So, when my wife and I moved to our current city, it was early-to-mid-recession. Therefore, in a rather creative attempt to find work, among all the other places I applied, I figured why not submit my info to a casting agency? Until better work comes along (which it eventually did), why not hang out as an extra or something in one of the productions slowly raising our burg (or at least, the look of out burg) in the nation's film-and-TV-watching consciousness?
I never heard so much as a peep from the casting agency with which I signed up, until after I found other work. Since then, I've received the occasional email from them, mostly for roles that seem just slightly off of the information I gave them (for an older guy with their own kids, when I have yet to have my first child; the wrong ethnicity; roles for someone with -I paraphrase here- "rugged, but not perfect good looks", and who wants to think of their look that scrupulously for something they're not going to do?). Sometimes, the information has been just carelessly off: roles for moms or grandpas.
But sometimes, just sometimes, the role they sent me was so wildly off of anything not only that I could portray, but that anyone would expect to portray, that I had to hold onto the email. The classic one was a role posted for "Little Person [which I am not] MALE", with the description of the role reading, in total: "MUST BE ABLE TO SWIM.".
My greatest concern is what on earth they were planning to do to whatever little people responded to the role posting. Sure, maybe some fluffy piece on how we're all the same in the water. But something in the all-caps tone of the description prompted me to worry that the role might be in some drunken college flick where they toss (forgive the term: I'm trying to illustrate the idiotic mindset) "midgets" in an alligator-infested moat in the background, to see if the average watcher of that kind of crap can tear his eyes away from the "Girls Gone WILD!" in the foreground of the frame.
Never did I find out what happened with that role. And maybe, now that I'm publicly mentioning it, I won't hear about any other roles. Or maybe they'll only send me the weird ones from now on.
In any event, it was the email I received today about a role that prompted me to write this blog entry: It was entitled simply "Overweight [again, which I am not] Man", but the description read, "Male, white, 40-50 years [also, which I am not]. Interesting face and features. Will be naked and bouncing on a trampoline for the shoot. Scars, tattoos, piercings okay."
I don't know whether to be deeply offended at the assumption that I am any of the things NOT listed in my description to them when I signed up; or deeply concerned for the poor, naked, obviously being-laughed-at-for-his-weight person who responds to this.
In any event, rest assured I will not be naked and bouncing on a trampoline any time soon. Well, not at the same time, anyway. Talk about rug burn…
For those of you who are just getting to know my writings over the Inter-Muh-Nets™ and don't know what I look like, you're welcome for the (partially) spared visual. For those who do know what I look like, sorry, but I can't pay for your therapy to remove that image. And for those who go searching for pictures online, prompted by anything in the last few paragraphs, I don't need your web traffic, sicko!
(Says the guy who brought it up…).
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