Super Duper!

So here’s the scoop.

If you read Variety on a regular basis, or you’re a total comic book geek, you might already know this but Warner Brothers studios is putting together a movie version of Justice League of America. Based on the DC comics, this group of superfriends are made up of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash and sometimes others like the Green Arrow. George Miller (director of Babe and Mad Max and most recently Happy Feet) has signed on to direct.

WB is on the fast track to make this movie because there are impending contracts about to run out—SAG and the WGA. What does that mean in movie business terms? It means there could be a whole lot of negotiations and a possible talent strike. When a talent strike happens, no movies get made. So all studios are ramping up projects in pre-production and pushing up production dates to get a whole lot of movies made and banked for the summer of 2009. They have to start making the movie before March to not be affected by the upcoming negotiations.

The JLA project is one of those movies.

Also, it seems that the two actors you’d think most likely to be in the movie, Christian Bale (Batman) and the other guy who played Superman in the movie, or even the guy who plays Superman on Smallville, are NOT signed on and will be unavailable for filming in February.

So a talent search is on and for some reason the casting call went out to Seattle. I got wind of it through a message board sight. The allure of the fact that it films in Sydney for three months, starting in February, made me send in my headshot just for the hell of it, knowing full well that I’m not really right for Superman or Batman, or any other superhero (barely young enough and definitely not in superhero shape). The casting director called me in anyway and I was glad to go because I have yet to audition for this person and want them to consider me for other projects.

They sent out four options of different sides to prepare. Now, the script for JLA has just been finished and is being kept under wraps. So the sides they gave me were for other movies. Not obscure movies. Very well known movies.

Good Will Hunting. Swingers. A Few Good Men.

Now, I really wanted to do the “You can’t handle the truth!” speech from A Few Good Men—I mean, it’s really fun to say—but I just couldn’t get Jack Nicholson out of my head, so opted for the Swingers scene. Besides, I’m more the Jon Favreau type anyway.

The casting office was located in Westlake, not too far from work. I decided to walk. Of course, by the time I walked over there, the drizzly cloudy day became a hot, sunny day and I was sweating up a storm by the time I arrived. I literally had to dry myself off in the bathroom. And of course, no one in Seattle ever has any thought to regulating room temperature so the offices were hot and humid and I just kept sweating. Eventually, I dried off before I walked into the room.

I met the two women who were running the auditions who were very full of energy (evidently they did the casting for Sleepless in Seattle, so they’ve been around awhile). I stood on my mark for the camera and told them my funny story. They laughed (a good sign). Then I did my audition. It went really well, actually. Mostly, I think any anxiety about it I had was dissipated by the fact that I was obviously not right for the part (I could tell by the listing that they want hot young 25 year old models who can barely form sentences). Afterwards they even commented on how well my transitions were from beat to beat.

I walked out of there feeling good and then walked down to the Seattle Rep to see a reading of a new play with Lisa.

Will I ever hear from the casting people again? We’ll see. Perhaps there will be a commercial or other film project in the future that is better suited for my talents.