Rendezvous with Nick Hamon Casting

I recently sent out some 'targeted' e-mails to casting directors I am keen on meeting with, one of which was Nick Hamon Casting. Not even 24 hours after having sent the e-mail I received a call from their casting office inviting me in for a general audition for the following day. I presume they liked my new headshot and showreels. Yay for me!

I was actually out walking my pooch when I received the call and didn't have a pen or paper to write down details, so I memorised the date, time and location and literally ran all the way home to start preparing.

My first train of thought was to use the single handed monologue I recently used for my general at Mullinars, but then I remembered about a certain scene that I had worked on whilst in LA during 2009 and set out on a massive Internet search to find it. In this case the casting director was happy to read, so why not?

The scene I am referring to is from the film Chasing Amy, it's a scene between Alyssa and Holden that takes place in a park where Alyssa is talking with Holden about her being a Lesbian.

I eventually found the scene and embarked on memorising lines, surprisingly I remembered most of lines from back in 2009 and it wasn't long before I had them all down pat. I also had all my scene study work from the first time I had worked this scene as well as the notes my teacher at Ivana Chubbuck had given me on my initial performance so I was able to spend most of my 24 hours rehearsing before turning up at the casting office.

Unfortunately, I have no tales of being forgotten about this time round, I turned up and waited in the waiting room for a while before realising that my heart was beating mighty fast. I then realised I was nervous, very nervous. I was not prepared for something as silly as nerves to get in the way of my audition so despite the other actors in the room I stood up and stretched, jiggled and wiggled and sent those nerves packin'!

I met with Megan and we ran through my lines once off camera before filming the scene, I choose to sit on a chair and used a take-away coffee cup as my prop (reusable of course, gotta be friendly with the environment).

My feedback, well as usual it wasn't much, a warm and friendly "that was really nice Chantal" was what I got and to be frank I am totally wrapped with that. How do I feel about my performance, well, it was smooth, natural, reactive and .. really nice.