February 16, 2000
It's been a long haul getting here. And I'm not referring to the eight-and-a-half years of small-time plays and student films and one-line roles. I'm not referring to failed auditions and unreleased movies and canceled TV shows. I'm not referring to ugly headshots and bad agents and powerless managers. I'm simply referring to the seemingly endless journey I have taken with this pilot.
Perhaps I should have expected it. The pilot itself has been around since last pilot season, when it took five months to put a cast together. It was then shot in July, as far as I know, and ABC did not fall in love with it. Cut to this pilot season and the attempted re-casting of two of the five lead roles. Now that's a long haul.
But my long haul is of the emotional variety and starts with getting the script and deciding I didn't want to audition for it. Given the limiting premise and the long history of the show's struggles, I just felt I didn't want to be a part of the project. Then my agent received a call from an executive at ABC who really thought I should reconsider. My agent and I discussed it and came to the conclusion that it could be an interesting and rewarding experience, not to mention a hit show if some of the elements finally came together. Add to that the fact that it seemed everyone I talked to who was familiar with the script absolutely loved it. Considering it has been around for so long, there were a fair number of people who had an opinion about the show and nearly everyone was a glowing review. I guess I could be wrong.
So I went to the audition thinking that I really wanted to do it my own way or not at all. I did. They didn't appear to like it very much and I left. Then I got called back. And it was at the callback when this whole thing started to seem worthwhile. From the very beginning of the callback reading, everyone in the room was on my side. I felt like what I was doing was interesting and fun to watch and could be just the spark the show needed. That feeling never returned.
The negotiations leading up to the studio test left me feeling a bit underappreciated and unwanted. There was some comment thrown around that resembled, "We're not paying him any more money. He's not even our first choice." Now I imagine that's not really what was said nor even how it was relayed to me, but that was how I interpreted it. That's what my brain heard during the negotiating process. Maybe I should have kept more distance from it but it made me feel like I was just the extra guy they were bringing to the executives while they showed off their top choice for the role. That was not a good feeling and took me back to a place in my mind where I just didn't want to be a part of the show.
Then the studio test went fine, but it was during that reading that I realized what the biggest problem was. There was nothing between my character, MAX, and his best buddy, ROB. Nothing. Whether it was my performance or the material or simply the lack of rehearsal, it was really just me being a goofball and spewing out the words. That's what led to me stepping on the other actor's lines. I had no connection to his character. And even more frustrating, as I looked back over the sides last night, I wasn't sure how I was going to create it, or even if I could at all.
This morning they held a work session for the three actors going on to test with the network. We met at 11am at ABC and each of us took a turn rehearsing the scene with Julie Mossberg and Victor Fresco, the creator of the show. I learned then that Julie would be reading with each of us for the test. That worked to my advantage, I thought, because then I wouldn't have to be so concerned about the connection with ROB. There would be no ROB standing next to me, and the only real success I had felt with the scene was at the callback, when Julie was reading. The rehearsal was actually quite productive. We reblocked a couple of moments and worked on Julie's concept of keeping my voice from falling into the "fake" place. At the end of the fifteen-minute rehearsal, I actually felt pretty good about what I was about to do.
And then the wheels came off.
I think part of what makes this audition process feel like such a "long haul" is that all along I have always felt only a tenuous grasp of this character and what I am supposed to do with it. As I came to the realization that there was no connection between MAX and BOB, it also started to dawn on me that there was little to no connection between MAX and me. I was creating this character that seemed funny and quirky on paper, but on its feet I was always afraid people were going to see right through it. Perhaps Julie had the most insight but was kind enough to attribute it to my goofy voice. Before both the studio and network tests I have felt only a queasy uneasiness about auditioning. This was not, however, the usual butterflies.
My normal anxiety is caused by the feeling that I can do extremely well in there, and that all I have to do is relax and enjoy the role and the scene and it will all be good. On those days, the fear is that I will have a freak mental collapse and not be able to do what I know I can do. This was the opposite. I didn't "know I can do" anything. Nothing felt organic or relaxed or, dare I say, very funny. The sense was always that I was more likely to screw up than do well. I was riding this wave going from audition to audition and the freak occurrence was that they liked me. That made almost no sense to me every time I heard it.
But at 12:30 today, the wave came crashing down on the beach. I said the first line of the scene and the room gave a little chuckle. "Good, good," I thought, "this is going to go well, just like it did in rehearsal." The fourth line was also a laugh line, one of the few in the scene that I thought I could count on. And when I delivered it to this room of twenty Paramount and ABC executives, you might have thought I had just told them that Sports Night was a piece of shit. Twenty silent stone statues looked at me from their lounge chairs and I wondered what the likelihood was of an earthquake hitting in the next 75 seconds.
Death. Absolute death. I pushed ahead to try to reach the next joke to get some sort of reaction, but the only reaction occurring in that room was the chain-reaction leading to my self-destruction. As I pushed through the scene to get to the jokes, I took all of the air out from under them and guaranteed that they would also get no response from my auditors. And rest assured, they didn't. I could have had more fun eating my own pancreas than I did in that room. I delivered the last line of the scene and the second chuckle of the scene emerged from a few lips in the room, a parting shot as I picked up my pride and crawled out the door.
And all I can think is how I wished I had never gotten to this point. How did it happen? Why didn't I stand by my decision to pass on the script? Why didn't I hold out for more money? They're ridiculous questions, really, because I made the sensible decision at both junctures, but I just want to go back to one of those points in time and make everything better.
The not-so-dramatic punchline to this story is that I did not get the role. I do not know which of the other two gentlemen was cast, but I will not be playing MAX. I will not be stepping in to save the show. That task will fall onto someone else's shoulders. And I have to say the whole thing gives me such a sense of relief. This story had two possible bittersweet endings. Both getting the job and not getting the job had their pluses and minuses. All I can say now is that I am so grateful that this chapter of my life is over. And I like to think that going through the process of going to network on this show will be a huge benefit if and when I go through it again for something I really want.
In other words, the long haul is still far from over.