February 24, 1999
Normally this is a useless adventure for me. From the description of the spot, they want somebody who's high energy and good with improv and good with interviewing and kind of wacky like Cuba Gooding Jr. is on their current spots. And that's just not really what I'm best at. I like to prepare a little something and then I think I can do OK.
And so I did. When I got home late last night from the Two Guys, a Girl... taping, I looked over the material for today's audition. There was a skeleton of a script and the suggestion that you take it from there. So I did. I worked for about a half-hour on possible material for my version of the spot. This morning I started expanding on it a little bit and felt I had put together a good funny little bit.
When they called my name to go audition, he asked me if I had had enough time to look over the material. Enough time? Ha! I had more time for this audition than any other commercial outing. I was good and ready.
"Just feel free to play around with it. Don't be married to the copy. Make it your own." These were all things I had already heard and incorporated into my presentation. I was ready!
Oh, one thing. "Should I direct it to the camera? Or to myself? Or to the Pepsi can? Who am I taking to?" I asked, feeling I could easily make the adjustment to whatever had to be done.
"Well, for the first one, just deliver it into camera."
My heart sank, but not because it had to be delivered into the camera, that's what I wanted to do. But suddenly there was talk of a 'first' one.
"Is there more than one?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Yeah, didn't you turn the sheet over?"
I had been faxed the sheet last night so there was nothing to turn over at home. I went back into the lobby and turned over the material there. On the back was the skeleton of the other spot they wanted us to improv and ad-lib and 'make our own.' Damn. I asked him for a few minutes and put something together in my head.
The audition went, I thought, great. I got a few reactions out of the camera operator who, at the end, complimented me on the inventiveness of the whole thing. She seemed very impressed. Of course, she has no say in who gets the job, but at least one person liked it. And thought it wasn't ideal, it all came together in the end.