Category: WWdN in Exile

wil’s fundamental rule for successful auditions (or, how not to go crazy in a crazy business)

Posted on By Wil

I’m proofing the edit that Andrew and I have been working on, and something jumped out at me just now that I thought was worth excerpting here, for my fellow actors. I guess you could call it my fundamental rule for successful auditions:

I believe that actors have to find a way to enjoy themselves whether they book the job or not. We have to find ways to enjoy auditions, and as hard as it is, as counter intuitive as it is, we just can’t make success or failure about booking the job. We have to make success or failure about enjoying ourselves. We have to enjoy the process of creating the character, preparing the audition, and then giving the people on the other side of the desk whatever our take on the character is. We absolutely cannot go in there and try to give them what we think they want. The way we stand out, and the way we enjoy it whether we are hired or not, is to take the material, prepare it, and find some way to make it our own. Even if we don’t book the job (and the ratio of auditions to jobs is something like 20 : 1 for successful actors) we’ve been creative. Casting people will recognize that, and even if we’re not right for this particular job, they are more likely to bring us back in for other parts, because they’ve already seen us take a creative risk. I guess it’s kind of twisted to say that I enjoyed myself by being such an evil man, but committing to something completely, and refusing to look back until it was all over, was tremendously satisfying.

This particular excerpt is related to my audition for Criminal Minds last year, but I think it could apply to any job interview where you’re expected to be creative. I’ve been an actor for pretty much my entire life, but I didn’t figure out this really important truth until just a few years ago. Since I figured it out, I’ve had much more satisfying experiences in auditions, whether I’ve booked the job or not. I’m also more relaxed, and the whole process isn’t nearly as soul-crushing as it once was.

There is so much that’s out of our control when we audition, we need to focus on what we can control: how prepared we are, how clear our take on the character is, and how committed we are to that interpretation. I had an audition recently for a network show that everyone wants to be on. I prepared my scenes to the best of my ability, and I had a great time showing the casting people my take on the character. They sent my tape to the producers, and I didn’t get the job. They say that they really liked me, though, and they’d keep me in mind for a different role in the future. I don’t know if that’ll happen, but I know that I did not suck and I made a good impression when I read for them. This is what I set out to do, so the audition was a success, because during the small part of the process I have any control over, I did my job, and that’s all I can do. It’s all any of us can do, and if we think that we can do something more, we’ll drive ourselves crazy. We just have to get in there, do the best we can do, and let it go when we walk out of the room. In fact, I throw my sides into the nearest recycling bin as soon as I’m done, so I symbolically and literally let the whole thing go once it’s out of my hands.

This may seem like a bunch of “yeah, duh,” information, but it took me over 20 years to figure it out, so if I can help anyone else get here a little bit faster than I did, my work here is done.

one of the most awesome things i’ve ever autographed

Posted on By Wil

When I was at the Phoenix Comicon, a girl came up to me on the first day and asked me if I'd sign this present she was making for her boyfriend: a papercraft d20.

Before Assembly

She was taking it around the con and getting a few people she thought he'd like to sign it for him, and I was on the list. I needed to run around in a circle the way my dog runs around in a circle when she's excited for a biscuit, because I was just blown away by how cool this idea was, and how cool the whole thing would be when it was assembled.

I'm not sure if you can see, but I'm next to the Superman "S". I wrote, "Hope your birthday is a critical success!" Because, um, well, if I have to explain why, I don't think you could fully understand why this is one of the most awesome geek gifts ever delivered.

Here's the catch: I wasn't allowed to mention it on my blog or on Twitter, because I guess he reads them both, and his birthday was after the con. Since it's been delivered, and the images are online, I think it's safe for me to go ahead and share this, in the hopes that other boyfriends and girlfriends of geeks will do something similar. Speaking as a gaming geek, this is one of the most thoughtful, unexpected, truly awesome things one of us can get.

There's a gallery of the d20 after assembly that you can view here.

the one about that time i worked in a movie with ron jeremy. yes, that ron jeremy.

Posted on By Wil

I can't recall exactly how it came up, but I recently mentioned that I'd once worked in a movie with Ron Jeremy. This revelation was met with some interest and a look that sort of goes like this: O_o so I thought it would make an entertaining (to me, at least) post.

