By Monday morning, I still wasn’t sure where I was going when I left the house. I put my hair up in a ponytail and dressed like a teenager just in case I ended up at the audition. I also grabbed my books for class. I could either go uptown to the Bronx to audition for this movie role that I was never going to get, or I could go downtown to my class and then straight to work afterward. I walked outside—there was a movie crew filming on the downtown side of the street. (I later heard that it was Denzel Washington’s American Gangster. I’m not sure that’s true but, of course, I’m going to go with it.) I tried to walk through the film set to get to the downtown train station. A production assistant stopped me. He was very friendly. He had a big smile. He smiled that big smile at me and explained that there was filming going on and asked me politely to cross the street. To the uptown side of the street. So I did. Then I figured, since I’m here . . .
When I got to Lehman, I found out that the audition was in the same theater space that Peter Pan had been in. If you’re starting to think, This is unbelievable, believe it. It all really happened like this. There was a sign-up table with a small pile of one-page excerpts of the script. I had yet to learn that these audition sheets are called sides. I grabbed one and sat down to read. Henry walked over with a girl in tow. A heavyset black girl just like me. I looked at Henry like, “Really, homie? I thought you only called me! You called ALL your fat black girlfriends? I see!” but I didn’t say it. He said he was glad I could make the audition, and he wished me and this new girl I’d never met before luck. Then he left. The new girl (I don’t remember getting her name, but I sometimes call her Sabourey Gidibe in my private thoughts) asked what role I was auditioning for. As if she didn’t know. I told her the same one she was. She might’ve mentioned something about being nervous. I wasn’t nervous in the least. I was disappointed in myself for missing my first family psych class and wasting my time. I waited about five minutes, and then I was called into the theater to audition. I was asked to sit in a chair opposite a camera and casting directors Jessica Kelly and Billy Hopkins, who himself had launched the careers of countless actors and cast Good Will Hunting, American Psycho, Se7en, and my personal favorite, Uncle Buck. I sat across from the two of them and I wasn’t nervous. This was magic. I’m always nervous. I’m nervous right now! (To be fair, I’m alone at my cousin’s house in LA, it’s after eleven at night, and I think I hear a coyote howling in the distance! I’m about to call 911!) But I wasn’t nervous in front of them. The scene I auditioned was Precious meeting with a therapist and telling her how depressing her life with her mother was. (Again, the irony is not lost on me.) When I was done, Billy and Jessica were quiet before finally saying, “Wow! That was great!” I, of course, didn’t believe them, and Billy said something like “Trust me, that was really good!” I got up to leave, and they handed me some longer sides to memorize and told me they would give me a call soon for a second audition. On the way out, I wished good luck to Sabourey Gidibe and told her it was cool and there was nothing to be nervous about. Then I got on the subway and headed down to the phone sexery. I was going to be early for my shift as a monitor, but the phones were busy as usual so I jumped on the talker floor and picked up a few calls to make some extra money. By the time I left the talker floor less than an hour later, I had a voice mail from Billy Hopkins inviting me to the callback audition the next day. Still, I wasn’t feeling much. It was almost as if it was a regular Monday.
By the next morning, I had memorized both scenes I’d been given—the same one with the therapist from the day before along with another one where Precious is telling her class that she has contracted HIV from her father. Mad emotional yo. I asked Mom to read the scene with me. I hadn’t attempted to cry on cue while rehearsing the scene by myself. I hadn’t even said the words aloud up until then, but as I read with Mom, when it was time to cry, I just did. Mom was crying, too. Pussy. She asked if I wanted to go over it again and I said no, I wanted the emotion to feel new for the audition. I don’t know where that idea came from. All of a sudden, after being on autopilot for years, I was making real decisions.
At the callback audition, this time at some office way downtown in Tribeca, there weren’t any other actresses who looked like me. No Sabourey Gidibes waiting for their lives to change. Just me. Jessica came out to greet me. She told me how impressed they’d been with my audition the day before. I think I said okay instead of thank you. It sounded like I was being a sarcastic asshole, but I think I was just trying to process everything. In fact, I figured they were lying to me when they said I was good. I was a loser who had flunked out of school for being sad. I was a phone sex worker who lived with my mother. All of a sudden I was in the casting office of the guy who had discovered Macaulay Culkin. Seriously, what the fuck? Finally, I was ushered into the audition room where Billy was waiting. I think there was a reader and casting assistant in the room as well. I fumbled a word on my first take—I was finally feeling a tiny bit nervous—but then I must’ve remembered that this was all a complete waste of time and my nerves went away. I cried when the script told me to cry, and I delivered the scene as if I were completely out of my body. I don’t know who I was on that day (perhaps the real Sabourey Gidibe). When I was done, Billy and Jessica stared at me for a few seconds as I waited for it to be over.
Then Billy quickly demanded, “Get her a script. Get her a script!” The casting assistant rushed to get me a full script. Not just the sides. I stood up to leave and asked what was going to happen next.
“We’ll call you. You’re going to audition for Lee!”
“This whole thing?” I asked, referring to the script. If they didn’t know that they were working with a novice, they knew now.
“No! You’re just going to do this same audition again with the director. We’ll call you!” Billy said.
I listened to the Hairspray soundtrack on my headset on the way back home on the subway. By the time I got out of the train station, about half an hour later, I had a voice message from Lee Daniels’s office. He wanted to meet me the next day. This was almost starting to seem normal for me and the subway.