Better than Expected

Well I have to admit to being quite a pessimist/cynic on occasion (ok, most of the time) and Conduct Unbecoming seemed like a very small and unorgaized movie upon first glance. Casting didn’t have a script, I was only given a few lines to prepare for my audition, and the offer seemed to be a moving target, five days, three days, we’ll let you know.
Then I got my wardrobe call and they sent me to a house in scarborough (a generally not highly regarded suburb of Toronto for those not intimately familiar with toronto), on a Saturday no-less. I was now really in depressed “this is not going to be a good movie” mode. To make matters worse, I got wrapped up in some other stuff and before I knew it, I was running an hour late…great, not only is the movie unprofessional, but so am I. Well, after a phone call and reassurement that there would still be someone there to fit me, I showed up and everything changed.

I was greeted at the door by what what I can only describe as Tarzan in a marine dress uniform, as well as a 70 something year old man working feverishly on an ipod and macbook pro. Turns out the tarzan figure was the lead actor, Cory Sevier (who I had never heard of, but was clearly one of those guys who screams movie star, either now or later). This guy is on fire, with multiple series and MOW’s under his 25 year old belt. Not only is he working like crazy but he seems like a great guy. Very friendly, sense of humor and humble. So I’m cracking wise and he’s laughing and Sidney Furie, the legendary director starts throwing me compliments about how great my audition was, and if only everyone could do an audition like that, etc. So I’m feeling better already. Not to mention that the uniforms are 100% authentic with full medal regalia. So here is this 77 year old guy who immediately starts talking about my hair and how it should be, and immediately gets on youtube and fires up some video on how to do a marine haircut, and then starts complaining about his boingo account! I’m like, what’s a boingo account (turns out its a paid wifi account where you can get internet service at over 100,000 hotspots for $9.95/month. I was prett funny actually because he started kind of obsessing over why they were sending him multiple emails about canceling his account. He was speculating over what their motivation was (I think their motivation was they don’t know what the fuck they are doing Sidney).

Anyway, just to recap, my cynical feelings went away when I met the principle parties and realized they know what they are doing. I still don’t know what we are shooting on, or what the hoped for distribution intent is, but I do know I will be in the hands of a pro, and working with a very hot actor, who probably wouldn’t have taken this job if his people hadn’t advised it. Cory is definitely on the move and I hope to become friends with him and hopefully include some of his experiences in this blog. Later players.