Has Been

I got something today I haven't received in years: a request from a casting director. I stopped acting professionally in 1998, just before the big commercial strike. It was a well timed retirement, considering. But all of my calls had become "bite and smiles" which is the sort of commercial where you take a bite of something and become orgasmic about it's taste. I'm not a good bite and smile candidate. That's more of a tooth model job. One of my last auditions consisted of me talking to a camera, alone, while the casting people gnawed newly arrived KFC. No one noticed when I left the room, the chicken was more interesting. Another was for Knorr soups, which had decided to call itself "Ka-Norr." We all joked about "ka-nocking" before we entered. It was a stupid commercial. A business women is waiting for her luggage at LAX and worrying about what to cook for dinner. Suddenly a chef rolls by on the luggage carousel, as they do. He gives her a meal short-cut with Ka-Norr. She is pleased. I would have thought they wanted a commercial, over-the-top sort of read. I mean it's a chef on the luggage thing. But once I got in front of the camera, the casting people told me to read it very straight, very subtle. OK. I read it as deadpan as I could. No reaction. They looked at each other and said, "Well, it's VERY subtle, almost dramatic." "Yes," the other casting person remarked, "but she could give it a bit more reaction. Maybe she's frightened by the chef." What?? We're inventing way too much back story here. And I was intimidated by the 17 six-foot tall models out in the lobby waiting to come in. Clearly a five-foot character actress was not what they wanted. I just reacted. I said, "It's not fucking Shakespeare." They stopped, stared at me...and politely said thank you, that is all. And I never went back to that studio again.