January 17, 2001
"Be even more mad than you were planning on being."
After I had done the first of the two scenes, that was the advice that Allison offered. It concerned me a little because my anxiety about this audition had been that I don't always feel comfortable playing big anger. I think the problem is that in my real life, I seldom reach a boiling point where I am exploding at anybody, so I am shooting for something outside of myself. I had even toyed with the idea of playing a more controlled anger in the second scene (the blow-up scene) but after that suggestion I knew I couldn't go that way with it and have any hope.
What came out? I felt there was a nice, steady build of anger through most of the scene. I did start to explode a little and it felt like it was going well. And then we reached the final breaking point of the character in the last speech and especially the last sentence and I hit it. And when I say I "hit it" I mean hit it with a carnival-sized sledgehammer. I gained towards the end but took a slight break before the final line, and I think most of room thought I was about to forget it. There seemed to be a general relaxation right before I said it, the relaxation that comes when an audition is over. But then I let them have it. It was a top-of-my-lungs, fiery-anger, go-for-the-jugular scream at my little brother, Johnny Knoxville, to give me back my badge. Everyone sat at attention. No the scene was not yet over.
As I gathered myself and gave them a smile, Allison thanked me with a
slight look of shock on her face and I heard one of the other people
in the room say, "Well, that'll scare 'em." And if they
remember nothing else form the audition, let them remember that I
could certainly take direction.