Living the Dream...

GOOD LORD.  My dog is lying by my feet and the bitch just farted something nasty.  The stink has hit me like a brick wall.  My eyes are watering and I think I am feeling slightly dizzy.  Good God.  What the hell have we been feeding you??  PU.

So the other day I was offered a part in an indie film that I never auditioned for.  I thought to myself, "Well, isn't that nice."  I've been in that casting office before, and I worked with that director a couple years ago, and my agent knows one of the producers.  But I thought to myself, "Am I hot shit now or what?"

Um...Apparently NOT.  It's to play a fucking waitress.  No offense to waitresses.  I used to wait tables for years.  I am awesome at it even though I've been fired a bunch.  And I could play it with a realism like no other.  I thought, "Well certainly it must be a very deep, interesting, mysterious waitress of infinite wisdom who holds the key to the meaning of life or some shit."  Yeah, no.  I think she has one line.  Maybe two.  And it's nothing deeper than, "The bathroom's over there," or something equally lame.

Then I thought, "But surely, there is no way this director would offer me such a small role after the role I played in the film we worked on together."  That saying even popped into my fat head, "THERE ARE NO SMALL ROLES.  ONLY SMALL ACTORS."  Maybe this waitress calls for a very specific comedic character or something.  Maybe it'll be fun.  Maybe I'll meet some cool people.  Maybe there won't be anything going on this summer anyway because of the possible strike.  Maybe there is some higher cosmic fruity granola type reason I should do this.  Maybe-- Yeah, no.

My agent looked at the script and said, "You're not doing this."  Phew.  Fine by me.

Then I got a text.  The director couldn't understand why I passed on his film.  Implied that perhaps I'm too "big" now to take a small role, which is SO not true.  I texted him back.  Told him there was no way I was going to take someone's order for two days unless-- (made some ridiculous demands, etc.).  For about 0.1 seconds after I hit send I thought, "Uh-oh.  I might be burning some bridge or--"  Yeah, no.

The truth is I never saw the script (tho I heard it was quite good) and he didn't give me a single reason as to why he specifically wanted me to do it, which means he simply doesn't want to have to work with someone green who'll waste their time.  Boo-hoo.  I honestly hate to turn down work, but I also know myself enough to know that this would be a waste of my time and possibly extremely irritating.  It's also irritating that I think they actually had auditions for this role and couldn't find a satisfactory NYC actress who could play a waitress?!?  You gotta be kidding me.

And please do not think for a second that I think I am too "big" for anything.  That is absurd.  I might be delusional about my Kung-Fu sword fighting skills and my ability to sing death metal, but I am not nor ever will be delusional about my "star meter."  Plus, I'm sure I coulda bought an okay pair of hooker heels with the measly pay or bought my dog some fancy dogfood that doesn't make her farts make me stop, drop, and roll for dear life.  In fact, I recently did some pro bono work for a friend of mine who is developing a pilot for a very good cause, and I've worked with her and others acting in very small projects with little to no budgets.

I just believe that if something doesn't feel right, and you know a situation is only gonna piss you off, unless it's going to adequately compensate you for the time and pain, it's just not worth it.  I feel extremely happy about being in a place where I can feel that way because I earned it.  The old fashioned way.

--Ming Ming