Stealing From Jason Lee

Remember how I decided to karaoke with folks from my commercial agency tomorrow night instead of attend a scheduled workshop? And how I'd felt guilty about it, but decided it was "important" to just have fun every-once-in-a-while?

Well, the workshop has now been canceled altogether.

But not because of me - the casting person who was coming in is pregnant, is apparently due any minute, and has been ordered to bed by her doctor.

Which makes me want to say how "everything works out for the best"...except for the fact that, as I've said before, workshop cancellations are happening more often these days, for one reason or another, and that's not good for ACG (Or for Molly, who's trying to make a living running ACG).

But anyway...last night's workshop, with Jayme Singer - from Dava Waite Casting (The office that casts Weeds and My Name Is Earl) - went very well.

This was the third time I've done a workshop with the express purpose of getting seen for My Name Is Earl, a show I'm totally right for - Nick Anderson used to be an associate there, but has since moved to Junie Lowry-Johnson, and Kari Kurto now has her own casting office (Nick, who I did a workshop and a special, 4-week "comedy intensive" with, has never called me in; Kari called me in for a two line co-star on Weeds that I didn't book).

When Ms Singer started handing out scenes, I had a feeling I was going to get paired with the other older, "distinctive-looking" actor there (In the real world, I interact with attractive people fairly often. But the world of workshop scenes is much more segregated) - and that's exactly how it went down.

(At the time, I thought my partner was the same bad actor I got stuck with at a recent workshop, doing a scene from NCIS, and I was crestfallen. But now I'm actually not sure if it was the same guy or not, since I've tried to burn that night from my memory.
But anyway...)

We got a scene from "Earl" (For fans of the show, it was the scene where Earl has slept with his friend Ralph's mother, leading Ralph to decide, somewhat sadly, that the only reasonable thing to do is kill Earl...after giving him 12 hours to get his affairs in order; I was playing Earl, and my partner was Ralph).

At one point, I asked my partner if he'd seen the episode in question - he hadn't - so I told him that Ralph had been played by Giovanni Ribisi, and that, "in my opinion", the "funny" in the scene comes from just how deadpan Ralph is about his decision to kill Earl (Actually, it's not totally "deadpan". It's more like "deadpan-shaded-with-low-key-regret").

Typically, in a play or on a set, it's considered "bad form" to give direction to another actor, so I'm always very hesitant about giving "advice" or "suggestions" to a workshop partner.

But since, in this situation, there's no "director", and I've paid good money to be seen by this casting person, and I don't want to look bad (Because casting directors have long memories), I will offer my opinions if my partner seems amenable to it, and I feel like I really have something helpful to offer.

Anyway, we went over the scene a number of times, got called back inside, and went up fairly early on.

And while nothing terribly interesting or funny had happened when we were working the scene outside, it went over like gangbusters in the room (Patrick R., one of the "regulars", pronounced it "the best scene of the evening"); Tim (my scene partner) was spot-on, and I did what I needed to do as well (More on that in a moment).

The casting person said it was very funny, didn't have a "re-direct" (Which always makes me happy), and we were done.

So now if you end up seeing me on "Earl" this year, you'll know how it happened.

(Molly also had a great scene - she pretty much always does. She doesn't have her SAG card yet, but she's totally ready for the big time - and a girl I'd never seen before was so good I told her afterwards she was going to be fronting her own sit-com within the next five years.)

When the workshop was over, a group of "regulars" went to Miceli's, an Italian restaurant nearby, and chatted about this and that, which was great fun.

(There was some worrisome gossip about Brett, my manager, but I'm not going to "report" on it here till I have more details.)

Oh, I was going to elaborate on "doing what I needed to do" in my scene last night...

I don't know if it's really a "dilemma", or if it's just a dilemma in my own mind, but since I'm usually doing very familiar scenes at these things (Mostly from tv, but sometimes from movies), I've sometimes felt in a bind, wondering whether I'm better off trying to emulate the actor who actually did the scene - particularly if I've seen the episode in question - or trying consciously not to.

The more I think about this, the more I think it could be an entire entry in itself (I was once given the "spider in the bathroom" scene from Annie Hall, such a Woody Allen-specific scene - and I bear no resemblance to Woody Allen - that it felt like deliberate sabotage on the part of the casting director).

But I will say, in this particular instance, I opted to, as much as possible, emulate (i.e. steal) as much of Jason Lee's performance as possible. Because I feel like it's such a distinctive character that to do something different just for the sake of being different would just make me come off badly.

And I think, since I have a good ear and a good sense of comedy (And can do the dialect well), but am not a mimic per se, I came off looking like I know how to do comedy - particularly this comedy - and would be a good "fit" for the show.

At least that's what I'm hoping (Who knows? Maybe it'll turn out Earl has a long-lost uncle).

And on that note, I think I'm going to close, and go for a walk.