This week I have a casting for an advert. The brief is my usual: “nice, natural, best friend material, not model-pretty. Oh, except you should have big eyes because you will be playing a bush-baby. So wear some eyeliner.” It’s the wonderfully simplistic world of commercial castings. Some actors don’t need to do them. Some actors refuse to do them, no matter how broke. It’s not generally the work you dreamed of as a child and you only have to channel hop to see some poor victim to his art skipping around like a loon.
On the other hand, there are catchy, well crafted snippets that become part of popular culture for decades. There are people who are extraordinarily gifted at them, natural clowns or incredibly good at their technique. The rest of us trek along week after week, to a process that can take less than a minute.One job in twenty castings is the average statistic. Too plump, too thin, wrong smile, not commercial enough, not goofy enough.
Eaten by sharks
And you never know what they’ll get you to do. I’ve had to wear a swimming costume and be eaten by a shark. I’ve had to snog the back of my hand with true passion and tell the cameraman I loved him. I’ve played the cello whilst wincing to the pain of gastric ulcers. And last week I turned up to an audition in the furthest region of West London, and as the girls around me started to undress I realised I was in the wrong audition entirely.
There are of course wonderful exceptions to the rule. A friend of a friend was paid £40,000 to be flown to Rio just to stand on a mountain and look happy. Your fee reflects just how seriously businesses take their campaigns, and how much money they expect it to make them. But I have a few experiences that are enough to put anyone off for life and here is one of them. I’m going to name the brand because they deserve it. It was Nik-Naks, and a campaign they were doing that was to mimic the famous scene from 'Alien'.
After months of struggling to work on crowded public transport, it always feels terribly luxurious to be picked up in a huge silver Mercedes, with a driver who stops off to get your coffee and paper and anything else you want. I’m sure it’s something you get used to very quickly but for now it makes up for the 5am start. Arriving on the shoot, which is set on a ferry back home from Amsterdam, the five of us, Joseph, Alan, Gary, Jenny and I, pretty randomly selected for the supposed likeness to our movie star counterparts, quickly get chatting away over a huge breakfast. We’ve met before at two rounds of auditions and were fortunate enough to click immediately as a group. It’s a buoyant start. The day together should be fun. Wake-up call over, we head towards wardrobe and make-up.
Go Braless
The director, pokes his head round the door of the girl’s changing rooms. “Rachel, may I have a word”.
The wardrobe supervisor goes with him. She comes back a little flushed. “He wants you to remove your bras. “He says what every man remembers from Alien is the fact that Sigourney Weaver didn’t wear a bra and you could see her nipples”
“She was also paid 3 million and didn’t sell crisps."
Jenny looks unhappy. “I do loads of adverts with Jerry. He thinks I have tits. I know it sounds funny but if I take out my chicken fillets he’ll realise how flat I am and it might affect my casting. Can’t we make some nipples?” Rachel sighs but Jenny is already chopping into her bra and so she begins rolling up cotton wool and takes a needle and thread.
I don’t have the same excuse. So it’s where I take a stand, right? I weigh up the pros and cons of a fight, remember that I’m hardly a prude, think of the pay cheque, decide that after all I don’t really care about a bit of nipple and take off my bra. I’m wearing a stretchy blue top that is almost transparent and the effect is, quite frankly, pornographic. Hm.
I go and see the make-up girls. “Is it just me or is this, well, a bit much?” “Good grief darling, yes.”
I go and see Rachel who is furiously moulding and twisting Jenny’s nipples into position.
“Rachel I’m not comfortable with this.”
“Then go and see Jerry.”
I take a deep breath and march up to Jerry, trying to look jovial. “Jerry. Rachel said you wanted us to take off our bras. Now I’m not a prude, I don’t mind a bit of nipple, but I’m wearing this top and it’s a bit too revealing.”
“Well Mara, I’m afraid that what all men remember from Alien…..” “
Yes I know. But I’m not Sigourney Weaver and I’m not very happy.”
“The thing you have to understand is that we’ve spent a lot of money on this ad and it has to look right. It looks fine from where I’m standing. It won’t be noticeable on TV.”
Do I go and put the offending item back on? I would like to say yes. But I haven’t worked for a while, this guy does a lot of ads, and it’s not as if I’m taking my top off. I’m more angry at the fact that he’s asked me than at the prospect itself. I don’t want to create a bad atmosphere for the rest of the day. So I get into position for the first take. Jenny strides on to set. Rachel’s done a great job, her nipples are clearly visible.
Alien gunk
The first shot takes forever, for some reason. But by the next scene my bonhomie is restored, and the extras are on set. There are some kids rolling around in the crèche on cue. People walking around with trays of ferry food. And a woman playing a fruit machine behind us. I roll up with a packet of Nik Naks and the banter begins ….the kind of safe, homogenised, banter so beloved by advertising execs. “Cor I’m starving, oi give ‘em here…you look sick as a dog after last night mate, ha ha ha” etc.
It takes only a few seconds on TV but takes about 4 hours to arrange the shots, kids, lights, and then change the angle and start all over again. Lunch comes and goes. We’re supposed to be finished by five and Gary hasn’t even started his choking routine yet. There are arguments about the arrangements of the various shots. The director is becoming snappy and there are some rolling of eyes from the crew. It looks like we’ll be going into overtime. 9 hours of filming so far for less than 10 seconds of film!
