Feelin HOT! HOT! HOT!

So I went to a callback for that show I auditioned for.  It's a brand new show.  A cool character.  Not a humongous role.  I think only two or three scenes.  But wouldn't you know, I got a message from my agent who got a message from the casting director who gave a general note to all of us that she, the character, is HOT.

Is that a note?  An acting note?  Because - as I explained in my last post - that is not an action.  I can put on more makeup and hike up my skirt, but beyond that, this is how I look and I can't change that.  Want me to act more slutty-like?  But that's not really what the scene calls for.  Maybe if she had said something like "more seductive" or "provocative dress" or "show your body," then that one can work with.  Just saying, "She's hot," is rather ambiguous.  We already knew she's hot.  That's what it said in the breakdown.  Dur.

I guess the comedienne in me just finds it so hard to resist crossing over that fine line between playing "hot" and being cheesy.  It's just very funny to me to contrive sex appeal.  In my opinion and experience, either you've got it, or you don't.  I know myself enough to know I project a certain degree of sex appeal, but I don't think about it.  I am totally comfortable with my sexuality and I love sex.  But to be honest, I feel way more like a weirdo and a freak than a sexpot most of the time. 

Like I said before, if you try to push, you look like a douche bag.  It reminds me of those two characters from SNL that Chris Kattan and Will Farrel played in the night club, bopping their heads, futzing with their coked-up noses, trying to be all smooth, pickin up the ladies.  Hilarious.  Ridiculous.  Cheesy.  Okay, okay.  I know that's an extreme, but that's what it feels like to me to "play sexy."

So I drove back from the beach.  Shook the sand off my feet.  And after I told my agent that unless she wants me not to wear jeans this time, I don't know what that note means, I put on my sexy threads, my cherry red stilettos, my blow up boobs, loads of eye make up, unbuttoned my top and smoothed out my locks.  And wouldn't you know, I flubbed my damn lines because not only did the idiot reader start before I was ready, but I just could not get this stupid voice out of my head (aka, that bitch, Third Eye Thelma), "Hot.  Hot.  Hot.  Hotter.  Not hot enough.  Don't be funny.  Resist the funny.  Nope, that's not hot.  Okay, you blew it." 

Sometimes you gotta take one step back to take another step back.  I mean, two steps forward or --- WHAT-eveR.

I usually have more command over the room and would have stopped the reader before I was ready, or just gone ahead and done it over again.  But for some reason, I didn't.  I just did what I could and left the room feeling...not so hot.  Sometimes I think mastering the balance between caring enough to make an effort and not caring so much that you put too much pressure on yourself is the real key to acting.  That, and mastering how to change your clothes in the back of a cab and applying mascara without poking out your eye.

P.S.  Jim Todd posted a comment on my last blog asking that I reveal what I really look like for a change.  SMOKIN' HOT, eh?

--Ming Ming

Comments

[JimTodd]

AHAHHAHAAHHHAHAAHHA

Yes, SMOKING hot! ahahahahahahahaaha