February 26, 1999
On the way to the audition, I got a page from my agent. I had just booked a week on Caroline in the City. It was the third job in four weeks. That's a pretty good run. "You're hot!" my agent boasted. Well, then why doesn't any of that heat ever cross over into the commercial world? How many auditions am I going to go on without a single job? I have been trying not to focus on it lately, but c'mon!
Part of me wants to just pull the plug on going out for commercial auditions. I don't need the money right now and it's just a source of rejection and stress to have to drive all over town to be summarily ignored by this branch of the industry. And hey, I tell myself, I have a holding deal at ABC. Why do I put myself through this? I'm better than this. I'm ready to be beyond this. Then I did my audition.
My scene partners were Justine Miceli, from NYPD Blue & As the World Turns, and Michael Tucci, a character actor who's been around forever and has lots of respectable credits. So who is this little punk from the Valley who thinks he's too good for commercial auditioins? If talented actors with years of successful work under their belts think its worth their time, then maybe a kid who's only recurring character on a television show was scooping ice cream off camera should make them worth his time as well.
The audition went fine. My task was to reproduce Mikey's original gestures, head movements and looks. We watched the original commercial a few times and then painstakingly rehearsed the spot. Every inflection was supposde to be an exact replica of the original. That was pretty easy for me since I had no lines but it took a while to nail down the whole thing. Finally she put it on tape. Bowl. Look. Eat. Look. Done.