Looks like I returned from Utah just in time. I got back from filming Zack & Reba yesterday and received a call from Maggie at Jeff Greenberg's office this morning. It appears the recasting of The Naked Truth has hit a snag. They have decided to go younger with one of the characters. Harris, originally described as 25-50 years old would now be played by someone closer to John Ducey's age. Good old Cathy Reinking was all over that one.
The audition piece was not easy. It was mostly a monologue, rattling off information that Harris has dug up on Tea Leoni's character. I had worked on it as the typical snide David Spade/Chandler Bing kind of guy and went in there intent on doing just that. But when the words started coming out of my mouth, this Harris of mine was being very friendly, almost, dare I say, nice. And while I tried to keep the snideness for some of the snidier lines, it wasn't really how I had pictured nor practiced it. When I had finished, the producer remarked that I had given Harris a nice, outgoing quality that they really had not seen at all with other people reading. Hmmm...
And still they had me do it again with a more condescending, judging tone to my remarks about Nora's personal life. It then had that insincere quality that I originally envisioned, but the lines were not as sharp. I didn't really have a good running feeling about the overall tone of the reading, even though individual lines possessed more "color." And it was obvious. There was little to no response from the three producer-type fellows sitting in the room. I missed the mark with my tone the first time and then with my skills the second.