Too Much Is Not Enough

by Andrew Rannells

  The day of my audition, I told my boss I had a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was up to. I didn’t even tell my friends. I went to Bernie Telsey’s office with an air of “Who gives a fuck?” about me. I had a job, a real job that paid real well, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be an actor anymore. This will just be for fun, I told myself. And that’s exactly what I did, I had fun in that room. I had all of the audition material memorized, so I was free to do whatever I wanted physically. I rolled around on the floor. I humped the wall. I threw my water bottle at one point. I was just living my full and honest life as Marilyn, all while singing and speaking in a very broad English accent. (I had prepared by watching hours of Absolutely Fabulous. I just basically slurred a lot to hide any regional inaccuracies.) Craig looked stunned, or terrified, I couldn’t quite tell. He said, “Can you excuse me for a minute?” He left me alone in the audition room with the accompanist. I was confused and feared he was calling the Bellevue psych ward. Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown that water bottle.

  Craig re-entered the room with Bernie Telsey, a man I had never actually seen in person. It was kind of like seeing Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.

  “Do that again,” Craig said.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “All of it.” he said.

  So once again I rolled on the floor and humped the wall. I definitely threw that bottle again, even harder this time. When it was all over, Bernie looked at me and smiled.

  “We are going to bring you in to meet the director for a work session.”

  What the what? Director? Work session? (Honestly, I didn’t know what a “work session” entailed, but now didn’t seem like a good time to ask. As it turns out, it’s when you work on the material with the director. I probably should have been able to figure that out.) We scheduled the work session for the following week, and they sent me home with more material and said that I should watch some films by the director Mike Leigh for my accent. (I guess Absolutely Fabulous was not the best choice.)

  I worked and worked on that material. I got excited again about acting. I told my boss that I had another doctor’s appointment and headed out for my work session. The director was a British man named Christopher Renshaw, and I quickly learned that he didn’t want a performance, he wanted to see how I took direction, how malleable I was. It was fun. He was fun. I didn’t feel stressed or scared, I felt at ease with him. I got the sense that he liked me. He was laughing and kind and I thought, I think this is happening for me this time.

  Dear reader, please take note of this feeling. It’s the “This is my moment” high that has shown up every time I’ve auditioned for something. You may have noticed that it has come up a few times in my stories. This is a feeling that plagues actors at every turn. Now, if you tank an audition, you’re generally walking out of the room, thinking, God, that was embarrassing. Better luck next time, me! But if you get even the slightest glimmer of hope from someone in that room—a laugh, a smile—all of a sudden you are already mentally spending your future paychecks at Crate & Barrel. As I was packing up my things to leave, Christopher Renshaw said, “Andrew, we would like to bring you back to meet Rosie. Sound good?”

  Rosie.

  As in, the renowned comedian and famed talk show host Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie O’Donnell, the sole producer of this show. According to the papers, she alone was fronting the $10 million to mount this production. She had the final word. This was it. My final callback.

  “Just do everything exactly as we just did it and you will be fine. Better than fine,” Christopher said. Holy shit, this is happening. (That damn feeling again.)

  Weeks went by and I heard nothing from Bernie Telsey’s office. I checked in with them periodically, and their response was always the same, “You are definitely coming back. We are just having a hard time with Rosie’s schedule. We aren’t sure when she will be back from her Miami house.” As an avid watcher of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, I knew all about this Miami house. She was probably barbecuing with Gloria Estefan at that very moment, while I was sweating the fate of my professional future.

  Finally, three weeks after my work session, they called. Rosie was in town and it was time to come back in. “Just do exactly what you did last time,” they repeated. The problem was, I didn’t really remember exactly what I had done last time. I thought I did. But did I? Another problem to solve was, how was I supposed to miss another day of work unnoticed? I couldn’t say I had another doctor’s appointment, and I couldn’t just call in sick. I needed to up the stakes. I needed to create a foolproof way to generate understanding and support. I needed something personal. I could say I had a bad breakup and I needed to take some time.

  No. That seemed too weak.

  I could say that I needed to escort a friend to have an abortion. I did that once when I worked at the Gap and it totally worked.

  No, I got it.

  I would tell my boss that I had to get a colonoscopy. It would create sympathy and give me the entire day off, and he wouldn’t want to know any details. It was perfect. I went into my boss’s office and explained, with slightly tear-filled eyes, that I had to have this procedure done. He was definitely sympathetic. Too sympathetic. Or maybe I had too many tears in my eyes. He hugged me and told me it was all going to be okay. I immediately felt terrible. In that moment I realized I just should have said “root canal.” It was too late.

  But I got my day off!

  The day of my Rosie meeting, I was terrified. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I couldn’t replicate something I had done once a month ago? I wore the same outfit, figuring that was a good start. I got to the office, and Bernie Telsey himself greeted me. He immediately put me at ease. “You are going to be great,” he said. The waiting room was empty except for one other person. Bernie noticed me notice this person.

  “Andrew, this is Jeffrey Carlson. Jeffrey, Andrew Rannells. You’ll both be reading today.”

