So, I am not at liberty to say what it is, but I booked a BIG commercial for a BIG company. Huzzah!!! I can tell you a few things without breaking my confidentiality agreement…
This is by far the largest scale commercial shoot I have ever been on. 100 crew members, plus about 60 additional people including agency, client talent and extras. There was an enormous green screen and a wind machine! I felt like Beyonce.
I had my own room in a trailer, albeit next door to a David Hasselhoff look alike who spoke very loudly on his phone for most of the night. But I still get excited seeing my name on the door of a trailer (even when it’s just sloppily scribed with magic marker and taped up there by a PA)!
When I auditioned for this spot, I went in for a “hipster girl” type description. Despite my spot-on efforts to look quirky, complete with buttoned-all-the-way-up chambray, jean shorts over pantyhose, plus knee high socks and, the icing on the cake, my grandmother’s arrowhead necklace over the shirt collar; I was still baffled that I booked this role. Until I arrived on set and realized that, though in the “hipster/city folks” category, I was still, as per usual, playing a mom. (Cue sad trombone: wah wah.) I played mother to a 13-year-old boy this time, though I keep telling myself that he must look really young for his age. Was it inappropriate that I joked with him about my probable backstory — getting knocked up as a teenager and the deadbeat dad leaving me because I decided not to abort him? Okay, I didn’t actually say anything about abortion (though it’s of course implied with any teenage pregnancy, I hope), and besides, that’s what his parents get for letting him be an actor.
There was, however, one notable conversation, not involving food as most commercial set actor conversations do, that one of the talent brought up: do you always know when you book the job? This guy who asked was saying that YES, 100% of the time, he knew that he booked it when he gets the call. I said that probably about 80% of the time I knew, but that there were times when I left the audition thinking, “Nope, that’s not mine,” and then booked it. I couldn’t think of ANY times when I said “I booked that” and then didn’t. However, the 100% guy said that many times he left saying “I booked that” and didn’t. With 100% guy, I gathered that he pretty much just always thinks he booked it, which clearly skews his 100%. So, the important piece I took from this was, I need more of this guy’s mentality. Even if my version is a fake it ’til you make it, I will be presenting, “I’m booking this sh*t right now” in the audition room. No doi.