited Kill Bill for inspiration.

They mentioned that they see the character as being older, and they wanted to be honest with me upfront. I told them that I was surprised to even get an audition because I don't appear to be in my fifties. I showed them my resume, they seemed really impressed by some of my credits. I talked about my limited film experience, but they kept coming back to the different/varied theatrical roles I've done of late. They seemed pretty impressed when I started talking about my thoughts for this character that I on-the-spot created based on what they were feeding me. They just shook their heads as I went on and on.  I guess muddling my way through certain literary pieces over the years has paid off.  ;)

So, anyway, we get around to reading the scene, and we do it a couple of times. They had a quiet, sweet college-age girl reading with me. I kept making her blush each time we did the scene, she was too sweet. She did the lines well, but you could see her get red whenever I turned the charm on. Think Flynn in Tangled..."smolder."

After I got done, one of the producers said that it reminded him of Tea Bag from Prison Break, and I instantly offered him my pocket to hold on. He about fell out of his chair laughing.

They thanked me for coming in, and then we shook and I left. I felt pretty good about the audition. I'd feel a lot better about the audition if I was twenty years older, but whatever, I wanted the experience, and I got my first Hollywood audition out of the way. Done, done, done.