Read-Thru -- Monday, July 23
Awesome.
This job can be so much fun. Sure, all we did today was read the first two scripts, but it's a funny show with talented people. Everyone seems friendly & interesting. The part is cool. It's close by. They had free bagels. When things go well, they go really well.
But let's back up a bit.
Our story begins, as many stories do, on a tropical island in the British West Indies. My friend Nicole and I were two in a party of twelve people that convened on the small island of St. Bart's for the passing of the new year. In that party was Bill Lawrence, the talented creator of a little show called Spin City, and soon to be the talented creator of a new show called Scrubs. What magical event happened on that trip? Well, none, really. We all just hung out and ate and drank and played games and celebrated the arrival of 2001. It was significant, however, in that it was the first time I really got to hang out with Bill.
Our story continues, as many stories also do, high in the hills above Hollywood Boulevard. I was over at Bill's house with Nicole and her boyfriend, Derek, and we got to watching this pilot of his that had been picked up for the fall. It was called Scrubs and it was very funny. Almost as an after-thought as I walked out the door, Bill casually mentioned a role on one of the first shows.
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"Not regularly, but I do on occasion," I replied.
"I've this part I was thinking about for you. He's a smoker, though."
Compromising years of anti-tobacco teachings, I assured Bill I could pull off having a cigarette on camera without coughing out a lung on every take. It seemed like such an odd reference. What could possibly come of this?
A few weeks later, my phone rang and my agent gave me the news: I got the job. No painstaking audition process, no grueling callbacks, no uncomfortable waiting rooms, just a job, plain and simple. I like it that way. Why couldn't they all be as simple?
And so today I sat in a hospital meeting room and read the role of Will Forte, heavy smoker with a lung disease, possibly cancer. Talk about your comic material. And yet it was funny. The whole show was funny, as was the following episode, which I sat and listened to as they read away. It's an amazing start to the Fall 2001 TV season.
Go on to Day 1