January 7, 1999
I did the best I could, gosh darn it.
It was the kind of role I can pretty much play with my eyes closed: easy-going, friendly, big smile, mid-Western guy in a sitcom. So I did all that stuff to the best of my ability. Will that be enough? Probably not. The character is supposed to be an old classmate of Caroline's, who plays about 35 on the show. I've seen 35, sir, and I'm no 35. That would be a stretch. So I would have to really be head-and-shoulders better than all the other 35-looking guys coming in to read for it. Given the audition scene, that was impossible. There were virtually no jokes and a surprising amount of standing around while other people talked. The second of the two audition scenes, which had more interesting dialogue and even a joke or two, never saw the light of day.
One thing working against me may have been that when I showed up,
everybody else had come and gone and they were on a mini-break
waiting for me. I imagine that in that time they decided who was the
best candidate from all the other actors and if I didn't put in a
better Scene One than that guy, there was no use seeing Scene Two.
And so it goes.