Yesterday afternoon, I headed out my front door looking like one of the Andrews Sisters.
I had my hair blown-out straight only to roll some loose Victory Curls (“Victory Curls”?! Goddamn, 1940s-terminology was the coolest.), delicately lined eyes, bright red lips, and an authentically vintage plaid dress paired with some authentically vintage badass heels.
I Looked. Awesome.
I’m well aware that in New York, there are two types of people who can get away with walking around like this: Hipsters, and Starving Artists. Hipsters do it to look chic and out of the ordinary for Chic and Out of the Ordinary’s sake, whereas Starving Artists do it because an audition has asked it of them and, incidentally, they end up feeling chic and out of the ordinary.
(…I don’t need to tell you which category I fall into.)
(…)
(…God bless this audition.)
So, I walked through my neighborhood, feeling like The Shit. Sat on the train, feeling just the same. Paraded around Gramercy, strolled on over to Chelsea and down into the West Village in my 60 year-old little heels just because I could. And yeah, I felt fucking glorious. And yeah, I was aware that there were a handful of people looking my way, and I was aware that there were a handful who intentionally weren’t.
I genuinely didn’t care either way.
It was not until I was on the train back home that I dared to take the rest of Me in:
I am a girl who, for once, actually looks kinda cute. But, I look like I should be simultaneously saluting someone and cooking a pot roast, yet I’m reading Game of Thrones and slurping an over-sized Juice Generation smoothie. …Huh.
And, to me, that made perfect sense.
“Quirk”. I was still embodying my label, my Image of “Quirk”, just in an entirely different way than usual.
Neat. …Oh, Bran, Summer IS a perfect name for your direwolf!!!
Starving Artists fight with their Image (/persona/type/all of these things) all of the goddamn time. It's a fact. It’s almost like a thing that you have to expect to deal with once you walk into this business.
My Image has been called into question a couple of times within the past week, and kind of for the first time. EVER, it felt like.
I take great pride in the fact that I’ve known for a long long time what kind of Image I project out into the world, both as a Me and as a Starving Artist. I mean, in school, your instructors attempt to stretch you and make you more rounded as an actor, expand your range as much as is possible, right right right right obviously. But all the while, you’re expected to hold true to “Who You Are Most”.
Over years and years of careful calculation, I have determined that Who I Am Most is “Quirky”, or, if we’re being more specific, “Quirky Effervescent Girl”, or, if we’re really zeroing in, “Quirky Bright Best Friend”.
This Image is further indicated by the following traits:
--I’m not the prettiest girl in the room.
--I’m not the boringest girl in the room.
--I’m not the stupidest girl in the room.
--I’m not the quietest girl in the room.
--I am bubbly.
The Image is further indicated on a purely superficial scale in that:
--I am extraordinarily animated, vocally and physically (although, hopefully, less elastic-faced than I once was).
--I move quickly always. Like a bunnyrabbit.
--I have a huge smile, and it’s gummy.
--I have huge eyes, and they’re better storytellers than I am.
--I have crazy mermaid hair.
--I generally wear bright things.
--…I am bubbly.
Oh, and:
--I’m a loud silly bitch that people seem to want to spend time with. People who are accepting of the fact that I might break into a song/limerick about them at a moment’s notice.
Hence: “Quirky Bright Best Friend”. (In a nutshell.)
I’m cool with this. In fact, I’m more than cool with this, these are all things that I’m happy to own and, in fact, have for quite some time. In fact, I might be so bold as to say that I occasionally flaunt these things because, I mean, why not? I own them, you don’t, and I like that, so…so, yeah, I can flaunt my Quirk. Non-obnoxious-like. I do, and I will.
How. Evs.
Because I “own” these things and have owned these things and just like them all so much, I don’t really want to deviate from any of it too much. Call it “Stubborn”, call it “Smart”, call it what you will, I just don’t want to do it.
I never thought I’d be asked to.
…
This past week, a sweet sweet lady friend of mine had an interview with my manager; she had kicked an exorbitant amount of ass at her grad school showcase and, incidentally, my manager wanted to chat with her and I, incidentally, wanted to know all of the horny details immediately following.
She: “Kinda intense. Haha.”
ME: Isn’t he, though?!
She: “Oh and he just told me that he has ideas for your hair.”
ME: …What does that mean about my hair…?
What DID that mean about my hair?!
As much as I love my mane, it’s not a thing I’ve ever been too protective about. I’ve had it a sundry of different lengths, dyed it a sundry of different colors, it all grows out or grows back, that’s fine. But…Huh. Odd.
I emailed him straight away.
ME: I heard you have some thoughts about my hair…?
He: “LOL. All in good time…”
…And that was it! That was ALL he said.
ME: I am SO INTRIGUED!
Which was actually code for “I am now suddenly SO NERVOUS!” Because, what the hell?! Just tell me what you want! Don’t dangle the idea in front of me like that...unless you think I won’t like it…
Hours went by before I heard anything else on the matter. I was on my way out the door to go to a workshop when sweet sweet lady friend texted:
“He wants you to cut it some and straighten it.”
…
I throw diva-fits over nothing. I generally don’t believe in them, they’re heinous and gross.
I threw a goddamn Diva. Fit.
STRAIGHTEN my hair?! He wants me to STRAIGHTEN my hair?!?! Permanently?!?!?! FUCK NO!!! No. No! Absolutely not, that is a ridiculous request, it’s not happening.
I was furious. Furious at the idea that someone would want me to part with my curls—I LOVE them! How DARE you!!—and furious that he would even think to make such an obscene and ludicrous and potentially career-detrimental request.
That’s my mermaid hair, and people talk about it. In a good way. To my face. All the time.
How did he not know that?
