Last Wednesday I had a workshop scheduled with the casting director from “The Bold and the Beautiful.” In the same building, on the same night, a casting director was coming in from the new, untitled Nick Cannon sketch comedy TV show, and I decided to go for it and see if I could handle both.
For Nick Cannon, I was able to choose a comedy scene to perform. But for “The Bold and the Beautiful,” the casting director wanted to try something different, emailing a scene from her show in advance, and I was going to have to compete against five other guys with the same scene. The role was a pawn shop manager – a dirty old man type. I’m pretty filthy, but not as old as was written, and I needed to dress accordingly. I called my friend/stylist Jenn and she told me to go with more of a Jersey Shore thing. Tight black t-shirt.
The workshops were in Burbank during rush hour traffic, so I ate dinner at 3:30 p.m. (3:30? Holy shit I am old) and got on the road. It took me 90 minutes to get there. In New York, you can get to friggin’ Philly in 90 minutes.
Nick Cannon was scheduled for 6:30; Bold and the Beautiful, 7:30. But the casting director for Nick Cannon was delayed getting there an hour, so now the two workshops were going to coincide, and I began to think about how the hell I was going to do both. I took a moment to get my head together. Come on, Shevin – you’ve skied Mt. St. Helens, made eye contact with Michele Bachmann, been trapped under a boulder for 128 hours – you’re not afraid of anything!
I went into the Bold and the Beautiful workshop, and all the guys I was up against (all dressed in tight, black t-shirts, btw) were asked to leave the room, come in one at a time and perform the scene. I put the fact that I was missing the Nick Cannon workshop out of my mind as much as I could, focused on the very tricky pawn shop role, went in and did my thing. Then we all went into the room together, and the casting director critiqued us. She thought I nailed it and was her favorite choice.
She asked the next group to leave the room – all women, but I slyly slipped out with them – and ran down the hall into the Nick Cannon workshop, shifted gears and did my comedy scene for the casting director. The next morning my manager called to tell me the untitled Nick Cannon comedy sketch show had put me on avail (I was one of their top two choices) for a sketch shooting two days later. No audition necessary.
Two scenes, two genres, two minutes apart. That’s how we do.
And that’s how you’ll bring it every day. Persistent as hell. Eat crazy early, drive forever, perform like you’re capable of performing. Hang in there and keep showing up. The Nick Cannon sketch actually wound up being cut before it was even shot, but the producers loved my reel and want to use me in another sketch soon. And in the meantime, more workshops, more obstacles, more getting bloody. I love my job.
