Naturally Evil

Thursday night I took an awesome class with Bob Lambert, the casting director of under 5's (under 5 lines) for All My Children. Now, I usually don't use people's real names in this blog but I will with Bob because he’s amazing- and I kinda think we’re kindred spirits but I’ll leave that for another time. I highly recommend taking his class if you're interested in getting into soaps at all. He spent an hour basically talking about the audition process and shooting schedule for soaps because they are so different than regular TV shows. Then he screen-tested the whole class and critiqued us and then we watched our performances. And do you know what his comment was for mine? "Wow, that was great!" . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . "You just have this natural evilness that is really fun to watch!"

Wait, what?

I smiled and thanked him and sat back down in my chair wondering if it is true that I am naturally evil. I mean, I don't think I am, but what if I am? Do evil people know that they're evil? Or are they people like me, unsuspecting of their darker nature until someone else points it out to them? I decided that no, I'm not naturally evil, I'm just a good actress. . . although that could be a cop out for further self psychological probing. I also left wondering if people who aren’t good actors even know it. Because to be honest, I’ve taken a couple classes where there are a few actors who are pretty horrid, and the teacher doesn’t even mention it. Could I be one of those people? I mean someone would have mentioned it by now, right? RIGHT?!?!?

No wonder actors are so crazy. Our business relays so heavily on sense of self. That and the chances of getting a contract role on a soap are 1 in 40,000.