Auditioning To Be Myself

I was waiting in a room with three midgets, two police men, and a dozen guys who were each auditioning to play the part of me. Welcome to Hollywood.

I had come west from Boston feeling cocky and self-assured. I was about to leave college, a big shot, well known and liked on campus. Although through high school I was mousy and shy, I had found my element in college.

So after a few years, I thought, it was time to move on. Take up my writing skills, my acting skills, my just-generally-being-likable skills and go where they can be put to good use. Get this big fish out of this little pond.

Los Angeles! The lights! The sounds! The people driving incredibly fast in their incredibly expensive cars! The sea of unfamiliar faces! The vast, unending and incomprehensible urban sprawl! The everyday reminder that most of the city is much more successful than you are! The alienation! The seclusion! The rapid deflation of dreams and aspirations!

I wanted my little pond back.

I realized right away how inconsequential my previous achievements were. Had I tried to tell them to anybody, it would have been a disaster. "Oh, you won a little award for your writing at your school? That's cute. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go make a major motion picture that will be seen by millions worldwide."

For as much as I had entertained the idea of being discovered while idly sipping a frappe at a local soda shoppe, I realized I would have to work to get where I wanted. And I wasn't even sure what it was I wanted to do. I knew it involved fame, somehow, and the cover of "People" magazine. I wanted to be known by my first name and make the talk-show circuit. Beyond that, I wasn't sure.

So off I went to the last great abuse of labor in this country: the internship.

Don't let the fancy title fool you. It's really not that exciting. I had two internships, working me full days for most of the week. Although I didn't get paid in either, I was supposed to learn valuable lessons and make connections. And I can honestly say, if I hadn't done these internships, I would not know nearly as much about the intricacies of the modern xerox machine. Collating, stapling, three hole punching… that baby can do it all.

In honestly, I can't say I was met with any hostility at my internships. There was nobody out to get me, and everybody was very helpful. But they also had important jobs to do, and keeping the intern entertained wasn't high on their priority list. Mostly I had to wait around until something was required of me.

One such internship was at a production company, Dakota Films, where some of my favorite comedies were being produced. By the time I began, though, those comedies were no longer on the air, and the studio was working on a pilot with Bob Saget and a Animal-House-type Sorority show for MTV.

One highlight, however, was John Henson, who after a hot streak hosting cable TV's "Talk Soup" was developing his pilot for ABC. He, and his writer friend Bix, would wander around the office, being much more amusing than I could be. I had told people in the office I was a comedy writer, and that I had done stand-up comedy, but with professionals roaming around cracking a joke became dangerous business. After boasting about your basketball skills, would you really want to take Michael Jordan one-on-one?

So I was friendly and helpful and, I'm sure, mostly unremarkable. I was pretty sure my impression on the office was fairly minimal. I would just continue to make coffee, clean dishes, run off photocopies of the different scripts. Sometimes, I'd sneak a peek at them, or run off a copy to bring home. I figured if I wasn't actually writing TV Shows yet, I could certainly learn a thing or two by osmosis.

And that's when, in the script for John Henson's pilot, I noticed there was a familiar character. An overly helpful, if a tad naive, intern. A kid earnestly trying to do his best to please. I was pretty sure the character was based on me. After all, they had named him Opus.

The next week was tortuous. Nobody had spoken to me about the part, and I didn't want to bring it up, and seem presumptuous. I would hover nearby, acting casual, when talk of casting came up. I would try to bring conversations around to my many accomplishments whilst acting in college. But nobody took the bait.

It wasn't until a few weeks later, when much of the casting had already been done, that somebody brought it up to me. They actually called me at home, asked me to come in on a day off, and audition. The part wasn't large, two scenes totaling a half a dozen lines, but I wanted to nail it. I asked Bix, the writer, how I should play the part in the audition.

"Opus," he replied, "we wrote the part after you. Just be yourself."

Which wasn't exactly accurate. I needed to be who they thought I was, and before that I didn't even think they knew I existed. I practiced my lines in front of the mirror endlessly, in funny voices, accents, backwards, trying to get the perfect delivery for the part of Opus the Intern.

When I came in for the audition, everybody in the office wished me well, and I sat to wait in the waiting room. One by one, more people started showing up.

Immediately, I began to notice something. These guys were around my age, or at least were actors who could look my age. They all had an unkempt quality to them, many had horn-rimmed glasses or tussled hair. One went so far as to have his shirt half-untucked. All of them clutched portions of scripts that said at the top, in big magic markered letters, "Opus".

