A Dirty Shame

When your agent calls and says “you have an audition tomorrow,” you say “great – what time?” You don’t say “What’s the part? Where’s the audition? What kind of character will I be playing?” or heaven forbid ask “What’s my character’s motivation?” If the audition is for a commercial, you don’t get to evaluate the product to determine whether it’s really something you want to promote. You simply confirm that you’re available – which you always are unless you’ve told your agent otherwise in advance – and you hope she’ll provide the relevant details.

Usually, you find out what the audition is for and what time and where it will be held. I should have been suspicious when my agent said she’d just e-mail me the information later. I had not one, but two auditions outside of London.

The first was in Harrogate, three hours away by train. It was for a company that produces video games and they wanted a voice for an iconic 80’s arcade game character that they were bringing to life. It sounded pretty cool – kind of like having your own action figure, which you usually don’t get until you’ve played some butt-kicking action hero. Plus, video game me would probably have an impossibly amazing figure.

I decided to look on the bright side about the train trip and use it to catch up on reading. The trains weren’t very frequent and the only one that would get me to the audition in time got me there 90 minutes early. So I killed time by having a chai latte at my remote office, a.k.a. Starbucks, then got to the audition 15 minutes early only to find half a dozen girls already in the waiting room perusing the script. I guessed they all caught the train from London too.

I got a copy of the script from the receptionist and muscled my way onto the only couch that appeared to have a bit of empty space. I flipped through the pages at paper-cut pace to find out what busty babe I might get to portray. But the character wasn’t busty at all. In fact, the only thing that was female about her was the pink bow on her sideways, flat yellow face. (I signed a non-disclosure, so I can’t reveal the character’s name.) At least it was one of the video games I’d actually played back in the era of the Atari 2600.

I read through the short script a few times and tried to figure out how to bring life to a character with a pie slice for a mouth. I must admit, I felt like a pro in the sound booth with a mic and those big cushy headphones. I read the script proficiently, I thought. The producers asked me to read it again, but this time a bit “dirtier.”

“Dirtier?” I said reflexively in disbelief (though it would have been far better to keep that as an inner monologue).

“Yes, like she has a dirty secret.”

I felt as though they were robbing the innocence from a part of my childhood. Surely this was the most chaste and least dirty video game characters of all time. I mean, besides gobbling up a few ghosts – in self defense I hasten to add – what did she ever do to deserve this debasement?

I gave her as dirty a voice as I could muster, said thank you to the producers, then charged out of there with the speed of someone who’s just eaten a power pellet.