Update from
April 30, 2001.
Yesterday, I went to the
casting agent's office in the
meatpacking district at 4:30 right after
mathematical physics.
I was not really taking this too seriously.. until I walked in. The office was a
loft space with one wall covered completely with
polaroids of people they've cast for
shows and
shoots before, the same type of polariods that they took of me-- except these people were famous.
Gisele was on the wall, in a green shirt, flashing the
peace sign to the camera.
Laetitia Casta in a
mens undershirt looking moody.
The casting director recognized me as I walked in, I assumed from my polaroids, because I've never met him before. I scope out the
competition-- About 10 other people are in for the
castings.
These are the tallest
Asian women I've ever seen.
At about 5'6, I'm almost the shortest one there. I take a look at the sign in sheet, and I am nearly the
only one with more than one name. Ahead of me in line is
Mayuko, the famous
Japanese model. Intimidating. Everybody has a strange
British accent.
There's a line to put the phone number of your
agent-- I just put my home phone number. They tell me it will be about a 20 minute wait, so I started figuring out a
Diffusion Equation in a
bar or slab problem for the final on Wednesday.
I visit the bathroom--- there is no
mirror or reflective surface of any type-- which could say a lot, or could say very little.
When they called my name, I went into a room with a white background, and realize it's the same
room that
all of the photos on the wall were taken in. I stripped down to a
bathing suit and they took pictures of my front, back, sides, and face. Suddenly, the photographer whipped out a tiny digital video recorder, and started asking me questions. It was kind of wierd-- her voice sounded rather disembodied as she asked me questions like,
"What's your name?" "How old are you?" "What's your nationality?" "What are your plans for this year?"
So I started going on about crew, and how I was going to give it a go at sculling
flyweight this summer, and how I wanted to make a good showing at
St. Catherines (Royal Canadian Henley) this summer. I talked about
mathematics, all while standing in a white room nearly naked.
I got out, and checked out everybody
else-- even though they're really
good-looking, they look totally like
regular people, completely unlike their pictures in
Vogue or on
runways. I didn't really feel like I belonged there.
It's rather unnerving to know that is what these people
do for a living.
So don't think I'm shallow, or blame me for doing this by voting it down-- you must realize that there are all sorts of people on e2 and this is what I did yesterday. It's not as if I ran over a cute puppy and laughed about it. Am I the only person who doesn't use daylogs to whine and bitch about how depressed I am, in the hopes that the cheap votes will lift me out of said depression?