The One That Got Away

Sometimes you don't get the commercial you audition for. Actually most times. And you get used to that. But I auditioned for one in particular that I thought would be really fun. This one had a prop microphone in the auditioning room. And you had to pretend to be a stand-up. Me likey!



We had the option of reading the American role and the UK role, if we could fake a British accent. Can I fake one? Chim-chimeney chim-chimeny chim-chim-charoo!

At the callback (CALLBACK? YES!) they told us all to stop kidding ourselves and just do it with our normal US dialects. Fine. We were given several different "bits" to read as a comedian. Great. Then we were asked in, one by one, and David Steinberg was in the room, smiling a patient smile. An I-Direct-Curb-Your-Enthusiasm-And-May-Remember-You-For-Future-Projects smile.

"Hi...uh...you're from the TEE-VEE. Me Abbi. I like to reading for you now." I kept stuttering and lost my cool. He told me to relax and start again. I flubbed the line in a different way, tensed up, apologized, and the mood in the room dropped. The other people evaluating my read were somber. I switched gears and I went with my own stand-up and got a laugh. THERE. But alas, I didn't get the job. And when I see it on TV it's going to remind me of the time I got flustered over a big name. This better be the last time! And by that I mean The Hoff had better not dabble in commercials.