This Will Only Hurt a Little(42)

My auditions were going pretty well, even though I kept getting really close on things and then not getting the part. Weirdly, auditions have always been one of my favorite things. Many actors hate them, or say they hate them. But I love it. When you’re an actor for hire, you don’t get a lot of chances in your daily life to act. And I LOVE ACTING. So, to me, there’s nothing better than going into a room with someone’s material and getting the chance to perform it. It’s fun, or at least it should be. And look, most of the time, you’re not going to get the part. That’s just statistics. But if you can let go of that expectation, then you can just enjoy the actual doing of the thing you love.

I auditioned many times for an independent movie called Home Room about two girls becoming friends after surviving a school shooting. Mass school shootings were a relatively new concept. Columbine had only happened a year and a half earlier. Erika Christensen was cast as well. She was coming off her part in the movie Traffic and was very highly sought after. To be honest, I think the writer/director was hoping to get a bigger name for my part, but after all the actresses he offered it to turned it down, he offered it to me.

It was emotionally really difficult. Independent films often have a shorter shooting schedule than bigger-budget movies, and many times you only get one day off a week. That was the case with Home Room. The subject matter wasn’t easy either, not to mention that my character’s backstory was that she had a baby when she was fifteen that died. I mean. I was in a terrible mood most of the month we were shooting, exhausted and sad and panicky, and Emily was just about over it.

Colin was in England working on the Band of Brothers TV show and as soon as I wrapped, I went over to see him for Thanksgiving. I was only there a few days, but it was so much fun. We ate yakisoba noodles (I’d never had them before, and I don’t know, they made an impression on me), he introduced me to a new band that hadn’t hit the U.S. yet called COLDPLAY (I’m not kidding), and we hung out with all the guys and their wives and girlfriends from the show and had a big Thanksgiving feast together. (I packed Stovetop stuffing in my suitcase and felt like a real hero.)

Right after the holidays, I was offered another movie for MTV, a terrible “comedy” called Spring Break Lawyer. But it was a job and I needed the money and it was being offered, so I couldn’t turn it down.

Finally, pilot season started again, and I went out for everything. This time, I was getting asked to test for a ton of them. I tested for nine pilots that year, and every single one of them I went to studio and network. That’s an absurd amount, just so you know. That’s eighteen of the most high-pressure auditions you can go through as an actor. And every single time, I thought, “THIS IS THE ONE.”

Of all the shows I tested for that year, I can remember two of them very clearly. One of the pilots was called Close to Home, and I was testing to be the best friend of the main girl. In the script, the writers had written in what songs would be playing over the scenes, and it was all the same indie rock that my roommate from college Diana and I listened to nonstop. So in my audition, I commented on the music. It was a writing team, a guy and a girl who seemed like they were adults but were probably just a few years older than me. The guy writer smiled when I brought up the music. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s me. I like to put the music in so you can get a feel for the tone of the show.”

I didn’t get the part, but at least they knew I had good taste.

Another pilot that season was called The Education of Max Bickford. It was starring Richard Dreyfuss and I was testing to play his daughter. It was between me and an actress named Katee Sackhoff, but I was positive this was my part, not hers. Turns out I was wrong. I still remember the phone call I had with my agent Greg, “Honestly, Biz, they said you were wonderful. They said you both were. They said it was basically an arbitrary decision. It could have been either one of you.”

It was ARBITRARY? WHAT THE FUCK? It didn’t FEEL ARBITRARY TO ME, FUCKERS. I was heartbroken. I sobbed and sobbed. I called Colin, who was working on another movie. He couldn’t believe it and said he was so sorry.

The premiere for the Kirsten Dunst movie was actually that night, but it turned out he’d be stuck at work, so he said I could just skip it if I didn’t feel like going without him. But I thought, “No. This is what we do. We don’t get parts sometimes and life goes on.” So I got dressed up and went.

At the after-party, Emily and I were getting some vodka sodas when Katee Sackhoff walked up to say hi. I couldn’t believe she was there, but I hugged her and congratulated her on the part. She was so excited: this was her very first show. And I was happy for her, really. It’s just that I was sad for myself. I knew I had been good. I’m a good actor. And I knew I was supposed to be doing this. So why was it so fucking hard to get a job? What was it about me that wasn’t enough? Or maybe, more accurately, what was it about me that was TOO MUCH? I didn’t know how to be anything other than what I was. What if no one wanted that again? What then?

I am not a quitter. I don’t quit anything. All I could do was continue to audition and have meetings. Colin was working nonstop and I was seeing him less frequently. Not because he didn’t want to see me, but truly, his schedule was crazy and he was so tired. Jake Kasdan, my director from Freaks and Geeks, gave him the lead in his movie Orange County. I auditioned for Jake too, but didn’t get a part in it. WHAT ELSE IS NEW?!