Audition/Producers: “Standoff” @ Stordahl/Terry Casting.

Surprise!! This morning @ 10:14 I’m sitting at my desk going over material for the producer session this afternoon and my agent calls to inform me that they “changed the concept of the character” and the appointment has been cancelled. Okay. Well, it comes and goes. I’ll get ‘em next time. That makes this a really slow week, but last week was really busy so it all works out.

Then @ 10:33, funny enough, while still looking over that same material (I don’t know why, it was only two pages); my agent calls back. No, she didn’t say “Stephon, they just have to have you on the show and they are going to find something else for you”. No, she didn’t say that. What she did say is that “Criminal Minds” just called to check my one hour quote. She wanted to confirm that her records of previous quotes were correct. They were and she said “Thanks honey, I’ll try to get you more money”.

I guess that’s a good sign. Hopefully, they won’t also “change the concept of the character” and I will actually get the booking. Quotes and bookings are two totally different things and quotes don’t go on the resumes and they definitely don’t pay the bills. I guess I’ll know something soon - one way or another.

So @ 2:39 Erin leaves a voicemail letting me know that I have, in fact, been booked for “Criminal Minds”. So when I called back one of my other agents, Caleigh, answered the phone and knew I booked. It’s always great when the news spreads through the office. So Caleigh transfers me to Erin and Erin says, “Stephon, I have the “Criminal Minds” booking and some other news for you. I’m thinking, did they hire me and fire me in the same phone call?” She gives me the details of the booking: it’s a day of work next week AND she was able to raise my quote! I gotta tell ya, Erin is no joke when it comes to fighting for her clients. It’s so exciting to hear her on the phone to casting offices. Oh yeah, and I love when she does this. The last thing she always asks after giving all the details is, “do you wanna do it?” I LOVE THAT!! Something else I really like is that this booking came from a drop-off on a day that I really didn’t want to do drop-offs, at least I’m convinced it did.

So what was the other news? Remember that producer session this morning for “Standoff” that was cancelled @ 10:14 because they “changed the concept of the character”? Well for some reason they decided they wanted to see me – NOW! So I pulled my sides out of the trash, warmed them up and made my way to Fox Studios. I wasn’t sure what I was going to wear. I didn’t want my wardrobe to overshadow the work and character, but I did want to walk in the room and have everything flow. The character is a resident in a hospital and I have a set of scrubs and decided to wear the top. It felt like it was the right thing to do.

Of course once I get to Stordahl/Terry Casting it’s “hurry up and wait” which is how it goes sometimes – no problem. There were quite a few actors waiting in a fairly tight area and I saw this one dude who didn’t look like he was there to audition. At first, I thought one of the hot girls there was his girlfriend and he was just, I don’t know, waiting for her to finish. He kept like fidgeting, pacing; just seeming real, real nervous and again it was in pretty close quarters. One by one the girls were leaving, but he was still there. He didn’t have sides, a headshot a backpack – nothing that I saw. He just really seemed out of place; like he was super claustrophobic. I tried to ignore him, but he kept drawing me in with his odd behavior. He wasn’t making a scene or anything like that; he was just like a fish out of water it seemed. It almost seemed that any minute he was going to yell “ALL YA’LL muth$^*(%^& ON THE FLOOR – NOW!! and take us hostage. I was like, “yo, this kid is trippin’” or maybe I’m trippin’.

Anyway, after a while people were thinning out and they called his name to audition! My man went in the room and killed it…..I could feel it through the walls. Now get this; his character DID have hostages!!! Ain’t that some sh*t? Dude walked past me on the way out and I was like oh snap!! That was crazy; I won’t forget him and his commitment to his character anytime soon. So he left and I swear to you three minutes later that casting associates came out looking for him, but he was gone. She called his agent and 6 minutes later he was back. Evidently, the production team saw something that they wanted to see more of. I checked his name on the sign-in sheet so I could look him up and he is Charles Duckworth. Funny enough, the character I was reading for ends up being a hostage of his. I would like to work with this kid; so here’s to both of us booking.

After a while longer I finally got my chance to audition and it went great!! It wasn’t a lot, but it sure felt good. The director seemed to be really happy with what he saw.

As soon as I returned home from the audition the messenger arrived with my package from “Criminal Minds” – script, paperwork; it even included a “day out of days” schedule. I’d never gotten one of those before in the package; it’s cool to see how the entire 8-day shooting schedule is laid out.

Tonight I went to the Museum of Television and Radio to see the new pilots from FOX and “Standoff” was one of them. I’ll just say this, Gina Torres’ lips had me mesmerized – completely. Those lips are not of this world. They should change the name of the show to “lips” – Crazy!

I have to say, blogs are really funny things. Lisa, thank you for your offer I really appreciate it.