Table Read 2

I’ve noticed that, the more I talk to other people about the shit that’s going on in my life, the less compelled I feel to write for my blog.

I need to be more anti-social so I can contribute to this bitch more.

Anyway…

About two weeks ago I auditioned for a TV Pilot and successfully snatched the role of Chester. Chester is a flunky of the principal antagonist of the show, and as such I don’t have many lines. BUT I HAVE LINES, AND I LIKE THEM.

The audition was at once exciting and terrifying for me, having had short notice to prepare. I basically memorized the monologue I’d done 40 minutes prior to being called in (so, maybe twenty minutes before I’d arrived at the venue) and I’m sure I fibbed a fair amount of it. I was really fortunate that I was told to do the monologue first, because I’d bet if I had to do a cold read before my monologue… I would have forgotten my monologue.

But it turned out that there weren’t any sides for me to read, I was told the character they saw me as based on my monologue (Chester) and had me improv a monologue of him complaining about his best friend.

This was horribly fortunate for me. I did/do that all the time, or at least have to sit through shit like it, anyway.

About four or five days later they offer me the role of Chester, I accept, and the following Wednesday was the first table read.

Beetlebro took me to that, as well as a creepy-as-fuck library audition. While it was interesting to meet the majority of the cast (not everyone was cast/available for the table read that day) I felt the casting for my “best friend” was pretty spiffy. Dude kind of reminds me of Ethan Hawke visually, but voice done by Sam Elliot imitating the delivering of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

…I’ve definitely over-thought the cartoon of him.

Another was a chick who had gone to my high school. We simply sort-of recognized eachother, but after the awkward “DO YOU GUYS ALL GO TO SCHOOL HERE/KNOW EACHOTHER?” (I’m the odd one out in this case) it was nice to have someone with quasi-shared history. We probably wouldn’t have made the connection if she hadn’t slammed the snootiness of the people of Cedarburg, and I don’t think anyone would laugh as hard as I did if you hadn’t lived/gone to school here.

So she asked, “dohoho I recognize you,” and back and forth. I’m sure, because she recognized me from high school, that that was why she seemed so eager to cease conversations with me. Rock on.

Bestfrienddude (character: Devin) is fucking awesome though. Deadpan Diva is the best way to describe him. At the second table reading (yesterday) he sat next to me at the Actor’s side of the table, and he legitimately seems like someone I could pretend to be friends with. I don’t really know him at all as a person, but just from our shared approach to how ridiculous this is (film rehearsals are retarded, no lie) I feel comfortable working with him. Perhaps that’s part of the point of these table reads, to get that chemistry going, but I still think it has more to do with the directors “theatrical” mindset.

By theatrical I mean he prefers to be vague and allow us to develop the character for ourselves (I like) rather than having written fully-rounded characters into the script (dislike: everybody is archetypical in his mind; at least that’s what I conclude after hearing his descriptions of the characters. I have an immense aversion to people using grocery-lists of character traits.)

The second table reading at least got me the first printed draft of the script, so I can at least absorb the lines.

If this gets to the regular-production side of things, I’m never going to have this much time to work with so little material (I have until next Wednesday.)

Oh well!

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Show Prep

I had a workout on Friday evening around 5PM, to prepare for a walking audition (I still don’t know what to call the modeling interviews) for a show to benefit a school in India in May.

I don’t think I’m even being considered. I’m overweight, oversize, and my posing sucked. I HAD TO TURN LEFT.

Nevertheless I did what I could to prepare for it, which was also sabotaged by a ‘fuck it I’m with my buddy’ attitude. I went to the YMCA with him to show him where to go to do the exercises I laid out for his routine (it’s a machine program and you’d think that it’d be no-brainer material. And it is.) while I joggy-walked to the opposite end of the gym to get a very low volume/low intensity workout in myself.

I would have loved to have done a six-setted depletion torture session, but I wanted to be done when he was done (he drove, of course) and I had limited physical resource anyway. I was still torn up from Wednesday’s workout, which felt easy-balls at the time, but which was now mocking me mercilessly. I had no problem skipping my legs this workout. He had no such luxury, and it feels good to find out he was barely even half-squatting, making him go below knee with the same weight, and watching him stumble around afterwards.

Mean, yes, but totally worth it.

I had him take conservative loading parameters nonetheless as I checked for form. I also threw in direct arm work at the end for both of us, him because I want him to get his compounds in with the best form possible, and still be able to do his favorite bro-lifts. I didn’t harass him on form for his curls. He did preacher curls with good-enough form, and he needs to feel like he’s at least a little bit competent so he doesn’t give up the second I’m not around to badger him.

Back at his house we had a camerafag posedown. I still don’t have abs, and he’s skinny enough to have them be visible if he understood (despite multiple explanations) the concept of progressive overload. Which he will soon enough now that he has starting weights for all his lifts and a program that doesn’t change other than “bump weight when you hit the rep ceiling.”

So by no means is my workout from Friday worth shit. I’m just recording it so I understand where my gym frequency is at. I have, over this week, probably overate again. Tomorrow (Sunday) marks Day One if I decide to look at this from a “Fifteen Weeks Out” perspective. Which I am.

I wish I had those pictures, my shoulders look ridiculous and I love it.
EDIT: Pictures are here.

Workout for Friday, February 12th, 2010

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New Year’s Resolution

This year, I want to screw up more than I ever have before.

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Overeating

I ate a lot yesterday.

Went out to the Chinese buffet with mom to celebrate. Finished filming my parts for Thinking Speed the day before, so I thought I deserved a treat.

I ate almost 4200kcal! Ughh!

No guilt, just lots of water weight and poop. Interesting to me, though, I ate over the 3500kcal necessary to put on a pound of fat… but my weekly average remained below 1800kcal, the amount I need to MAINTAIN weight. I wish I could magically deplete overnight just to see where my highly-likely jump on the scale is really coming from, but I’m not going to even attempt depletion for the next few days. I had a brush with hypoglycemia last night and I don’t feel like flirting with disaster until things even out. Maybe being carb-bloated will help me eek out that elusive next rep on deadlifts tomorrow!

My arms are still whining at me about Thursday’s workout, and I really think I need to re-evaluate my form or try something else.

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Thinking Speed: Day 3

She's like a possessed demonlady or something

So I hear I might be in the trailer.

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Thinking Speed: Day 1

The only production still I'm in and you can't even see my face!

I started filming today.

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