Confidence is Everything

Confidence is everything.

Back about 10 years ago I got a call to set up an audition time for a movie. It was kind of surprising because it wasn’t my agent, or even my agency. It was an agent who’d seen me in a few shows over the years and knew I was very good at what I do. Plus the character they were casting for was a dive bar doorman, and she knew I’d been a bouncer for decades.

I booked the audition, but kinda regretted it. I’ve done a lot of these little indie and festival flicks over the last 45 years. They’re usually short, and rarely have a wide release; they’ll pop up on a small radar for a week or three then disappear forever. I was pretty busy at the time, and this felt like it’d be a big hassle for something not many people would ever see. But I’d agreed to do the audition and would reflect poorly on her if I backed out, so I was going in and do it. Probably wasn’t gonna really put my heart into it though.

When I got there I saw the 6 or 7 other guys there to read for the part were your traditional bouncer types, really big dudes in their 20s. I don’t look like that at all; I’m about 5’8″, 160. And I was 51 at the time. I saw them smirk when I walked in. They were whispering to one another, giggling and pointing at me. They were clearly mocking me. “Welp,” I thought, “that was a mistake, boys. I WAS gonna tank this audition, but not now. You might as well just go ahead on home. This part is mine.”

And it was. I hadn’t been home a whole hour when I got the call I’d been cast.

I was sitting at the first table read, hoping it’d be a good cast so shooting this thing would at least be fun, when I heard a voice I recognized immediately. No way. That CAN’T be who it sounds like. But sure enough, I looked up to see Thomas Haden Church walk into the room. Lowell freakin’ Mather from “Wings,” one of my all time favorite tv characters. And the pretty little blonde sitting beside me, turned out she looked a little like Toni Collette because she WAS Toni Collette. And I’d WONDERED why the walls were full of Paul Newman movie posters; it was because this was the film he was working on when he died. Joanne Woodward was still involved.

This ain’t no little indie flick. I’d stumbled into a full blown Hollywood sho’nuff MOVIE. Oliver Platt’s in it. So’s Johnny Depp. So am I.

I honestly had no idea it’d be anywhere near that scale. I still thought it would be another blink and you miss it short film right up to when I heard Tom’s voice. And the only reason I was there at all is because I know what I’m capable of. I wasn’t what the casting director was looking for when I walked into that audition room, but I was when I walked back out. And that probably wouldn’t have happened if that pack of meatheads who wanted the part hadn’t pushed me. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

Oh and ps: groggily flipping through the channels when you’re still half asleep in the morning and unexpectedly running into yourself up on the tv screen is just an excellent way to wake up. I highly recommend it.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on December 7, 2023.

Bama has been a rodeo cowboy, a professional stuntman, and, for 39 years and counting, a bouncer at various biker bars and redneck rat cage juke joints through the Deep South. He makes cool stuff as Crimson Tied Paragear, using knots his Army Ranger Scoutmaster taught him at Boy Scout summer camp deep in the Okinawan boonies back in 1972.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.