The Audition

Auditions always have made me nervous. Funny enough… I’m not even the one having the auditions and yet, I still feel butterflies in my stomach. Go figure.

Ben applies for an average of twenty five or so jobs a day. Of those jobs, Ben gets to audition for about one a week. So to be clear, out of seven hundred job submissions in a month, Ben gets to audition for maybe four jobs. No wonder I’m so anxious about them.

Getting an audition is difficult enough, but then add the hundreds (or thousands) of people auditioning for the same role and suddenly it seems impossible to land any role. On top of that, sometimes he drives all the way out to the audition, only to find out that the role is not something he’s comfortable with. The script is riddled with profanity, or the character is a total scumbag that objectifies women. A couple times, when we first got here, he walked in for an audition, saw the script, and walked right back out.

Now he has started to ask clarifying questions, before driving all the way to LA. Being careful about what he applies for, submitting for literally everything possible, within reason, and tireless persistence have paid off, though; thankfully, he has been able to successfully book a few jobs.

My job is pretty easy for live auditions… I am responsible for being supportive, regardless of how he felt it went. That’s pretty easy, because I think he’s amazing.

Sometimes, though, they don’t want to bother with live auditions, and Ben needs to send in a self-taped audition. Oh, the self-tape. I am not a fan. My job is much more difficult. Suddenly, when Ben needs to self-tape, I become a prop.

Last week, for example, Ben had to send in an audition for the role of a man who was angry at his wife when dinner wasn’t ready for him when he came home from work. So, with me as a wife prop, we filmed this audition.

In his acting class, Ben has learned to “live truthfully in imaginary circumstances.” In this circumstance, I did my best to sound like my truthful wife self, but in a world where I spent lots of time and money irresponsibly, and Ben did his best to be utterly upset and angry at me. Apparently the acting classes are doing a good job, because he did a very believable job. So much so that I started to wonder how truthful this audition really was.

Thankfully, Ben was very careful to prep me beforehand for his “angry voice” (which I have hardly ever witnessed… I mean ever), and after he filmed, he made sure to tell me how amazing I am. Even still… I made a concerted effort that day to have dinner ready on time. And I might have helped myself to some chocolate therapy as well. 

Another time Ben needed to film himself playing tennis. That time, I was in charge of throwing the tennis balls at the same spot over and over again so he could show off his amazing forehand, backhand, or overhead shots. After each throw, I was ducking and dodging to make sure I wasn’t the victim of a tennis ball to the face. I mean, he never hit it close to me… but with how hard he was hitting it, I wasn’t taking any chances. 

Another thing about the self-tape… where to film. It is so difficult finding a good spot to film. The background has to be a certain color, he needs good lighting, and there has to be a place for Ben to mount his camera. We got new curtains for our room in a color that is acceptable but the lighting is kind of hard. At some point we will invest in professional lights, but until then… we improvise. 

Sometimes he films at the kitchen table, and all the kids are shooed off to their room to play while filming is in progress. Once we checked out a study room in the library. Another time, Ben took down the painting off our bedroom wall, brought in a couple extra lamps, and turned on the tv for the extra lighting. Then he balanced a chair on the desk, put his camera on top of that, and filmed himself while kneeling up on our bed. 

While there are certainly challenges, one of the nice things about self-tapes is that I get to help out by offering my perspective on what is working and what is not; I’m kind of like the assistant director on the set, which I enjoy. Also, Ben can film himself as many times as he’d like, and then send in the best shot. The quality of the audition is definitely good by the time he’s done.

That said, when he’s done filming, the camera roll on his phone looks like mine does when my toddler gets to it… screen after screen after screen of the exact. same. shot. He’s a perfectionist, in many ways, so it’s not uncommon for him to spend hours getting it just right.

There is a sort of nervous excitement, then, after any audition… whether it’s one he drove to L.A. for and only got one shot at, or one we spent hours to film before we felt good enough to finally submit it. And at the end of the day, I love being a part of his work, in my human prop, ball-girl, assistant director, kind of way… or sometimes simply as his biggest fan.