C-Cup Quota
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: [To be read in a pompous British accent] My forthcoming memoir, FOOLISH: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation, contains a reference to my first ever blog, The Dirty Dirty. During the year-and-a-half in which I kept this blog, I was in my mid-20s, living in Atlanta (hence “The Dirty Dirty”) and working at an ad agency designing annoying Flash pop-up ads while still pursuing acting on the side, mainly via suspicious Craigslist ads, which was completely safe and not at all foolish. The following is an excerpt from said blog. [end British accent]
June 9, 2004
Two weeks ago I auditioned for a movie. It’s a thriller / horror / werewolf movie. During the audition, I had to say the line “This is a spring break gone very, very wrong”. With a straight face. I must have done ok because on Monday they called and asked me to do a second audition. Which I was pretty excited about…until this morning when I got the script.
Well, first of all, the second audition is in North Carolina and I dread the idea of driving up there (5 hours). But that’s minor. The major problems are, it’s not a huge part, like, I get my throat torn out by the werewolf monster halfway through the movie. And that’s, of course, right after the lesbian love scene. That I’m in.
So…yeah. It’s pretty exciting to get a second audition…but…should I really drive five hours for only the slight possibilty of being cast in a straight-to-DVD C-movie that I’d have to take three weeks off of work to shoot and that I’m clearly only in cuz I have big tits? These are the tough questions I must ask myself.
June 20, 2004
I left Saturday morning at 6am to drive to Greensboro. It’s a five hour drive and I just knew I was going to forget something. Halfway out the door I remember that I wanted to take the bottle of zinc Aaron loaned me for the cold I’ve been trying to fight. Turns out I already had it. I made it to the elevator then I remembered I wanted to bring different shoes to change into once I get there. So I go back again and grab the shoes. I get into my car and I decide there’s nothing I could have forgotten.
Around 7am, I’d been driving for an hour, I was almost out of gas and starving. So I stopped and found a Chick-fil-a to order my favorite breakfast in the whole world, a chicken biscuit. I get to the window to pay and reach into my purse…. And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t forgotten the zinc, I hadn’t forgotten my shoes, but I had definitely forgotten something. My fucking wallet.
Now, this is how slow my brain is working at this point. I’m sitting in the parking lot with the chicken biscuit I was able to purchase with spare change in my car, and thinking, why do I need my wallet? I’m not going to buy anything in Greensboro. I am driving without my license which is risky, but not a huge deal. It wasn’t until at least five seconds after that when I noticed my gas tank was almost on empty. And only then did I realize I had absolutely no way of paying for gas, and a very good chance of being stranded in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina. Obviously I had to go back.
Halfway back to Atlanta, my gas light came on. I came dangerously close to running out, hoping against everything that I could make it back on what I had left, but then realizing there was no way. I exited and pulled into a gas station. And I just sat there. It was an awful feeling. I didn’t know what to do. So I swallowed my pride, got out of the car, looked around for someone who looked nice enough….found this guy who was pumping gas into his truck, walked up to him and said, “Sir, I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m stranded. I have no money for gas, is there anyway you can help me.” He kind of laughed, like it was a joke, but then I think he realized I was about to start bawling and pulled out his wallet. He asked me how much I needed, I said three dollars. He gave me a five, and patted me on the shoulder and told me I was going to be ok. I thanked him profusely, then walked away, in awe of the beauty of mankind and thinking the only thing I could think: SUCKER!!!
Not really. I was super thankful. You know, asking a perfect stranger for money is the most humiliating thing. I felt terrible for asking, and I couldn’t believe how nice it was of this guy to just hand me five dollars. Anyway, I made it back to Atlanta and got my wallet. Then started the trip all over again.
June 29, 2004
I had to turn down the lesbian role in the werewolf movie. I was officially offered the part after the callback audition. But after asking the director about what nudity my character had (and it’s a good thing I did ask because he never mentioned it), he said my character had “topless bathing”. So, just to be even more specific, I asked, “So my breasts would be bare and fully shown?” and he said “Yes.” And I said “FUCK THAT!” Well not really. I just told him I wasn’t comfortable with that. And he said,
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I wish there was some creative wiggle room here for us to play with, but there’s a certain way the movie has been described to our investors, and certain things we’ve promised that we must deliver, so my hands are kind of tied.”
Apparently there’s some kind of affirmative action for nudity in crappy movies like this. How that actually guarantees more sales….I don’t know.
Sarah Cooper lives in Brooklyn. Pre-order FOOLISH here.