The movie was called Mr. Stitch. It was a weird science fiction retelling of the Prometheus myth. I play the title character, a creature who was sewn together from the parts of 44 men and 44 women. It was written and directed by Roger Avary.

Roger did Mr. Stitch right after the massive success of his film Killing Zoe, and on the heels of his Academy Award for Pulp Fiction. Everyone in the world wanted to work with him then, and he assembled a mostly incredible cast[1]. He got Ron Perlman and Nia Peeples for major roles, Taylor Negron for a small but important role, and a guy you may have heard of called Ron Jeremy for a cameo.

While Ron is very well known for his … other work … he had also worked on a few indie movies at the time, including Killing Zoe, where he played the bank manager, who was shot in the face before he could deliver a single line. Roger liked him, so he hired Ron for a scene in Mr. Stitch that I don't think made the final cut, as a military medic in a flashback.

Ron came— you know, I'm going to go ahead and rephrase that. Ron arrived in Nice about a week before his scenes were to be shot, and he hung around on the set the whole time. He was incredibly funny, very friendly, constantly falling asleep, and when asked about pretty much any porn starlet from the time would reply, "Oh yes, I've had sex with her many times." I don't know if that was actually true or not, but it always made me laugh when he said it.

Ron told me that I could visit the set of one of his … other films … when we got back to Los Angeles, and though a certain part of me thought that would be hurr hurr hurr awesome, a more rational part of me thought it would just be weird and uncomfortable, so I never availed myself of the opportunity.

I grew so much as an artist and person during the end of 1994 when I lived in Nice and worked on that film, even though many aspects of the production were miserable, it remains one of the most fondly-remembered times in my life.

[1] I say "mostly" because the other lead actor, Rutger Hauer, was an absolute nightmare to work with and almost single-handedly ruined the film.

hear me on the geek cred podcast

Posted on By Wil

I don't do many interviews (blitz of Batman interviews to make Warner Brothers happy excluded) but last week, I did an interview for the Geek Cred podcast. It was streamed live…ish on UStream, which I guess kept dropping out the entire time, and making baby jesus cry, but the whole thing is now available for download at the Geek Cred website.

It's 35 minutes long, but I think you'll be pleased if you stay until the very end, and hear me describe the geekiest thing I ever did.

from the vault: fifty-one seconds in the kitchen

Posted on By Wil

I needed to double-check a date for the final Podcasts I Love post on Saturday, so I found myself in my old blog archives yesterday afternoon. An hour later, I was surprised to discover that I had been reading my own blog for an hour. It was like I was reading something someone else had written, and I really enjoyed the stories from that particular time.

I'm not sure where you're all coming from, but there are an astonishingly huge number of recent new visitors to my little hunk of Internet, and I thought I'd share something from the vault that you probably haven't seen before:

fifty-one seconds in the kitchen

I stood in front of the open refrigerator, and scanned the shelves. Anne spoke to me from the dining room.

"What are you doing?" She said.

"I'm thinking about having a Homer Simpson," I said.

"Donuts and a beer?" She said.

I stood up, a pink box in one hand, an Arrogant Bastard Ale in the other.

"Yeah," I said. "Isn't that horrible?"

"What's horrible," she said, "is that I knew what you were talking about without looking."

I opened up the box. A glazed donut clung to one side, and a devil's food with rainbow jimmies rested next to it. The crumbs and remains of their brothers surrounded them.

"You want to join me?" I said. "There are two donuts left."

"No. That's disgusting." She said. "I think I'll have a Flaming Moe instead."

"Okay," I said, "I'll get the cough syrup."

I love this silly little short story because it tells you almost everything you need to know about me and Anne, and what we're like together. Though the idea of eating a donut totally grosses me out now, if I close my eyes, I can see myself standing in our kitchen, in front of our old refrigerator, holding that flimsy pink box so many years ago.

I'm my own worst critic, and when I look at my acting and writing work, it's hard for me to see anything other than the flaws. But there's enough distance between me and these old entries to just let them exist on their own, and accept that they were the best I could do at the time.

I liked some of the things I read yesterday so much, I'm considering polishing them up and re-releasing them in some nifty way with a bit of context and commentary. Whether that's on my blog, on a podcast, in a book, or some combination of all three is yet to be determined, but I'm putting it on my short list of Crazy Ideas That May Be Awesome, Or Just Crazy.