Getting the call

I saw a joke about what actors really do – that we sit and wait for the phone to ring. And it’s true. Unless you got cut early through the process, and if the audition even goes remotely well you believe you stand a chance. And then you wait. You check your phone obsessively, you imagine its ringing if it’s in the next room. And you wait.

By yesterday I assumed it wouldn’t happen anymore. I had auditioned for Freedom on the 6^th of March, and it was now the 30^th. Even though I got mentioned in the citizen about the strength of my audition I assumed that time had run out. I spoke to my mom as well yesterday. “It’s just not meant to be” she said. “It’s not God’s path for you”. And then today I had two missed calls from a private number on my cell phone after a workshop. But with no voicemail and no way to call back I resigned myself to the wait. And then my cell rang again.

I got the call back. Who knows what will happen afterwards, but I got the call back.

Making it into the cut.

My agent warned me, although I was not, but even as a lead character my contributions to the shoot for the advertisement might just end up on the editing room floor, figuratively speaking. Although these day its probably more like ending up in the recycle bin!

The airing of the advert my face appeared in was, alas, not as glamorous as I would have hoped. I wasn't notified beforehand that I was even in the final edit, or that the advert was airing. But my mom called me after seeing the advert on TV while I was out and told me that my face had been on TV. I might not have been sitting in front of the television set with my family and friends to watch it, but I was excited all the same and so was my family!

I'm learning, more and more, that this life is not as glamorous as one might imagine, and that what you see on TV is only so on TV, and I'm ok with that. Hopefully I can be one of those characters on TV, living life as only those on TV do!

A little bit of luck and a lot of blessings.

My first audition, comprised of an hour and a half trip to Sandton and a 2 hour wait before being seen. After this I was photographed, gave my name, my age, my agent, turne the left, turned to the right, smiled and showed the camera my hands. After 4 years of studying drama, neither the Meisner technique nor Stanislavski was going to help me get this part.

2 days later I got a phone call from my agent. A callback was on the cards. This consisted of another 3 hour round-trip to Sandton and back, but this time i was asked to look busy with various loavs of bread and then raise my hand. At least this time I was given an intention.

A week's wait later and the amazing phone call came. I was going to be in my first advertisement. I went to my next casting call feeling like a professional. I had gotten my first job already hadn't I and I was now a professional actress.

I was heareded into a room with 20 other hopefulls, mostly tall lean, model looking types who ate in a week what I ate in a day, and told to look like I was getting cold. I didn't make it past the first round.
Which is, I suppose, the fickle nature of our industry, and what keeps us all striving and trying!