The (film) Audition

I always think that 45 minutes is enough time to get ready in the morning. And I am always late. I wonder if there is a correlation. At any rate, my intention this morning was to get ready with enough time to arrive at the audition 15 minutes early, but instead left my house about 15 minutes before I was scheduled to audition. Brilliant. Thankfully, there was no traffic, weather, or road construction to deal with, so I made it in time.

The audition was held at one of my favorite places in Minneapolis. It is a place I don't get to nearly often enough and it is a silly place that closes at 8 pm during the week, at 5 on Saturdays and doesn't even open on Sundays, so it's pretty much inaccessible to the average working suburbanite. I was happy to have an excuse to go there. There are 3 floors of various classrooms, and all I knew was that the audition was being held in "one of the reading rooms upstairs." Eventually, I found a little room with snacks scattered across a table and upon further inspection, I saw people and a camera and guessed that this was probably the right place. I asked if it was the right place...but didn't really get a definitive answer...I stood there kind of stupidly wondering if I was being told that it was the right place, or that it wasn't the right place. It was eventually determined that it was the right place.

There were 3 people in the room when I arrived - the director, a guy (Helper Monkey), and a girl who I think is actually part of the cast already. Shortly after, a fourth person arrived, who was like me, a little late and a little stressed and there to audition. She was very professional; she walked in, asked if this was the audition, apologized for being a little late, and said, "I'm (her name here)." What I noticed about the other two girls there was that they have faces that I imagine look fabulous on film - really big eyes and full lips and defined cheeks bones and eyebrows. I immediately felt like a hobbit (not a desired effect).

This was my first moment ever attempting anything resembling acting in front of a camera...so any lingo or assumptions were completely lost on me. The director told us where we would be starting and which character to read and then Helper Monkey said, "Do you want to do names?" What the..?? Apparently that means saying your name (real name) and the name of the character you are reading for. So, I learned a new phrase...however, what I did not learn is where to address this little moment. Was I supposed to look into the camera? Was I supposed to say "my name is..." before saying my name? No idea...so I just looked off embarrassedly somewhere and said something stupid and we proceeded.

We read a scene while sitting, then read it again standing, then switched roles and read it again. After the last read, the director asked if there was anything we wanted to do with it. I said, "I have no idea how to answer that question." Driving home afterwards of course, I came up with all kinds of answers. The hardest part of the process was wrapping my brain around the fact that two of the people reading were not there to audition, so they were just feeding us lines - it was hard to get into a character when not everyone reading was in character. That is my biggest regret...I'm still processing it, and I think that it is probably the most valuable thing I learned - that it's important to ACT at an audition no matter what anyone else is doing or how they are doing it. I really wish I would have played bigger and more expressive. My other regret is that the two of us auditioning were supposed to be sisters, but I didn't act very sister-ish with her. I also wish I would have stood up straighter, pushed my hair away from my face, used my eyebrows more...ummm...so many things.

Even with all the awkwardness, it was really fun. It didn't suck. It didn't hurt. It felt safe and unpretentious which is always good. I honestly don't expect anything to come of it - there were at least 4 other girls (or, dare I say, women) who auditioned as well - still it would be really great to be part of. We shall see.