So, when Barbara Cameron called one afternoon with a quick audition “to play a nerd on The Steve Harvey Show,” I perked up. Forget commercials, I was going out for an actual TV show! The audition scene was only one line—the nerd (creatively called “Nerd” in the script) raises his hand and asks a question in a high school classroom. That’s it, that was the whole audition. (I don’t even remember what he asks.) Even though it was finals week, I reasoned that since my statistics grade wasn’t going to determine my job prospects, I should abandon studying and go all-out. I got an ill-fitting plaid shirt and put tape on a pair of glasses—real high-end late-’90s sitcom stuff. I drove the Panoch to CBS Television City at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood, parked in an area reserved for actors, and walked in.
Look, I am not a method actor. But you don’t just dress like a knockoff Urkel and not embrace the character. From the time I exited the car, I committed to being this Nerd. When I signed in at the front desk, I spoke in a weird nasally voice to the security guard and got some smiles from the janitor who I high-fived (and purposely missed) in the lobby.
All of this for just one line, that’s how badly I wanted it. When the doors to the small elevator opened, I saw there were already five people inside, coming up from an underground parking garage. Instead of waiting for the next one, I stayed in character, abandoned social norms, and awkwardly squeezed my way in. As we stood smooshed against each other, I said hi to each human, still in character with the weird nasally voice. I made a little small talk, excused myself at the third floor, made a left turn out of the elevator, and took a seat in the waiting room next to eight other prospective Nerds.
Ten minutes later a casting assistant called me into the audition room. I walked in to find… all of the people from the elevator! Turns out they were the show’s producers. I thought about saying hello in a more professional manner, but after squishing myself into a tight elevator with them, I was just going to have to double down on this one and stay in character. “Hey, it’s my friends from the elevator, hiiiiii! That guy has a warm shoulder.”
I read my line and left. That afternoon Barbara called to tell me I got the part.
The way sitcoms work, you rehearse and block (nail down the stage directions of) each scene throughout the week and tape the entire show on Friday (usually in front of an audience). Since all of this was taking place right in the middle of finals, I had to ultimately drop my statistics class1 and, after filming my one line, pull an all-nighter on a paper that was due at ten that Saturday morning.
I did not do well on that paper, and when the episode aired a few weeks after that, I got a big Hollywood lesson.
Our dorm oddly received the Chicago-based channel WGN, which meant we could watch some shows on central standard time—two hours before they aired in Los Angeles. WGN carried The Steve Harvey Show, so I planned to watch privately when it aired in Chicago, then watch with my friends in the dorm when it aired on the LA station.
It all happened so quickly: the Chicago feed on my small television, seeing myself on-screen, in that classroom, hearing the lead characters deliver the lines before mine, and then—bam!—a jump to the next scene. My line had been cut, and along with it, the potential for my first IMDb credit. I canceled the dorm gathering planned for later that evening, and asked Barbara to find out what happened. “It wasn’t personal,” she explained sweetly. “This stuff is common. The producers said they really enjoyed working with you, but they had to make some cuts for timing and commercials. That’s just the business side of things, honey. We’ll book another job soon.” My first paid speaking television role had been anticlimactic, but it was a fast lesson that for all of my passion as an artist, I was also entering a business, whose producers had entirely different considerations and priorities from my own.
* * *
After winter break, with a newfound nervousness about what life would be like after graduation, I felt that I needed an internship more than ever. I wanted something that would give me valuable entertainment industry experience, academic credit, and an impressive résumé boost. I continued to use the Panoch for more (mostly stereotypical) auditions, but ever since the Lucasfilm fiasco, my weekly trips to apply for internships through the UCLA Career Center frustratingly brought no success. So, I was excited when after more than two years of searching, the assistant to the president of a production company based at a major Hollywood studio called me to come in for an interview with his boss.
We sat at a real picnic table in the middle of a fake sidewalk on a mocked-up New York City backlot set in Los Angeles. I thought this was the coolest thing in the entire world. The big-time talented CEO looked kind of like the older brother of someone from college—tall, skinny, sunken eyes peeking out from under the brim of his blue Dodgers baseball hat. And dude had a huge personality. For the first fifteen minutes, he talked nonstop about movies, his love of nice furniture, and the greatness of Los Angeles culture.
Then he pivoted to discussing his huge film company, and all the fantastic deals and relationships he had with other huge film companies all over town. “By the way,” he threw in, “none of my interns get college credit. I really don’t like all the paperwork.” With access to the entertainment industry like he was describing, who needed credit? Not realizing that what he was proposing was—how you say—illegal, I agreed to this unpaid, uncredited “internship,” and he hired me on the spot. I would start the following week.
I felt like I had hit the jackpot. I pictured the enormous bustling office I’d be working in and could practically smell the freshly printed pages of all the scripts he bragged about producing.
The job itself wouldn’t involve the most glamorous work, but even getting people coffee, answering phones, and running errands would offer me the chance to learn about the industry I was passionate about joining. And who knows, maybe if I truly crushed it, a promotion could eventually be within reach?