That’s a thing that helps me to stand out. That’s a thing that defines my Quirk, it helps to define Me. I permanently straighten my hair, and I will look like everyone else…almost.
Did he remember what happened to Jennifer Grey after her nose job?!
It takes a significant Image-defining option out of the way, and I will straighten my hair on occasion for occasional auditions, obviously, and happily, but I will not do it permanently, I will not get rid of my curls, I will not get rid of my Quirk, that’s a stupid request! It’s stupid, I hate it. Guhhhhh!!!
…Obviously, none of this was said directly to him, rather, I shrieked it to the rafters while pacing around my living room. Like you do. It actually has yet to come up in actual conversation and, frankly, I hope it doesn’t. (Maybe he realized it was a bad idea.) And maybe I’m feeling too precious about it. Maybe. …But, I don’t think so.
Thing is, and correct me if I’m wrong, I just feel like the last person in the world that I should have to defend any semblance of my Image to is the chap who’s representing me. He should be as aware of it as I am.
If he’s helping me “sell” the Quirky Girl, why deflate the Quirk?
This notion lit a fire inside of me that I carried into the workshop later that evening. I was meeting with a casting director—an indie film casting director (EEEEEEEE!!!)—and, obviously, wanted to put my best face forward.
For this particular workshop, we the class had the good fortune of being able to choose our own scenes; the casting director listed a series of sides on a database from both movies he’s currently working on and ones that he’s worked on in the past, and left it up to us to skim through them and choose one that fit us best.
It didn’t take long for me to find one: a chick managing an underground radio station, kinda spastic, perfectly Quirky. Done.
I dressed the part well, I was completely entirely off-book, and felt a bit firey for sure from the hair-convo, but primarily fearless and stoked.
I walked up to the front of the room and perched myself in front of the camera, feeling like I had nothing to prove and everything to own.
So I did.
There was chat, there was a take, there were giggles, there was an adjustment, there was laughter. A lot. And then, it was done.
Casting Director: “Cut. Really really good work. Perfect second time around. Honestly.”
ME: Thank you.
CD: “You nailed it. And…you should know that you have great timing. Like, really impressive comedic timing.”
ME: Wow. Thank you so much! Thanks!
(Thank you!!!)
CD: “…I mean, I got nothing else to say. Really great. Thank you. A lot.”
…So, that felt awesome. I felt giddy and flattered and relieved and elated and all of those things. Tremendously.
For fifteen seconds.
And then, this happened.
CD: “Angela.”
ME: Yes?
CD: “Your resume is really impressive.”
ME: Oh. Thank you.
CD: “You have some pretty great, impressive credits on here. And you’ve obviously been trained well.”
ME: Thank you! Very much.
CD: “Really and truly. And your headshot is not nearly good enough for you.”
…
WHAT?! My HEADSHOT?! My calling card for the past four years?! The picture I’ve been selling myself with?! The image of my Image?! “Not good enough”?!?!
I had had maybe two negative comments about my headshot in the past four years. Two. And I had been thinking about getting new ones taken, until I had various friends, my manager and one of my commercial agents dissuade me from doing so.
“No.”
“No way.”
“You certainly don’t need to.”
“You’re still the same actress telling this same story that you are in this picture.”
“You look no different.”
“Save your money.”
“Save your money, it’s totally unnecessary.”
And now, this.
CD: “On a shallower scale, you just look much younger in this picture than you appear. Like, if I saw this picture, I would think to cast you as high school-age, or early college. I absolutely would not just from looking at you right now.”
(Oooooh.)
CD: “Class, look. Do you guys see what I mean?”
(Guhhhhh. Well, this, um…this feeling sucks.)
But then, he went on.
CD: “That’s not even the most important thing. You. You are bright. You are like big and bright.”
(“Big”? How so?…Don’t read into it.)
CD: “I have talked to you for two and a half minutes and that is evident. And it’s already infectious, and it’s different and unique and good.”
ME: …Wow. Thank you.
(Wow. Thank you.)
CD: “This picture doesn’t tell me that. “
ME: Oh.
(Oh. Shit.)
CD: “It’s a pretty picture for sure, but I don’t care. We see pretty pictures all of the time, and it gets really easy to pass them by. Because we expect to see them. We don’t expect to see You.”
ME: …Oh.
CD: “This isn’t you. It’s pretty. And it’s blah. Show me bright, Quirky, infectious you. You find a picture that can do that for you, you’ll kill.”
ME: Wow. OK.
CD: “You couldn’t be passed by, passed up if you had a picture saying as much. Your resume says as much, you certainly say as much, you deserve a picture that says as much.”
(Oh my god.)
ME: You think I’ve been getting passed by? For this?
CD: “Honestly? I do.” (Oh my god.) “And I don’t want you to anymore, OK?”
ME: OK.
CD: “New pictures.”
ME: New pictures. OK. Great. …Thank you so much.
CD: “Absolutely absolutely.”
I’d messed up. I’d sold myself short. I’d owned the Image, built a resume around the Image, and been passing around a calling card, a headshot that didn’t quite do it.
I had been overlooked for it.
He was too specific for me to not believe that what he was saying was absolutely true.
There was this huge crazy pit that was starting to grow in my stomach, but I closed it up as quickly as I could and just stared ahead of me at this casting director. This casting director who, evidently, believed in Me. In who I was. In my capabilities, my Image, Me.
He believed in Me that much after two and a half minutes.
I had no idea what I did to deserve that.
I still don’t.
CD: “Where is she…Angela!”
ME: Yes?
CD: “That scene? That scene that this girl just did? Perfect for you. It would obviously sound totally different coming from you, but really. Perfect.”
ME: Awesome. Thanks.
CD: “No kidding, work on it.”
ME: I will. Thank you.
CD: “Man, I can’t wait til you get new pictures.”
…Me neither.
