Sunday, July 31, 2011

Drag Me to Hellywood.

So, after staying up all Saturday night, eating cereal and watching this, minus the yuletide (I know I'm not the only one watching "Jennifer Day TV")—



—there's only one thing I wanted to do on Sunday morning. Take a guess.



Before John made coffee.
What? You said go to the "Magnus Rex" open casting call in L.A.? High five, psychic friend, because that's exactly what we did. John made the coffee, I packed the sammies, and we set out to join the thousands who queued up at the Sportmen’s Lodge Event Center in Studio City in the hope of securing a role for the tentatively titled Warner Bros. film shooting locally in August. And because I feign professionalism and actually care that the casting directors requested that we not refer to the film by its real name, I won't say it, but you know the one. It's got Christian Bale in it.

That's right—American Psycho 3: Megalodon.

I myself wasn't trying to snag a role; I tagged along to support my husband, who is a massive comic book geek and, as it stands, an actor and voiceover artist when he isn't busy making his own films. And it's seriously been a busy month for him, wrapping up the AOF Festival, shooting an advert, and now preparing his short The Timeslip for the Angeleno Film Festival in October.

The 101 fwy. helped John perfect his "intense" face.
But most men living in the Greater Los Angeles area would open up their schedules to appear in a comic book film. Unless it was Aquaman. And John was no exception, putting on his best suit to get his photo taken and throw his name (and headshot and resume) in the hat for a chance to be a part of a 2012 blockbuster film that, judging by the working title, I thought was the sequel to the runaway hit Jonas Hex. Which, you know, studios are fighting each other to make.

Here are some things I learned from today's casting call:

  • Not all industry people are jerkoffs. I've worked for one, so I'm a bit disillusioned, but the women who run Smith & Webster-Davis are true ladies. I arrived a skeptic and left a fan. 
  • The biggest mouths give themselves away as the posers. Actors at John's usual auditions are always quietly preparing, not name-dropping, loudly referencing SAG or obnoxiously letting the rest of us know how "inside" they are—as they're waiting with the rest of us in a thousand-strong queue.
  • Arriving at 4 a.m. as planned would've been a huge waste of time. The casting call started at 10 a.m., we arrived at 11:30, and we were back on the 101 by 2 p.m. John was number 748 in the queue, which moved quickly. When I gave my number back to the man passing them out, he looked at me as if I had farted in his face. Thanks seƱor, but no quiero Taco Bell. My acting would make Kim Kardashian eligible for the Irving Thalberg award.