I had an audition for a part in a movie today. That's right. Look impressed. An actual movie film. Don't worry I will change when I am a movie star. I will still write warming up for you. Although it will mainly be about what it is like hanging out with Hugh Jackman and Susan Sarandon and other such big movie stars.
Yeah, OK, this particular movie is a low budget independent film, but it's the first rung on the ladder. They wanted me to read for two parts, one was the part of a TV interviewer rather suspiciously called "Tony Wilson". It was almost as if they had written the part with Tony Wilson in mind and then he'd said he didn't want to do it, so they'd had to think of someone else. Someone else who would do it for peanuts.
Luckily for them I love peanuts.
I will also work for crisps. Or Minstrels (the chocolate.. and thinking about it, also the wandering troubadours).
The other part was of a deputy bank manager who has to choose between his bank and his baby and I think maybe makes the wrong choice. Though I'd been told this part was probably going to someone else. And that they'd actually wanted the actor Kevin Eldon to be it, but he couldn't do it because he was going to Hollywood.
Hmmmm. Maybe my over-excitement was uncalled for.
Any illusions of me entering the movie big time were pretty much dashed when I arrived at the address that I'd been given in North London to find out it was a private house. No swishy movie offices with a waiting room full of handsome young actors all nervously going over the same bit of script that I'd been given.
I wondered if I was part of some scam or kidnap plot where I was going to be lured into some dark room and treated as some kind of sex slave by a gang of Albanian men. I hoped so. From what I understand you get paid a lot more for that kind of film than I was likely to get for this part.
There were four flats in the house and I had only been given the number, so some phone calls were exchanged to find out where I was meant to go. Eventually a man called Nick came out to meet me and I went into his basement flat, even though my mum told me never to go off with strangers.
But Nick and Stephen, his friend who were writing, directing and acting in the movie seemed like very nice young men, who probably weren't going to drug me and use me as the star of a snuff movie. They were a little disorganised and their flat was a bit of a mess, but they moved their dirty pants aside and we read through the bits of script. I suspected from the length of time we took on the interviewer bit compared to the bank manager bit that I was probably going to get the former part rather than the latter. But you have to start somewhere. And where I was starting seemed to be on the pant-strewn sofa of some students in North London. Maybe one day I will get an audition where the director's pants are in a different room, or maybe even in a laundrey basket. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself.
The boys were very excited about the film, and unlike most directors were keen to show me some of the scenes they'd already shot. Not, I think, because they were interested in my opinion, but just because they were all over-excited and just wanted to show someone what they'd done.
It looked pretty good, certainly very nicely shot and they'd got some good people involved, like Dexter Fletcher from off the Cadbury's chocolate advert and Sylvester Mccoy who has been involved with Dr Who in the past like me and the bloke who played the ill-fated Ed Winchester character in the first series of the Fast Show.
Well it should be a bit of fun if I end up getting the part and you know, I won't change when I am best mates with the black bloke from off of Rising Damp. I will just be the same.
