July 20, 2000
Woke up this morning, finished preparing the scenes. Felt good. The material was a little challenging, but as I was finalizing how I wanted to do it, I really started to feel good about it.
Drove over to Disney, ran lines in the car. Felt good. I had everything pretty well down and was finding a couple of nuances that I could add.
Walked to the office building, enjoyed the beautiful morning. Felt good. I felt strangely calm. i would have expected, after such a long absence from regular auditioning, mush more nervousness, but I was really beginning to feel "right" about this one.
Signed in to audition, looked at the material. Felt bad. Trouble. I had prepared 2 of the 3 scenes that had been faxed to me, but they were the wrong two. Lots of work wasted on one scene, and no work invested in another. I had never even read it out loud. I scrambled and tried to piece something together. This, suddenly, did not feel so "right."
Got called on to read, decided to defend myself. Felt a surge of confidence and entitlement. "I actually prepared a different scene," I presented. "That's fine. We can do whatever scene you've got," came the response. It was that simple. I can't believe that I would ever not ask, but depending on the day of the week, I know myself well enough to know that I might have just clammed up, and then stunk it up. But today I took a little charge of my life. Felt good.
Auditioned for the role, squeezed a couple of laughs out of them. Felt great. This material has been performed in front of them hundreds of times in the past month or two. They've probably seen it all. My goal was to create a few interesting, specific moments without losing the character. A couple of honest chuckles later i felt I had really accomplished that. Felt fabulous.
Spoke with my agent a couple of hours later, found out I didn't get it. Felt robbed. It would have been nice to let ABC take a look at it. They've been trying to cast this part for so long, they've got to give somewhere. I could have done a good job with it.
Then again, I wasn't perfect for it. When it clicks, it really snaps
into place. The Hanleys and Oh
Grow Up were locks. This one had a little "swimming
upstream" feel to it. I just need another lock. It's out there.
I can get it. I still feel good.