  What fresh hell is this? I wasn’t told about this. I was led to believe that I and I alone would be meeting Ms. O’Donnell today. Who the fuck is Jeffrey Carlson and why is he crashing my meeting?

  Jeffrey had floppy blond hair and was wearing tight pants and a pair of high heels. I was wearing jeans, a white tank top, and work boots. I had a chilly flashback to my Rent audition. Why has the idea of auditioning in drag always eluded me?! I thought. (Quick Audition Tip: I always figure that an actor’s skills should be enough, so I’ve never been a fan of auditioning in a full homemade costume. But more often than not, directors and casting directors don’t have the best imaginations. Sometimes a homemade costume pays off. Unless it’s for Cats. Or Les Miz. Or Starlight Express.)

  “Andrew, you are going to go first.” Bernie said.

  That’s right. I am going to go first. I am going to go book this job first, and Jeffrey Carlson and his pumps can get back on the bus to wherever the hell he came from. (I later found out he came from Juilliard.)

  I was angry, and as cheesy as it sounds, I thought I would use that anger for my audition. I would funnel it into my performance just like that girl at the end of Center Stage. She put all of her passion into the DANCE!

  I marched into the room. There she was, Rosie O’Donnell. She did not look like the Rosie on TV. There was not a pantsuit in sight. Not a single wide-collared silk top. Instead she was wearing a stretched out T-shirt, half of her head was shaved, and she was severely sunburned. But her voice sounded exactly the same.

  “Thank you for coming in today, Andrew. Everyone says you are wonderful. Thank you for being so patient.” She was so nice. So kind.

  Okay. Just do it.

  I did all of the material better than I had ever done it. All my crawling, all my throwing, all my humping—everything felt grounded, justified. I was getting laughs, the room applauded at one point. I did my final scene, which was sort of emotional, and I
nailed it. I looked at Christopher Renshaw and he smiled and nodded at me. I looked at Bernie Telsey and he did the same. I did it. I did exactly what I was supposed to do.

  Rosie applauded me.

  “You are very talented, honey. Where are you from?”

  “Omaha, Nebraska,” I said.

  “Well, you are very talented. But I am afraid this is not going to be your job.”

  The room fell totally silent. There was a ringing in my ears. The room seemed to blur for a moment. What did she say?

  “You’re just too masculine for this part. You should be the boyfriend. Bernie, why didn’t he come in for the boyfriend?”

  Bernie looked stunned. “It was already cast.”

  “Well, he could have done it. But I guess not now. I’m sorry, honey. You’re just not right for this one.”

  Do not cry. Do not cry.

  “Thank you for having me in,” I choked out. “It was nice to meet you all.”

  And that was it. I was done. More than two months of auditioning for a show that I didn’t even ask to audition for and it was all over in an instant. Part of me was happy that Rosie crushed that dream so quickly. But part of me wanted a couple more hours of hope. Even if they had called in two hours to say that Jeffrey Carlson booked the role, which he did, at least I would have had two more hours of thinking that my dream could come true. I got out on the street and threw all my audition materials into a trash can on the corner.

  I was right to leave this horrible business, I thought. I don’t want to be in this lame ass show anyway. Fuck that. Fuck them.

  I was learning a new coping skill, one that hadn’t really crossed my mind in the past. Usually I was just sad after not getting a job; I had never been this angry before. Anger felt better, more active than sadness. I decided I would curse that show. That show is going to be a flop anyway, I told myself. I repeated that often, in fact. If anyone mentioned the show in my presence, I would say things like, “I hear it’s trash,” or “Have you seen the poster? It looks like garbage!” I didn’t tell many of my friends about my auditions because I was afraid I’d look like a fool for getting my hopes up. I’m sure it struck them as odd that I had such strong feelings about a show I had never seen.

  In reality, the show was indeed a flop and closed quickly, which felt good, vindicating, at first. But that feeling was short-lived and didn’t make me happy. It made me sad. Sad for the people in the show, sad for me for holding on to that anger for so long. It didn’t serve me. I realized it was better to be sad first because it leads more quickly to happiness. Anger leads to bitterness and then sadness and just delays getting to the happy part. Better to skip the anger next time. If there is a next time.

  I went back to the safety of my animation job and once again vowed not to be pulled into the allure of show business. I thought about all the times I had been burned. Years of disappointments and feeling not good enough. Yes, there were some minor successes along the way, but the odds seemed stacked against me. It was time to retire that dream. I would stay in my corporate life and reinvent my future. It was safer there.

  Ivy League by Association

  As I was resigning myself to a career in children’s cartoons, Zuzanna was adjusting to life as a struggling actor. She was now experiencing all the things I had started going through years before. The survival jobs, the frequently disappointing auditions, and the occasional win that kept your spirits up were all a part of her life now. But because she was not pursuing musical theater, her options were even more limited. Non-union auditions for plays were few and far between. She was keeping herself busy, but she knew that she wanted more. And to get it, she realized that she might have to go to graduate school. She was accepted into a handful of prestigious acting programs, and while I secretly hoped that she would choose Juilliard or NYU—anywhere in the city, really—she decided on A.R.T. at Harvard. Very fancy. I was proud of her, but I was also devastated that she would be leaving me for two whole years. I remember one night in her apartment, helping her pack before she left for Cambridge. I tried to comfort myself by saying, “These two years are going to fly by. Before we know it, we will be back in this apartment unpacking these same boxes!” I didn’t really believe it, but I wanted to.

