Useless

Actors are weird creatures. They schedule auditions and then feel like it's optional to show up. Some call with excuses, "I just got in a car accident." Right. If one looked at the data, the incidents of car accidents when actors have auditions scheduled would be like 3000 times more often than the rate of car accidents for the rest of the population in the same space and time. So forgive me when I'm not sympathetic.

UPDATE: But why? Why call and tell lies about emergencies, etc. Do they think I believe them? Wouldn't that be stupid? How many times can you use an excuse and expect it to be believed. Three times? Perhaps. But these actors must use emergency type of excuses weekly. And not just with auditions, with friends, lovers, whomever, the number of excuses and emergencies must pile up. So at a certain point, it must be obvious to a somewhat intelligent actor that the lie is obviously a lie. This is point that interests me. What is the desire to lie, knowing that the person you are lying to knows you are lying? It's the old, getting your hand caught in the cookie jar, and wanting everyone to love you despite it....the Bill Clinton phenomena. I guess that's why everyone thought he should come to Hollywood.

But here's the issue. They still expect to be loved. When the guy calls about his car accident, he wants me to feel sympathy for him. Why? I don't know him. Even if an actor that I had never met died, would I feel any different than I would upon hearing about a death of a child in the Pakistani earthquake?

Does he think that if he gets sympathy from me for his "car accident" that I will be more likely to forgive his absense? But why would he care? I'm not casting him in this project. I won't even remember his name five hours from now, so it's not like a black mark on his record. Even if I did remember his name, and wanted to cast him in the future, ditching an audition wouldn't proclude me from doing so. So why lie? It makes no rational sense.

So is the actor counting on my rationality saying, well there's no incentive to lie, so he must be telling the truth? I highly doubt an actor is thinking this way. It would be like a beginning poker player who barely knows what he holds in his hand is predicting what Doyle Brunson is holding next to him. I don't even think they could conceive of thinking that advanced.

So....wanting to be loved, to be felt sorry for. Just like lawyers get a bad rap because weasels tend to gravitate towards their profession, actors get a bad rap because phony, needy people gravitate towards theirs.

UPDATE II: Just finished auditions. In the end, saw a bunch of people, some pretty damn good ones. Some awful. Checking my email, got one from an actor that couldn't make it, "Someone rearended me on the freeway, not gonna be able to make it. Let
me know if we can rescheduel."

Indeed.

UPDATE III: Another actor called tonight because his daughter had a trip to the emergency room this morning. Jeez. I felt bad for the guy, I mean, obviously some things are more important than auditions. But that's three major emergencies - close family member to hospital and two car accidents out of 15 or so people. 1 in 5. I think I have about 20 friends or so in LA and I imagine NONE of them had emergencies this morning, although if the statistics of my actors scheduled for audition were the control group, 4 of them should have.