Now Casting: The good, the bad and the cray cray

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while – I’ve been super busy putting together a kick ass book on how ya’ll can get yourselves on any reality show you want. Stay tuned, it’s coming shortly – and it will rock your world!

In the meantime, I thought I’d muse about the inner workings and happenings of my world as a reality TV Casting Producer.

I’m currently casting a celebrity dating show, where famous celebs you know and love go on dates with everyday normal people, just like you, in the hopes that sparks fly and magic happens.

It’s my job to find the “normal” people.

After a few weeks of casting, I have to use normal in quotes. While I’ve had some truly remarkable people waltz into my casting room, full of life, energy and who just happen to be drop dead gorgeous – I’ve also had a few doozies.

And it’s not that they had bad auditions. Quite the opposite. They were totally awesome and probably each deserve their own reality show someday.

One in particular – lets call him Blaine – came in guns blazing. This guy was a real firecracker. I’ve auditioned him in the past for other shows and know he’s a little nutzo, so I was a tad nervous about putting him on camera this time since this one is a “family friendly” reality show. But luckily, I’m the one editing the casting tapes before I show them to the host and the producer, so I get carte blanche to edit out the bad parts.

And Blaine’s tape had a bunch of them! He went on for ten minutes about what a fantastic lover was. He went into explicit detail about how he pleases a lady and even offered up a few mimes. Yay for me. He had ZERO inhibitions. Goldmine for reality TV, right?!

I pitched him to the producers and they – of course – loved his “let’s get this party started” attitude. This guy just makes great TV since he’s got the “Snooki Formula” down (something I’ll explain in my book).

However, when I called him with the big news to tell him he made the show, he was suddenly all business. He was like – “I need to sleep on it.” I couldn’t believe it.

Here’s a serial auditioner and now when he finally gets his shot, he’s thinking of backing out? I just couldn’t understand it.

I called him the next day and by then he totally changed his tune. He was like, “Sarah, I love that you keep bringing me in for shows. I know I will rock this shit out of the park. I get it. I know what you want from me. And I’ll do it. But I won’t do it for the amount you’re paying me. I’ll go on TV and look like a fucking idiot, but not for peanuts. Then he said – if (INSERT BILLIONAIRE NETWORK EXEC THAT I CAN’T NAME HERE!!) really wants my ass on his screen, when I get to the filming location – he better pull out a big fat envelope with thousands of dollars cash in it.”

This is where I choked on my latte.

Um, people on reality shows these days aren’t getting paid as much as you seem to think they should, dude. I didn’t tell him this of course. I humored him and said: all I can do is ask.

Honestly, there were no hard feelings. He was like – “keep in touch!”

I couldn’t help but wonder why he came into the audition with such gusto, like I’d seen him do before, but when it came down to it, he didn’t want to do the show. He knew what it was about. He knew how much he would be getting paid beforehand. It’s not rocket science. It’s a date with a “celeb.”  Why blow your wad only to back out when you actually get cast? Why bother auditioning at all?

Best I can figure is that unfortunately, some people are actually afraid of their own success, so once opportunity comes knocking, they turn and run. It’s a real bummer since I know so many people who would be so grateful to get that call to be on a reality show, and Blaine just blew his shot. EVERYONE in the casting office agreed that if he acted the way he did in the audition on the show, the exposure he would have gotten could have yielded bigger things later. You just never know when opportunity will knock.

Moral of the story – if you show up to an audition with a big ol’ dog and pony show – you sure as shit better bring it on if we actually cast you. Don’t make your loyal Casting Director look like an asshole for giving the Producers a Jekyll and Hyde. We keep files up the wazoo and you never know when the perfect show will come around with your name written all over it.

Until next time, the scribe has spoken. :)