My Porn…. No!
You’ve got to be careful out there. My first audition when I first moved to California was for a Porno film. I had no idea that’s what it would be, as I found the audition in the Drama-Logue, which was an Actors newspaper that listed auditions, it was for an Open Call. Having come from N.Y., I knew that you had to arrive at open calls a couple of hours before the time stated, as the lines could go around the block. It was called, Amazon Women of the Jungle… or something like that, but Amazon Women was definitely in the title. I told my roommate JD about the audition and that we should get there at least a couple of hours early, to avoid the long lines we had experienced in N.Y. He reluctantly agreed. The day of the audition it rained, in fact that Feb. of 1984 it was not the California I had expected, as it always seemed to be raining. One of the first purchases that I had made in my new life in Los Angeles was a Thomas Brothers Guide. This was well before GPS, so this was a book of all the streets and highways in L.A., that I would struggle with as I drove, trying to find my way. Luckily, I was able to find the address that was listed in the paper. Now looking back, there were a couple of things that shouted out that something was wrong with this picture. First of all, the address took us to a house. Second of all, there was no line waiting to audition, in fact there wasn’t anyone there. From the car I saw a paper on the door and decided that we should go and see what it said.
Umbrellaless, we walked up to the door, getting soaked. There on the door was a hand scribbled note with the ink running. I could kind of make out the word Amazon… As we tried to decipher if we were at the right place, the door swung open. A man in a suit with a shit eating grin quickly opened the door. “Come in, come in….,” he said, “Take off your jackets and make yourselves comfortable.” “Is this the place for the auditions for Amazon….” “Yes, it is!” he answered before I finished my question. We took off our jackets and he invited us into his office where there was a long table with 2 chairs behind the desk and a few seats in front of the desk. “Sit down, sit down.” he said, and we did. We handed him our headshots, which were wet. He sat staring at one of us, then to the other and then back again and then to our headshot front and back and then back to us. This went on for a couple of minutes when he sat back in his chair and said, “Well… you’re both right for the part.” Wow, I thought. My first audition in LA and I’m right for the part. I wasn’t sure how he would decide between the 2 of us, who would get the part. “Could I see the script?” I asked. “There isn’t a script at the moment as we are still developing it, and we will tailor it around the actor we cast.” he said. This keeps getting better I thought. “But, I can show you the storyboard, if you’d like.” he said. “Sure! What’s it about?” I asked. He reached in a drawer and pulled out this big book. As he handed it to me he said, “It’s kind of like a cross between, Raiders of the Lost Ark & The Twilight Zone. That was great, I thought. As I opened the book, this beautiful, gigantic blonde walked in with a button down shirt, that was unbuttoned from top to bottom. You could see right between her breasts to her stomach. She was breathtaking. “Ahhh, here she is now. Precious, one of these two may be your Co-Star.” he said. He quickly stood up and greeted her, kissing her on the cheek.We both jumped out of our seats introducing ourselves, me first and then JD. We shook her hand and she held my hand a little longer than necessary, I thought, giving me the impression that she was attracted to me. “Charmed to meet you.” she said. “Charmed for sure,” I replied.
I quickly flipped open the book and started looking at the pictures. It started harmless enough, like something from a Tarzan movie, movies that I loved, with a hunter (me) in a Pith Helmet, in the jungle who soon gets captured by a band of topless Amazon Woman. “Precious, will be playing the Queen,”, the guy with the shit eating grin said, smiling at us. I looked and she was nodding and smiling in agreement. The next scene I saw, was my character is being carried like the natives would carry a lion they caught in those Tarzan movies. “The job pays, $1,500.00 he said to us, an amount of money that could greatly help out my living situation. I turned the page again, and now my character was forced to kneel before the topless Queen. Seeing the picture in the story board and this gorgeous blond in front of me was getting me very excited. I was ready to say “Yes, I’ll do it!” But, when I turned the page, the next scene I saw in the storyboard would make it impossible for me. While my character is on his knees, one of the Amazon Woman places a leather mask over my characters head, while the Queen straps on a dildo, and he is forced to perform the “Royal Dildo Worship”. At this point I tell them that I have a problem with the script. “What is it?” he asked, with her looking concerned sitting next to him. “The Royal Dildo Worship… I ain’t going to be able to do that.” I said. “The Royal Dildo, what?”, JD exclaimed. “It’s one of the key scenes in the movie.” he objected as JD pulled the storyboard from me and stared at it. I watched as Precious leaned over to him and whispered in his ear and he shook his head yes. “What about this then… You can play the role up to the point of the “Royal Dildo Worship, and JD could do the role once the leather mask is put on?”, he said. By that time JD was seeing what I was seeing and said, “What a minute, I can’t do the Royal Dildo Worship, either!” I watched as Precious once again leaned over and whispered in his ear, with him smiling and shaking his head yes, as the man said to us, “What about this? What about we have one of you play the character until the part of the Royal Dildo Worship, and then when he puts on the mask, we have one of our regulars, do that part?” “I’ll do it!”, JD shouted. I asked JD what the hell he was thinking, that even if someone else played the role from the part of the Royal Dildo Worship, that anyone seeing the movie, would think it was him. He realized that I was right, and we got out of there as quick as we could. As we backed our way towards the door, Precious was staring at us, licking her lips, trying to seduce us into changing our minds, but neither of us could get past the Royal Dildo thing. A few feet from reaching the door, JD ran into a bookshelf, and through my peripheral vision I saw a statue falling, and reached out to catch it. “Ahhh!”, I shouted as I saw what I had caught and dropped the giant ceramic penis to the floor.
So even though you find auditions in a legitimate casting, you got to be careful and you should not be going to anyone’s house for an audition.
