December 17, 1998
I had a major audition today. This wasn't it.
As hard as it may be for the world at large to believe, having five lines on E.R. is not all it's cracked up to be. On the positive end, it would be great to tell people I was on E.R. So at parties, I could be a hit. It would also be easy for people to watch since many people watch the show already, and there would be a high number of random sightings. Much fewer people will catch me on Katie Joplin by mistake than E.R.
But if my future lies in sitcoms, and it seems increasingly that it does, then this E.R. audition was almost a diversion, an amusing side-note to my continued push forward to get on a show this year on ABC. Sure, it would be nice to have E.R. on my resume, and, of course, any job builds your connections and profile, and could be the spring board to something greater, but most likely, it would end up as just another line on my resume and an occasional fun story to tell around the dinner table.
So, given that intro, this should be where I write about how badly it went. It didn't go badly. In fact, it went pretty well. I don't think I got the job today, but it wasn't embarrassing. The one thing I was trying to be certain of was to get all of the medical jargon correct. My first two lines included the phrases, "You guys have a pulseless foot for vascular." and "We have to wait a few days to be certain the hand's adequately reprofused." Those were the keys, the linchpins. And when I performed the scene, I glided over then with ease. I was quite proud of how smoothly it all came out. But then, as the warm rush of success started to roll over my body, they asked me to do it again. They had a minor adjustment at the end they wanted me to make. So I did it again.
Or, more accurately, I did almost all of it again. The word "reprofused" was not re-uttered in that room. No word heard it come from these lips. When I got to that point in that sentence, the mind went blank. And then the blankness ended and the word "repossessed" filled the void. Now, I knew that was the wrong word so I tried to think of another one. "Repossessed" remained locked into all 34 billion of my brain cells. The only word that finally leaped in to take its place was from the previous line and so I ended up saying "restabilized" and pushing on.
Now it's silly to think that screwing up one word in two passes through a scene could keep someone from getting a job. It's almost absurd. But then, you start thinking that if everything else was equal, if it came down to me and one other gentleman who both gave good readings, then they might decide to go with the guy who didn't stumble over any of the medical terms. You never know. And it's the never knowing that's the hardest part.
Luckily, I do know. I got a little secret feedback and heard that I was simply too "soft" for what they wanted for the character. That's fine. That's probably better for me in my real life; the character was a jerk. And so it's off to Endwell for Christmas and then back into the world of sitcoms to try to convince someone that I'm really a funny guy. No, really, I am. C'mon, I'm serious. No, wait, I mean, I'm funny. Oh damn.