They say that when you have an audition, you have to walk in there like you don’t give a shit. You walk in there like you don’t give a shit, and you walk out with the part, because if you don’t give a shit, that’s when they want you.
But you’ve read the script, and it is good. So good, in fact, you fall in love with it. You fall madly, passionately, crazy in love with the script, and you’ll do anything to be one of the people chosen to bring the script to life.
You think about it all the time. You wake up in the middle of the night, imagining what it would be like to spend ten weeks on location or four seasons on the set. You get lost on your way to the post office, because you’re wondering who your competition is. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you can’t focus on anything else . . . you are in love, after all.
In the days before your audition, you do everything you can to be ready. First, you get to know your character. If you’re lucky, he’s a guy you know. Maybe he’s even you. Not the current you, usually, but still You. A younger you, a more passionate you, a more idealistic you; the You who you were before you fell in love with too many scripts and had your heart broken too many times to count . . . the you who was incapable of walking in there like you didn’t give a shit, because it felt so good to be in love. Then you learn your lines. You spend hours in your house or your apartment reading them out loud, scaring your dogs, worrying your neighbors, annoying your roommates who are sick to death of hearing about The Script. They’ve heard it all before, and you’ve made an unspoken pact among you: you don’t tell them how crushed you are when you don’t get the job, and they pretend not to notice how you wear the same clothes and drink heavily for five days after you get The Call.
The day of the audition finally comes. Your first date. Your big date. Your only date. You spend too much time putting yourself together. You carefully choose your clothes and style your hair a minimum of three different times. Maybe you spray on some cologne, because it makes you feel attractive. Maybe.
You drive to the studio, and hope your voice doesn’t break when you tell the guard that you’re going to Bungalow 15. You park, walk across the lot, and your palms sweat when you sign in. You wait for what seems like an eternity, surrounded by actors who are younger, taller, better looking than you. Actors who clearly don’t give a shit because they don’t have to. You know that they don’t love The Script like you do, haven’t put in the time that you have . . . but it doesn’t matter. You’ve been here before and you’ll be here again, long after they’ve left for location.
Your heart throbs in your chest when they call your name. You smile, take a deep breath, and stand up.
And then you walk into the room, and you’re supposed to act like you don’t give a shit.
Yeah. Right.