Daily Actor: A Lost Audition

Talk TV World is excited to welcome Lance Carter as a featured blogger. With Hollywood, and the television industry more specifically, full of a seemingly endless amount of working actors, we invited Lance to contribute his point of view. Lance first got his SAG card in 1993 and moved from the east coast to Los Angeles in 2004. Aside from acting, Lance runs www.dailyactor.com, a site providing Hollywood news and interviews to all actors.

Whenever my phone rings and I see that its my agent, I immediately go through two emotions, I’m happy (I’ve booked something or have an audition) or I think I’ve done something wrong. Oddly enough, I get the same feeling when my parents call me. Yes, I know I may need therapy.

In this case though, it was good news. I had an audition with a great casting director; April Webster Casting. This has got to be one of the biggest casting offices around. They cast Lost and nearly all of JJ Abrams projects. To do a good job at this audition would mean that I could get on their radar.

The audition was for the TNT show, Dark Blue. The part wasn’t huge but I still worked on it like it was. I wasn’t going to screw-up this opportunity. Even if I end up not being right for the part, I’m going in there to make them a fan of my work.

That next afternoon, I drove to Burbank; going over the scenes the whole time. I walked into the office, signed in and immediately saw a taped piece of paper with “LOST Auditions: Sign In Here” emblazoned on it.

Now I got nervous. I started to imagine Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) standing in the exact place I was oh-so-many years ago.

I paced the office lobby, breathing deep trying to quell my nerves.

Minutes later, the casting director comes out and calls my name, “Lance, are you ready?”

I follow her back to the office and close the door.

“Any questions?” she asks.

“Nope, seems pretty straight forward.”

We do the scene and I was the best “INSERT NAME OF CHARACTER IN SCRIPT DESIGNED TO MOVE THE PLOT FORWARD” I could have been. In fact, I kinda think I did great.

I may not get the part but I left happy with my choices knowing that at some point, I’ll be called in again for a future audition.

And as I’m walking to my car, I reach down in my pocket to grab my car keys when I finally notice it.

My zipper was down for the whole audition.

Awesome.