Amateur Prima Donnas

As The Refreshments once put it so wisely: Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people.

I show up on time. It's my thing. All of my friends know that if they ask me to do something, I will do it on time and in the way they needed it done. So when somebody needs a responsible person to handle a job, they turn to me.

It's got its disadvantages, that responsible thing. I have mini panic attacks when I'm late for things, especially if my tardiness is caused by my warped sense of direction piloting me into a freeway to Nowhere. Sometimes I cry when I'm lost because I'm so upset that I'm not going to make it on time. I have no patience with people who are even a tiny bit late. I know a date is doomed when he's not at my door the minute he said he'd be, and I can't blow things off if I don't want to do them because it would destroy my reputation as super responsible, which for some reason I obsess over maintaining.

Other people don't have that obsession. They don't call and don't show, often several times in a row. I've noticed this is a particularly common feature among actors, which is why so many of them are the aforesaid stupid people.

Don't get me wrong, I still love actors. But they can sabotage a career like nothing I've ever seen.

I'm producing a short film soon, and after that hope to pull in funding for a feature. I have plans to continue working, maybe in TV, maybe in features after that. But either way I will be in a position to make casting decisions in my life. Yet I have at least four actor friends who don't return my phone calls or show up at my gatherings. Morons.

I recently recommended a friend of mine for the lead in an independent feature being shot later this year. My friend never called the director to find out about the audition, which made me look like an ass. This was after he took a month to read the 12-page script for Game Night. By the time he got around to reading it I had already given the part to someone else. He whined about how unfair it was that I didn't wait for him.

I have another friend who seemed uninterested when I told her about a part in the script I wanted her to read for. She forgot to take it with her when she left my apartment.

Both of these people are unrepresented and are experiencing dry spells in acting roles. Maybe this is why.

Trainer always rehearses his audition piece for me when I'm doing crunches. He treats every part, no matter how small, like it's the lead in a feature. He never misses an audition and follows up leads on his own regardless of what his agent is up to. Every time I give him a script he reads it right away and gives me intelligent notes. And he's always on time for our sessions.

All three of these people are talented actors.

In the future I will need actors to fill certain roles. Guess which one I'm going to pick first.

There are just too many people in this town who are dying for a chance to work to bother with unreliable people. I think that probably applies to writers, too.