I began to wonder what sort of casting call went out to fill the part of me? How did they break me down to explain what sort of actors they were looking for? Judging by the people surrounding me, they asked for "geeky." I wasn't exactly offended - it was just a curious situation. In a room with a dozen guys who were supposed to be like me.

Wait a minute - there were more than a dozen guys here. They kept coming in. A few people came for other parts, like the cop part (they arrived in their own costumes) and the midget part. And there was some call for "angry-looking woman" because there was four or five of them. But mostly, there were Opuses. Opii? Me's. Around 20 of me. There weren't enough chairs for all of me. I knew I would have to audition for the part, but I didn't realize there would be such stiff competition.

The casting people were taking a long time setting up, and I began to squirm in my chair. Knowing the office well, I had liberated myself a soda from the fridge, and it has raced through my system directly to my bladder. I really had to go to the bathroom, but I didn't want to miss anything if I were to leave - and I was afraid of losing my seat to a cop or a midget. You can't really ask either of those to move - too much fear or guilt, respectively.

They passed out clipboards with little forms on them, for us to fill out - vital stats, height, weight, if we were union. I was suddenly stuck with the unfortunate task of filling out my name. I had to put "Opus Moreschi" right on top but didn't want any of the other Opuses (Opii?) to notice. I leaned to the side, away from the Opus to my left and hopefully out of view of the Opus standing to my right. I filled in my name quickly and folded the paper.

I was entirely fearful of these actors around me knowing that I was the real Opus. I didn't want them angry at me - these were my colleages! My future peers! We were all acting buddies, I didn't want any enemies among them, just because I had an advantage.

Somebody from the office walked by. My heart began to pound.

"Today's the big audition, huh?" They asked.

"Yup," I said.

"Well, good luck!"

Okay. Good. They didn't use my name. I was still safe.

"Hey, Opus!"

I turned quickly, and saw the flash of a Polaroid camera. Dora pulled out the photo and began blowing on it.

"This is going onto the bulletin board!" she exclaimed, walking into the office.

"You work here?" the Opus on the left asked

"Um, yeah…" I answered, sweating.

The Opus nodded, and I felt exposed. I began to study the paper I had written on, afraid to look up at all of the Opuses (Opii?) who would surely be staring at me.

Five more people from the office passed by to wish me luck. All of them called me by name. I was slinking further down in my chair, as if poor posture might make me invisible to the eyes watching me.

Finally, the casting person appeared.

"Okay," She said, cheerfully, "First, we're going to do the part of Opus, and our first auditioner is… Opus!"

Well, so much for subtlety, I thought, as I blushed and left the waiting room. The woman asked for my headshot. Headshot? I don't have a headshot! I'm doomed! I have no headshot!

"It's okay," said Bix, sitting behind a table with the producers and casting people, "He doesn't need one".

It took all of 15 seconds. I read my lines, which had to do with cleaning up John's dressing room after a monkey went wild in there. I tried my best to act like me, or rather, act like I may have acted if I wasn't incredibly nervous about the two dozen guys vying for the part of me, the 7 people all judging me, and the amount of worry I had put into acting like me.

I didn't get the part.

I was helping out on the set when the Opus came in. He looked sort of like Beck, with hair in his eyes. Somebody had told me they worked with him before, and that he was a really nice guy. Somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.

I couldn't blame them, really. This was a pilot, this was the show they sent to the network to try to sell the series. Everything about this had to be perfect - if it wasn't, the series wouldn't ever make it to air. They couldn't put some friend on the air just for fun. But, of course, it still hurt.

The scenes got shot, fairly uneventfully. There was some zany mix-up when somebody asked for Opus to help with something, and the director thought they meant the other one, and we all had a good laugh. And then I went home and hung myself.

Well, of course not. But it was a blow to the ego - I had come to Hollywood to act and write and be a star, and I had failed at the one thing that should have come easiest to me. I couldn't even play myself. I was ready to give up, to return home. I could continue to do children's theatre, and stand up comedy to rooms of 10 or 15 of my friends. At least those audiences weren't too critical.

I swear I didn't have any bad feelings for the show. But there was some sense of relief when ABC decided not to pick it up. At least there wouldn't be some Beck-looking guy on the air every week, watering down my name. Perhaps, maybe, there's a chance, that if they had used somebody else for that part, the whole series would have gone up. There's no way of knowing.

I'm going to stick it out, though, at least for a while. I'm not really any closer to my dreams. I did get some headshot, though, and I've written a few things. I've remained in touch with Bix, the writer, in hopes that his guilt over the situation may someday translate into a favor. And I'm still dreaming of the cover of People magazine, and the guest slot on the talk shows. When I get there, I know I'll have a really good story to tell.