Notes From the Underwire: Adventures From My Awkward and Lovely Life Read Online Free PDF

talented. They deserved a good agent. Sadly, they got me. Having a twisted need to be of service wasn’t enough to make me good at my job or even competent. For one thing, I have an almost phobic distaste for discussing money. If you are the person negotiating contracts, you shouldn’t get sweaty at the thought of talking about money. You shouldn’t have to give yourself weird little pep talks just to get up the nerve to say “Mr. Casting Director, I’m sorry to interrupt your speech on what an important and meaningful script this is, and I hate to not be all about the art, but the actors are actually going to get paid, right?”
    Frequently, the answer to this was “Um…”
    Our agency divided the work not by the actor but by the medium so, in theory, I handled every client up to and including the Academy Award winners for my corner of the industry. Of course, by the time I became an agent all the good corners were covered. Two agents covered studio projects and two agents covered television. What’s left? I’ll tell you what’s left: indies.
    When I was hired, I imagined a life of impassioned advocacy; of bringing exactly the right actor to the attention of a young and brilliant independent filmmaker who would give us all a reason to go to Sundance next year. In reality, my projects fell into three categories: God-awful but financed; Wonderful but never-going-to-get-financed; and Horrible and being-shot-next-week-in-Bulgaria. Always, mystifyingly, Bulgaria. At least once a month I would be handed a script about half-naked teenagers being terrorized by a giant red ant in a small Midwesterntown (which was going to end up looking suspiciously like Sofia, Bulgaria). This movie inevitably starred someone like Morgan Fairchild, on whom the producers had spent their lavish casting budget.
    That was the other pleasure of my movies: if I was very lucky, they actually paid Screen Actors Guild minimum wage. Most of the time, the original casting sheet would say “Salary deferred,” which meant we all were supposed to buy into the collective hallucination that a 16-mm art film about a struggling writer/director in Los Angeles (played by the writer/director) and his devoted, incredibly hot, frequently naked girlfriend (to be hired after multiple auditions) was going to dazzle the festival circuit, be picked up for distribution by Miramax, and then, hoo boy, wouldn’t the money roll in!
    Such was my life. Most clients passed on the scripts I covered, and I couldn’t say I blamed them.
     
    And then there was Dick. His name isn’t really Dick but I’m going to call him that because I was Ahab and he was my great white whale. He was a terrifically gifted actor who seemed to take some profound pleasure in not acting. The man passed on every single project I had going, even the ones that didn’t make me want to leave the script at the bottom of a lye pit. I didn’t take it too personally because he passed on nearly every television interview my colleagues set up, as well as a few high-budget studio pictures. He felt strongly about acting only in projects he found compelling and he’d created a life where he could do just that. Other clients, after being out of work a few months, would start calling, first casually and then more frantically, reminding their agents of their mortgages, their children’s schooling, their ex-wives, and their gambling debts. They, too, had high artistic standards but they also had the moral flexibility to take a guest-starring credit on Full House .
    Not Dick. He had broad shoulders, a full head of hair, no costly bad habits, and no dependents. Casting directors would call asking for him. I would leave him a message to pick up a copy of the script. Days later, he would drift by and collect it. Weeks later, after avoiding calls, he would leave a 2:00 a.m. voice mail passing on the audition. He would then compound my aggravation by leaving a message with the receptionist explaining that he would