  Zuzanna left in July and was thrown headfirst into acting grad school, rarely coming up for air. Weeks went by and we barely spoke. I knew she was getting settled and that she needed space to enjoy this new adventure, but I was also jealous of what she might be experiencing: new friends, artistic fulfillment, maybe romance, all without me to witness it or discuss it over magnums of white wine. Early in September, she called me and we finally had a proper catch-up. As I’d suspected, she was having a great time. There was a flurry of names that I didn’t recognize and inside jokes that I didn’t understand. I was happy for her but sad at the thought that my best friend was having this life-changing experience without me.

  But then, a miracle. She suggested that I come for a visit. I could stay with her and meet all of her new grad school acting pals and see how wonderful Cambridge was. I loved the idea. I could use a break from the city, and the Harvard campus sounded adorable. I just assumed everything would look like Good Will Hunting. I asked our friend Jill, who had gone to Barnard with Zuzanna, to join me. Jill was and still is a constant source of joy and support in my life. We share an obsession with Stephen Sondheim, an admiration for the love affair of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and a deep love of whipping up a hot appetizer for a cocktail party. As we drove to Cambridge, Jill and I confessed to each other that we were a little suspicious of Zuzanna’s new academic acting friends. We were going to enter this situation with our arms fully crossed and let them come to us.

  We arrived, and when we saw Zuzanna, it was as if no time had passed between us and her. I was relieved. She had become my family, and I needed our relationship to stay intact. That first night, the three of us just got drunk in Zuzanna’s apartment and caught up. Jill and I talked about job woes and boyfriend troubles, and Zuzanna filled us in on her grad school romances, who she liked and didn’t like, classes she was taking and acting techniques she was learning. It all sounded exciting and foreign to me, and once again I started to regret passing up a full acting school experience. I had never taken a movement class or learned how to speak properly. I’d always relied on my instincts or a good director’s notes. Did I make a mistake dropping out of college and never going back? I wondered. Maybe I was missing an opportunity, an experience that would be helpful to me professionally and personally. Maybe I wasn’t where I needed to be.

  The following night there was going to be a big party with all of Zuzanna’s classmates. While Jill and I had our plan, we also wanted to do our friend proud. And on a more honest note, we were both desperate to be liked by everyone. So that next night, we came out to play. Meaning: We got day-drunk while Zuzanna was at class and then arrived to pick her up, fully lit and ready to be the life of the party. We both really overcompensated. Even though we had planned to be pleasantly distant, we ran into the crowd basically screaming, “LOVE US!” I can’t speak for Jill, but I was intimidated by these grad school actors. They seemed confident and smart. They spoke a secret language of Meisner and “tremoring” and Russian acting professors that was insufferable but made me insecure. I had abandoned my professional ambitions, and these people were chasing theirs full speed ahead. So Jill and I did what seemed most sensible: We bought everyone drinks and tried to figure out who we could have sex with.

  Jill and I were a hit with Zuzanna’s new friends but mostly by default. These people did nothing but go to class for twelve hours a day and had only been spending time with one another. They needed new blood, and Jill and I were happy to open our veins. Jill locked it down with a guy pretty quickly, but I was coming up empty. Most of these guys were straight and WAY too serious about acting for my taste. I can play along for a little bit, but at a
certain point, I can’t talk about Uta Hagen anymore.

  Zuzanna swore that there was someone coming who I would love, but he hadn’t arrived yet. I was getting impatient. I was just about to cut my losses and head back to Zuzanna’s apartment for the night when suddenly the doors of the bar opened and in walked…Kaolin. Kaolin was, and is to this day, gorgeous. He is tall and handsome and has a face that looks like it belongs on a Roman coin. When he smiles at you, it feels like you’ve been smacked in the chest in the best possible way. When I saw him walk in, in my head, I heard that song “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. Maybe I had just watched too much Dawson’s Creek, but I was having a real moment. Zuzanna saw me see him.

  “He’s beautiful, right?” she said. “He just modeled for Abercrombie this summer. Like, he’s in the catalog.”

  This new information was almost too much for me. Did I have the skills to make this happen? The buckets of Pinot Grigio I had been drinking led me to believe, yes. Yes, I will land this plane! (Or for you Annette Bening fans, “I will sell this house today!”) I moved in. Kaolin was clearly out of my league, but he was also trapped in a grad school sexual wasteland and I was a new body who, just by existing, was appealing. Within fifteen minutes it was clear how this night would end. I think most gay men, and some women, reading this will understand what I am talking about, but for those of you who don’t, let me try to explain: Sometimes with the right vibe and the right lighting and the right amount of alcohol, two people in newly fallen lust make an unsaid contract with each other through eye contact alone. There’s a Sexual ESP that occurs where you lock eyes and know, “I will be seeing you shortly for sex, sir.” That’s what happened with Kaolin that night. We just knew.