The Commercial Casting Fail

Well holy moly it has been a long time since I’ve blogged anything more than a few words and a photo. I must apologise for my tardiness! The time has now come however, to turn my attentions back to MyLittlePonderings and share my thoughts, feelings and musings with you all once again.

Today I am going to share the simple tale of The Commercial Casting Fail and I share it with you as I’m pretty sure I’m not alone and many actors out there have experienced the unforgiving nature of these auditions!

The magical call from your agent saying you have a commercial audition that you perfectly suit the breakdown for is one most actors can’t fail to get excited by. Sure, we all might have a grumble…”It’s not really acting, is it?!”, “Ooo my big break” or “How embarrassing” are phrases that have passed my lips when telling friends or family. However, the truth is, it’s work! These days, it often means travelling abroad, good exposure and a lot of fun! Plus, commercials are usually really, REALLY well paid work too. So why wouldn’t we get excited?!

Well, because quite honestly the “Commercial Casting” can be closely compared to a “Meat Market”. You line up, have your photo taken, look at the sides (script/direction), wait with a room full of people who all sort of look like you but then also who look nothing like you and then…PERFORM!

I always try to “dress for the part” as much as reasonably possible but for my casting on Monday, I was given very strict instructions by my agent to dress as beautifully as possible, as if I were attending a wedding. And in fairness to them, on the forwarded emails from the casting company, these were the guidelines given.

I had nothing appropriate with me as I’d just been on a weekend trip to the Lake District where I’d lived in muddy riding boots and my North Face Gilet! So I went out and bought a dress, shoes, the whole she-bang-bang. However, when I arrived at the casting, all the other “meats” were dressed in jeans, t-shirts, leather leggings and generally looking pretty trendy and chilled. I felt like a complete idiot (to say the least) and probably looked like an even bigger one! To add insult to injury, the casting director asked me, “what were you told to dress as?”, I meekly replied to which she laughed and said, “oh right, that’s weird, well you do look nice”…..!

I then had to act alongside a guy wearing Hawaiian shorts (NO I am not joking) and a VEST (it hadn’t stopped raining at this point for 3 weeks!) who’s role was to propose and I cry tears of happiness and accept, he then runs around with joy. Well! This guys idea of extremely happy was to say “woo” and then high five me…. WOULD THAT REALLY BE YOUR REACTION?! Two minutes later, I’m on my way home.

Needless to say, I didn’t manage to summon up tears of happiness (although tears of humiliation were close by) and I’ve not heard back from the Casting Director. Sigh.I managed to return the dress though…Every cloud!