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Finally Gary is in position for the alien extrusion and we gather round. A dummy has been made of Gary’s body which is laid out carefully. It has a hole in the stomach. Gary crouches underneath the table and pokes his head out through a hole in the table above the neckline. It’s gloriously B-movie. Jammed next to Gary is the director brandishing a three foot knobbly Nik Nak with a face. Thrust in between them is an enormous hose like a leaf-blower, pointing expectantly at the dummy’s gaping tummy. It’s attached to a tank of alien gunk. Or, in this case, the violent orange monosodium glutomate that coats the snack. For our purposes, Golden Breadcrumbs crushed with luminous food colouring.
More powder
Gary coughs, chokes, writhes, gasps and screams. The mates are alternately mocking, concerned, horrified. With a poof the Nik Nak monster has burst through his stomach to greet our astonished faces and a dusting of fine orange powder settles on our chests.
It’s not enough. “I want more powder on the actors." Jerry demands, "I want it to cover them.” We do the shot again, leaning closer over the hole and allowing the dust to hit us before springing back. Soon we have orange dust coating our faces, arms, chests. It tingles somewhat suspiciously.
We wait for the next take. And wait, and wait. It becomes dull. Someone brings more tea, and a round of cake. We don’t want it but it’s something to do. The heat of the lights make us sweat. Soon the powder has caked on our faces with the moisture and it cracks when we smile, but the jokes are becoming fewer and everyone involved is getting bored and grumpy. It’s getting dark outside. The poor lady who stands behind us at the juke box is having to stand there take after take while they argue over something or other. The only joke is that Jenny’s nipples have now stayed firmly erect for approximately 14 hours.
Finally we’re called and walk stiffly into position to do the whole thing again. “Stop!! More powder! The powder lady picks up the bucket of gunk.
“Right!! Lie down you lot. She’s going to throw it on you." Commands Jerry
“What?”
We lie down in a row and close our eyes. The make up ladies are kind enough to disobey and use paintbrushes. But this time we really are covered. It’s in our hair, our ears, our pants. The lights have been heating the studio all day and the temperature is soaring.
Jerry now decides that what he really wants is a close up of a face being hit with the powder. I’m up first. The camera is brought closer. I’m to lean in to see what is happening, then wait to be hit before comically recoiling. Stepping closer to Gary and the dummy, I see that the hose has been drawn out of it’s buffered position under the table and the dummy and is now pointing directly at my face, less than an arm’s length away. “Er, that’s pointing at my face.” “Yes” “Have you turned the pressure on that thing down?” The man holding the hose looks sheepish. “Well, no.” “Then it’s going to go directly in my eyes.”
Dance with a Nik Nak
A sneer comes from underneath the table. Its Jerry “Mara, you have evolved eyelids over millions of years. You are, in theory, one of the most sophisticated animals on this planet. You will no doubt find that your eyes will shut and then you must step back and we want a close up of your dance with the Nik Nak. Ok?”
“Fine.” I mutter murderously. The tank releases with a bang in my face. My colleagues watching the monitor said it was like watching a horror film. My head whips back as if it has been struck off, orange breadcrumbs up my nose to the back of my throat and in my eyes before I can shut them. It takes a couple of seconds for me to realise that I am not going to be able to open them, during which time I’m making a feeble attempt at the funky chicken. Somewhere that tape still exists.
So they stop the shoot and the paramedic arrives. The set is hushed and a crowd gathers as fluid is squirted into my eyes. In the back of my mind I know I’m not going to go blind but I can’t help enjoying the fact that the bastards don’t know that. The shoot is stopped while I recover and cool off. In retrospect I was far too polite about the whole thing but I just wanted it all to be over. So I remained tight-lipped as Jerry made his apologies, all the tests were done etc etc, the poor man holding the hose telling me how bad he felt….and the blessed make-up girls commiserating and dabbing my face.
15 hours on set
By this time it’s 11pm and we have all been on set since 8am. The rest of the hours are a miserable blur, no doubt for all concerned, and no-one is speaking to each other unless they have to. The poor lady pretending to play the fruit machine has been on her feet for every camera set-up for what must have been six hours. She’s heavily built, wearing heels and must be in agony.
After what must have been the 20th explosion of powder Jerry shouts “CUT!! What are you doing?” “I was responding. There’s a man choking and an alien poking out of his stomach”
“Well don’t.”
“I don’t respond to the alien?”
“No. You play the fruit machine.”
The good humour has long faded. Every 10 minutes we’re coated with new orange stuff to replace what we’ve sweated off. The final twist of cruelty – somewhere past midnight, our wits at their end, hot, tired, itching and angry, they put on “Le Freak, c’est chic : Ahhhh..FREAK OUT!….” and tell us to dance. To the whole of the song. All three and a half minutes of it. It doesn’t sound that long but when you can’t flag for a second for fear of another take, when it is imperative you keep smiling, when you really only ever had four or five moves and you’re darned miserable…..well, I defy Helen Mirren to do it and I earned every penny of the fee. Three days later I was still finding breadcrumbs in my ears.
It is some consolation to Mara that the advert won an award at Cannes but that Golden Wonder has now gone bust.