My fourteen year old son went to his first audition for a commercial today. I want to talk about it but there is no one to really talk to except him, and he of course, is fourteen, and all he can say is "Mom, we just sat at the table and pretended to eat potatoes. My pretend mom was really nice. She's smaller than you are."
Let me back up. So my Darling Boy is my only child. He is this verbal, kind, charming kid who absolutely knows how to work me. Like me, he is a ham. Unlike me, he does not have the need to talk to every single person on the planet he meets as if he were some kind of anxious poodle. He's like his father that way. DB was bitten by the Acting Bug via ballet dancing. The local professional ballet company came to the school when he was in second grade. He came home and made a bee line for his father, talking about how high they jumped and how fast they could spin. Then he said, and I am not making this up: "And the girls were HOT." This, from a seven year old. My husband folded his paper aside and said "How hot?"
DB was on the ski team, the soccer team and husband's baseball team. Over the years, that faded and now he dances about two to three hours a day, five days a week during the school year and six hours on Saturday. During the summer it's about eight hours a day, five days a week. For eight weeks. What started the acting wish began when DB learn that his friend, who was his age, went to Broadway, as one of the Billy Elliot dancers. As the character of Billy. Now the kid is touring in London or something. So, last summer we took DB to Broadway to show him what New York and Broadway were like. And that was that. In Times Square his mouth fell open. Darling Husband asked "What's wrong with him? Is he having a panic attack or something?" But DB just turned in a slow circle, head looking straight up, and said "Oh. My. GOD. I am SO going to live HERE!" And so now, DB knows what he wants to do. He wants to be in front of people. Dancing, singing, acting, or if he gets this thing he went for today: Eating potatoes.
DB got the lead roles in his junior high school plays and then went through this intense crisis because the plays took time away from ballet. And the school plays were much more social and provided much more instant gratification than ballet ever could. Then he felt all guilty about ballet, which brooks no other lover. Just ask any professional ballet dancer and they will explain this to you in grisly detail. Finally, one of his favorite, most terrifying and most beloved teachers phoned me to explain that while he would make a wonderful ballet dancer, she believed his heart was in acting. I then learned that her son is a professional actor as well. A famous one. She made a phone call or two and the next thing you know, he had an agent. A real one - not the kind that you have to pay all this money to or anything. And then he went to a weekend acting workshop for commercials. And then he got some photographs made. And then they called us two days ago and said he needed to show up to this audition to pretend to eat potatoes with his pretend family with the pretend mother who is younger and nicer and smaller than me.
I read the little sheet that went with the Potato Eater Audition. They are looking for an 'ethnic' family. My son looks a lot like a very young Leonardo DiCaprio. He couldn't look more All American Idaho Potato if he tried. But ethnic? Not unless Eastern European is considered ethnic. DB took it all in stride. As he put it. "Dude, Mom, this is just practice. That's all. Just practice. Relax. I don't expect to get it. But I might as well practice. I'll probably be in 100 auditions before I ever get anything." So I figured that I might as well start counting the auditions someplace. And that place is Right Here. Audition One: The Potato Eaters.
He still is going to dance ballet. He loves it. And, as he put it "I can tell that there are about a jillion kids about there who can act. And who can sing too. But I don't think there are as many that can DANCE and sing and act. If I'm going to get there, it will be because I can do all three. That's what I think."
I think I need to go make potatoes for dinner anyway. Just for luck.
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