Barbara got on the phone and the two of them broke it down for me. This wasn’t any tiny old gig. It was a supporting lead in a Lionsgate studio comedy, starring two well-known actors: Tara Reid, who was a hit in American Pie, and Ryan Reynolds, who was one of the two guys from the sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. These were real Hollywood stars! If I earned this job, I would have a big film credit on my résumé.
“I know it wasn’t the case after Brookfield,” Barbara said. “But this is a movie, not a pilot. If you got this part, it would lead to more auditions.” I rolled the options around in my head, going back to that promise I made to myself: Don’t sabotage an audition. Say no to stereotypical roles unless they could be career-changing. Taj Mahal could be career-changing. Did I really want to turn down the possibility of building a résumé and one day getting better auditions?
I appreciated Barbara’s business acumen and her candor. As much as I now believed in myself, it was difficult for her to get me auditions because of my ethnicity (well, because of Hollywood’s reception to my ethnicity). The Brown Catch-22 was this: The only parts you could audition for were stereotypically brown. You couldn’t read for non-brown parts unless you had more credits on your résumé, and you couldn’t get more credits on your résumé because the only parts you could audition for were stereotypically brown. I had been hustling hard. The role of Taj Mahal (Taj Mahal Badalandabad, if we’re using his full name) could give me a real shot, even if I had to swallow a bit of pride to take it.
I read the script. A few things stood out immediately: Yes, the character was very clearly a stereotype. A bumbling foreign exchange student speaking in an exaggerated accent, mixing up his metaphors, trying painfully to get laid by white girls—and failing miserably. They weren’t breaking any new comedy ground with that.
I also noticed that the character was a stereotype of every eighteen-year-old college guy in teen movies—like Jason Biggs’s character, Jim, in American Pie—trying to get laid at any cost, putting sexual experience over rational thought. The clichés weren’t entirely racial.2
Most important of all—it was clear that Taj Mahal actually advanced the plot of the film. If he was left out of the story, the arc would not progress. In that sense, this was a real character. Without Taj, the movie wouldn’t work at all. Exciting. I pondered this, trying to square it with my reservations about the name and the stereotyping. One of my frustrations had been that stereotypical characters never contributed to story arcs. Was this some sort of a baby-steps win? What to do?
* * *
I paced, barefoot and (creatively) pregnant, around the beige carpet of my San Fernando Valley apartment, staring at the office number of Sonia Nikore, the VP of casting at NBC, who had said, “Call me anytime you need anything” a couple of years prior. I had never been offered that kind of open-door policy from a casting director before, and never had a reason to take her up on it (what was I gonna do, vent about being not even Latin?), but now seemed like the right time—I needed real career guidance.
I wasn’t nervous, I just wanted to make sure the words were precise. I dialed the number, and her assistant patched me through right away. I told Sonia about the character’s name and background and my hesitations. She echoed what Barbara had said: “It’s true. If you actually get this job, it’s a pretty big deal for your résumé. I run into this challenge whenever I want to audition performers of color—their résumés are thin compared to white actors’. There are so few roles written for brown people. Almost nobody is going to audition you for a part unless it’s specifically written as nonwhite, so if you get this role, you’ll have a credit on your résumé that you might not be able to get otherwise: SUPPORTING LEAD.”
There it was—validation that the Brown Catch-22 existed. “I understand,” I said. I think she could tell from my tone that while I heard her, I still had artistic reservations about a role that simmered with stale stereotypes.
Then she asked me an important follow-up: “When you read the script, did you laugh? Are parts of it funny?”
“Super funny. There are great gags and setups throughout. It’s not all based in ethnic stereotypes.”
“That’s important. On the stereotypes, how many things in the script made you cringe?”
“I don’t know—maybe thirty?”
“Okay, you get to pick ten,” she said. “Pick the ten things in the script that you think are the most cringeworthy, and if you get the job, sit down with the writers and bring those ten things up.”
Wait, I could do that?! Ten things? I didn’t know I could do that! I mean, I had tried something similar with just one thing, and I definitely didn’t want to get the “Prajeeb from Portland” reaction again.
“You shouldn’t just say you think it’s stereotypical and that they should change those ten things. You have to put in some work too. Come prepared with ten things that are funnier than what the writers came up with originally. Nobody is making this movie to purposely offend or degrade anyone. They’re making it because they want audiences to laugh, to have fun, to spend money. So, come up with ten things that are funnier than what’s scripted. That’s part of your job anyway. Go be funny!”
This was new to me: the idea that I actually had some agency in the matter and that the creative work could be collaborative. My professional experiences so far taught me that I couldn’t do much more than complain (exhausting) or refuse to audition out of principle (financially unsustainable). Sonia was mapping out how I could use my skills to make a project better and funnier, while building a résumé that could eventually lift me out of the Brown Catch-22. I had to get the part first.
* * *
With my new directive, go be funny!, I spent two weeks preparing hard for the audition, breaking down the beats of the script, getting off-book,3 and developing a backstory for the character (Taj likes Barry White because Barry White has an absurdly deep voice. Taj loves his freedom in America but also finds it to be lonely. That sort of thing.). Despite the quick onset of a mild cold, I sat in traffic all the way to the casting office feeling great.
I walked in with confidence. I knew the character inside out and delivered what I thought was an exceptional audition. Nothing could stop me now. It was only a matter of time before the friendly, young casting director Barbara Fiorentino called the other Barbara (Cameron) and I would be sitting with the writers, impressing them with all my hilarious tweaks to the script.
I waited by the phone with nervous confidence the rest of the day. It never rang. The following morning I called Barbara Cameron’s office to check in. “No word yet!”