February 18, 1998
The writer/creator/producer of the show, Marco Pennette, came in and joined us and we set up for a little callback session. Gilda said to Marco before we started, "Don't focus on me. I'm bad. I just got started with these, so... He's good but I'm bad." That's a compliment in its unpolished form but one has to be on the lookout for even the slightest hint of approval.
We did the scene again and contrary to my track record, it was even a little better the second time around. There were less technical problems with it and Marco seemed to like what I was doing to his jokes ...for the most part. When I finished he said, "You were very good," but the line had a certain lilt to it which seemed to indicate, "Just because you are never going to hear from us about this again, don't think that you weren't very good." And so perhaps I was too young-looking. Of course, at 29, I am not actually too young, but with 25 year-olds still playing teenagers in the hormonally accelerated world of film and television, the eventual star of this show will probably be closer to 35, or at least look like he could be 35. That's the Hollywood 30.