recently, i had the great pleasure of shooting a short film with director kira trinity, costar michael barrett austin, and a posse of wonderful people associated with san francisco’s scary cow film collective. i wish i could share a photo of myself from the shoot, but that’s going to have to wait until the film is released. it’s called “waiting room” and i play…wait for it…gay jesus. as an actor who happens to be a heterosexual atheist, that’s about as good as it gets.
so how did i find myself attached to this incredible project, looking nothing short of fabulous (thank you lindsey and shannon!) on a sunday (!) a few weeks ago? i had answered a casting call posting on sfcasting.com back in december of 2012 looking for someone to play jesus as a flamboyantly gay character. thinking my long hair might at least get me an audition, i submitted via the sfcasting site. the hair did get me an audition, but once i read the sides, i realized that i could really have a lot of fun with this part…and so i told myself “you’re going to get this one.” i went to the audition. i nailed it. or so i thought, anyway. but, as so many of these things go, i didn’t hear back for a while and thought that maybe i hadn’t done as well as i thought i had. or that someone else had done much better. or maybe several people had totally killed it and i had overestimated my performance. you know, all the shit actors think about after the audition is done. head games.
Advance poster for the short film “Waiting Room”
but then i got a callback. phew, i thought. and so i prepped the five pages of sides again and went in ready to kill. however, when i arrived, i learned that apparently there had been additional pages of the script sent to the callback actors. pages i never received. oh, but the other jesus sure did. i could hear him—confidently reciting lines i’d never seen before—as i waited for my turn. my confidence was waning with each new line i heard coming through the closed door. and then i was called in. i apologized for not having seen the new script pages (an sfcasting snafu, it turns out), introduced myself to the actors auditioning for the part of elijah (jesus’ foil in the script), and set about being the gayest, jesus-est me i could be.
i’d like to think that three things helped me win the part that day:
- my abilities as an actor. whether that’s true or not, i’ve got to think that way if i have any hope of continuing to do more on camera work and raising my profile as a screen actor.
- my 14 years of experience as a voice actor. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve walked into a session only to be handed the copy for the first time. i smile, say hello to everyone, and immediately try to figure out what i’m going to do with those new words staring at me from the paper. meanwhile, i’m keenly aware that i’m at an expensive studio with an expensive engineer at the ready, and a roomful of expectant clients waiting for me to not only be brilliant, but efficient.
- sheer force of will. i wanted this part. badly. i liked kira the first time i met her and had googled her work. it was good. really good. i wanted to work with her. i had learned about scary cow in between the first audition and the callback; i really wanted to participate in a scary cow film. and hey, gay jesus! i wanted a challenge and a chance to show i could play a character very different from anything i’d done before.
i’m hopeful the film will be ready for screening in july at the historic castro theatre for the 20th edition of scary cow’s indie film festival. i can’t wait for people to see it, as it represents the collective effort of some incredibly talented people. i’m so proud of what we accomplished. and i can’t wait to see that group of people again, because even though we only spent one full day together, there’s a bond that forms when people with divergent talents come together and pull off the seemingly impossible. my scenes were all shot during the course of one long, exhausting, but amazingly fulfilling day. together, we made something. we willed it into being behind the force of kira’s vision.
and that’s what i love about this kind of art. it’s hard, it’s messy, it’s frustrating…but it’s so fucking satisfying. it can be both an intensely individual and a wildly collaborative pursuit. and i feel so fortunate to be able to do it.
UPDATE ON OCTOBER 25, 2013: the premier has been scheduled. we’ll be part of the 21st scary cow film festival on november 2nd at the castro theater in san francisco. don’t have an exact time, but the “round” we’re in will likely start around 6 or 7 PM.