Audition # 876- Cell Phones and Stage Moms

Commercial audition yesterday, for a European cell phone spot. So I curl my hairs, and put on my best attempt at an "urban, but not LA- more NY-quirky" outfit, and travel the three odd miles to Studio City.

I pull up to what looks like a normal store front in a strip mall, but bears the name "Xanzabar Studios" or some such crap. It looks sort of like a hair salon from the outside, except it is BURSTING AT THE SEAMS WITH SMALL CHILDREN. Like seriously, dozens of 5 year olds, the child-actor overly precious kind. I try to get thru the door but a small Korean lad is doing a sort of break-dance on the welcome mat. His mother watches me trying to get around her spin kicking son and does nothing. Nothing at all. I get in and there are kids just freaking everywhere. And they are all turned up to 11. Like, all smiles, and loud snarky "Kids Say the Darn'dest Things" type proclamations and Gap Kids clothing and kiiiiiiiiiiiillllll me now please. 'Studied Precociousness' is the most painful of all false personas. Except 'Studied Earthiness'. I am looking right at you, Mssrs. Obama, McCain, Palin, and Biden....
Anywho, turns out, Disney is holding an audition there too. Here are some vignettes:

1. Totally awesome Kid-Wrangler calls up three cherubs and jokes with them while learning their names. One very ironed and polished little child with hair so shiny I could do my makeup in it says to her "My mommy said if I do my best she will take me to Color Me Mine. And a restaurant." The nonplussed wrangler says something like "I'm sure you always do your best...". And I am thinking, "Your Mommy is kind of a beotch, because you are a little child, and you should just 'do your best' to have fun, as you have the rest of your life to work like a slave like the rest of us suckers. So your Mommy should take you to Color Me Mine regardless. And I hate your Mommy, a little".

2. A young blonde boy named Brayden or Jayden or Skayden is sitting next to his plump blonde Momma, taking up four available seats in this crowded room cause Fill-in-the-blank-den is sliding his little fanny all over the bench like a dog with worms. And then he licks his Mom's bare arm. To which she says in a chipper voice "Hey! Are you a cannibal??". Blank-den then bites his mother, repeatedly, while she says "Are you a doggy?? There are no dogs alowed in here!!{giggle} We have to stop taking you to that Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Now my arm smells bad." WTF? First, tell your kid to sit the F still in a public crowded place so all the other people there can sit down. Second, your child just bit you. Maybe we shouldn't throw him an Affirmation Parade and instead tell him that his behaviour is inappropriate. Third, your arm smells? Eww. Brush that kids teeth!

3. But for the fact that my good best friend would never foist a career in the show-biz on her small lovely girl, I saw a kid who was totally Ash's daughter at 5. She had long red-blonde hair, and glasses, and the biggest blue eyes ever. She was also wearing a hot pink and black arm band, neon green polka dotted leg warmers, and every article of jewelry I presume she owns. She had clearly picked out this awesome ensemble for herself, and she rocked it. Her name was Elizabeth, and i almost abducted her, she was so stinking cute.

The audition itself was kind of fun- improvy, and I think I did pretty well. I'll keep you posted if anything comes of it. Anything that is besides the magic that was this blog entry.

Fantasy Pandas

Audition 605 in my descent into madness where no one can follow.

So it begins w/ a call from my agent saying he has an audition for me for a commerical for a popular Chinese food chain that shall remain nameless. Except that it features pandas and the food comes fast. Immediately, I am in Ironic Town, USA. Population: 1 because I have personal issues with this chain. You see, Gavin loves the food this place dishes out- greasy, hang-over food dripping in faux-Asian sauce. I hate it, because it's gross, and refer to the place as "The Dirty Panda". But since it doesn't exist on the East Coast, Gavin has rekindled his love affair with it's oily charms since we moved back by going at least once a week and dragging my reluctant ass with him. So pretty stinking funny/horrible that I should get a chance to hock this crapola. My life in art.

So I head down to the place and sign in, and on the sign in table is a cup of chopsticks w/ a note that says we should practice using them but not to put them in our mouths because many people would use them all day. I decline chopstick practice, as I have travelled to Asia and would have starved or at least created an international faux pas by using my hands to eat had I not learned to use chopsticks. Also, who does not know how to use chopsticks at this point? I will tell you who- the other girls in the room. They are pinching cheap splinter-laden chopsticks with varying degrees of skill and looking worried. I do not feel bad for them, however, as they are by and large Dutch super-models, and do not need my pity.

We go into the room in pairs. I am paired with a girl named Boblinka. I shit you not. We are to sit in front of the cameras and pick hard candies out of a chinese food carton, pretending that they are pieces of delicious orange chicken. The illusion stops short of our mouths, however, as we are told not to actually place the candies in our mouths. Awesome.

But here's where it really takes off. We are supposed to eat and chat and WATCH THE PANDA BEARS CAVORTING IN THE DISTANCE. These creatures are represented by the casting directors hand, held just behind the camera. We are told to react "just as we normally would to panda bears" and improvise a short scene. We do so. It involves us talking about the cuteness of the hand-pandas. Then we are told to be "really interested" in what the pandas are doing, and then to break out in a "slow smile". Fuck me.

Boblinka was super nice and we commiserated on the bizareness of our lives in the elevator ride down. Then I had to write a check for 3 dollars to the parking attendant because I never have cash. I felt a little like the Dude in the supermarket scene in The Big Lebowski.

I will not get this commercial. But if I do, then I hearbye renounce my ability to understand anything about anything. Because the world is a land of hand-pandas and fake chinese chicken, and there is nothing to do but laugh or kill yourself in such a world.