Multiple Personality Disorder

Yes, I know it is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (I was a psych major, after all) and no, I don’t have it. But yesterday I did get to live the lives of 8 different characters, albeit for short periods of time, not counting the lines and monologues I use for vocal exercises. It just so happened that before I even got to Suzanna’s class, I had 3 self tapes to do at home. I am planning on doing Bonnie’s Self-Tape Challenge this month, to flex those acting muscles, but these self-tapes were auditions done at home for actual parts, which is always exciting. At first, it was just my mom being my reader, but then there was swearing, and a lot of characters in the scene with me, so we convinced my dad to join in. There was a little too much laughing for the seriousness of the scene sometimes, but it mostly worked out pretty well 🙂

Once I got to Suzanna’s, we all talked a bit, and then she asked me to go first. I had reviewed and was familiar with my lines, but the first take I was mostly just saying them, not being affected at all. The second take, although I was being affected more and it was better, it was also kind of superficial, because I wasn’t remembering why it affected me, I was just making sure I was affected. Which kind of doesn’t make sense. Still, I was able to tell that I was doing this, and could pinpoint exactly why the scene wasn’t as good as it was last week, which is part of the battle.
As soon as I was done, I was given my scene for the commercial/Actor role audition, which was for the Surrogates like I had read for Carla last week. I chose number 3 and had it memorized before I was the reader for a scene from Entourage. I read for the guy, but the other character’s name was Amanda, which I found funny.

When I did go up to do my Actor role scene, I had to do my slate, then read with Bobby. Everyone thought the scene was really dark for a commercial, but it made more sense when they found out it was from a movie. There were also some who said I did a great job and was very believable, so yay 🙂 I really  enjoy these little audition scenes at the end of the month of classes, because it feels like things I can actually start booking soon, rather than parts I can only play in the vague someday.

Since I had done the scene last week for my commercial audition, Suzanna also had me read for the Friend in the Bell Let’s Talk commercial. I didn’t need to have the multiple takes on me, but I did want to have at least one to see if I could manage pretending to be completely oblivious and happy while someone is telling me that they are depressed. It was also really interesting to see what I must have looked like last week.

Finally, I had helped Nick run his Actor role audition lines, so I volunteered to be his reader. It was a lot of fun because I knew the lines and could just play with him. I was probably doing it way more innocent and carefree than it was supposed to be, but I like the way we did it 🙂
Before leaving, I also pushed myself to do something that makes me nervous and asked Suzanna to maybe find me a British scene so I can practice my RP. My biggest problem, I believe, isn’t getting the sounds, but getting over the nerves that make it nearly impossible for me to use RP outside of a class context where I have to. So, that should be interesting. And scary. And fun. All in one!

“I’m curious about people. That’s the essence of my acting. I’m interested in what it would be like to be you.”

-Meryl Streep