March 20, 2002
There was something off about this audition from the start. For one, I didn't know about it. I happened to stop by my agent's office this afternoon and, after mentioning I had no auditions today, they mentioned that I did have one. I had gotten the sides about a week ago with a note saying "producers read to come." Well, it had come. No one had told me.
I went home and found the material and prepared a little something. They moved my audition time to the end of the session so I had an extra hour to prepare. Little did I know, I would have much more time to prepare. Despite my 3:30pm audition time, I found myself still waiting to audition as 4pm passed by, then 4:30, then 5. At this point, the last person before me went in to audition. She seemed to know the people in the room and spent a fair amount of time chatting. Then she finally auditioned. Then she finally left. Then I was finally told, "Just a second." Then I could hear the producers talking about the people who had come in to read today, which they did for about ten minutes. It was just me sitting in the waiting room, waiting to audition, and they decided to take a break from reading people.
I finally went in at 5:15, nearly two hours after my call time. I performed the first two scenes and then they stopped me. This guy, DONALD, is described in the breakdowns as "dim but enthusiastic and well-intentioned." Apparently I wasn't playing him "dim" enough. "Just clear his head completely," was the note. And so I did. I made him a super moron. I then did all the scenes as Captain Moron and they laughed a little here and there. But not only was I dumb, but then the whole thing seemed dumb. Donald has a kid, and a normal life. This isn't the TV-version of I Am Sam for goodness sake.
Whatever. I think I was just too beaten down by the nearly two-hour
delay to really have fun with it.