I promised you a blog about the Manchester Star Wars auditions, I present you with my experience at the Manchester Star Wars auditions:
Sam and I arrived in Manchester around 9 o'clock in the morning (I had not slept, aside from a brief nap on the train) and began our 10-minute walk to where we thought the auditions were being held. Unfortunately neither of us had thought to check for updates, and so when we reached the small church hall we'd been looking for, the only sign of auditions were papers plastered all over it pointing us to the Old Trafford cricket ground, an hour's walk away. We were about to call a taxi when a fellow auditionee spotted us and offered us a lift, saving us what would surely have been a small fortune in taxi fares.
As I gave directions we discussed what we thought the scene might be like. Sam pointed out that we would probably see the people before we saw the actual destination, and how right he was. As we pulled up to the ground a crowd emerged. We grew ever nearer, and the crowd morphed into a line, a sprawling python wrapping its way along the pavement and walls surrounding the sports ground. We swore. The line had to be half a mile long, and we were heading straight for the back of it. Our chauffeur decided that it wasn't worth his time, and dropped us off wishing us the best of luck.
Sam and I joined the queue, which had grown even in the time it had taken to traverse the length of it, and began our wait. Jovial and merry as we are known to be, we talked loudly and smiled broadly, until a thought struck me. I hadn't brought a headshot. The one thing the vague casting call had requested was missing from my person. Well fuck, this was all for nothing then. Sam suggested I could always try without one but I knew this would never work. Still, we were here for the experience, not to actually get a part, right? Why not, and with this in mind we began calling people we thought might also be in the city for the same reason as us. We quickly found that a group of friends were not only also in the same line as us, but very close to the front. We made the decision to join them, as controversial as that is. We split from the great mess that was the rear of the line, and jogged our way forwards. Soon enough we could see our fellow compadrés and rushed too them, panting and thanking them profusely for holding our place in the line, explaining that traffic had been terrible and hoping the people around them wouldn't notice or care. I still didn't have a headshot, but being with friends was worth the train journeys and the weather.
As they filed through the gate I waited outside, and went wondering round Trafford. There isn't much in Trafford. Scratch that, there's nothing in Trafford save for the sports stadiums and a shopping park. The park, however, had a KFC, so I was briefly content to sit in there and eat chicken. Boredom quickly set in again though, so I set off back to the site where I had left my comrades to wait it out in the cold. By the time I got back the once mighty python of a line was now barely a worm crawling its way towards the gate, and it wasn't long before any trace of a queue vanished all together.
I ate a couple of oranges. Eventually, and slowly, people I knew began to emerge. They hadn't been selected for an interview but the process had still taken hours, and it ended up being hours more before the few who had been interviewed were released. Altogether a nice, if uneventful day. Sam and I discussed business plans over yet more KFC before parting ways to get our respective trains home again.
And so that is the story of how I did not audition for Star Wars. Tune in next week when I fail to even apply for Guardians of the Galaxy!
Sam and I arrived in Manchester around 9 o'clock in the morning (I had not slept, aside from a brief nap on the train) and began our 10-minute walk to where we thought the auditions were being held. Unfortunately neither of us had thought to check for updates, and so when we reached the small church hall we'd been looking for, the only sign of auditions were papers plastered all over it pointing us to the Old Trafford cricket ground, an hour's walk away. We were about to call a taxi when a fellow auditionee spotted us and offered us a lift, saving us what would surely have been a small fortune in taxi fares.
As I gave directions we discussed what we thought the scene might be like. Sam pointed out that we would probably see the people before we saw the actual destination, and how right he was. As we pulled up to the ground a crowd emerged. We grew ever nearer, and the crowd morphed into a line, a sprawling python wrapping its way along the pavement and walls surrounding the sports ground. We swore. The line had to be half a mile long, and we were heading straight for the back of it. Our chauffeur decided that it wasn't worth his time, and dropped us off wishing us the best of luck.
Sam and I joined the queue, which had grown even in the time it had taken to traverse the length of it, and began our wait. Jovial and merry as we are known to be, we talked loudly and smiled broadly, until a thought struck me. I hadn't brought a headshot. The one thing the vague casting call had requested was missing from my person. Well fuck, this was all for nothing then. Sam suggested I could always try without one but I knew this would never work. Still, we were here for the experience, not to actually get a part, right? Why not, and with this in mind we began calling people we thought might also be in the city for the same reason as us. We quickly found that a group of friends were not only also in the same line as us, but very close to the front. We made the decision to join them, as controversial as that is. We split from the great mess that was the rear of the line, and jogged our way forwards. Soon enough we could see our fellow compadrés and rushed too them, panting and thanking them profusely for holding our place in the line, explaining that traffic had been terrible and hoping the people around them wouldn't notice or care. I still didn't have a headshot, but being with friends was worth the train journeys and the weather.
As they filed through the gate I waited outside, and went wondering round Trafford. There isn't much in Trafford. Scratch that, there's nothing in Trafford save for the sports stadiums and a shopping park. The park, however, had a KFC, so I was briefly content to sit in there and eat chicken. Boredom quickly set in again though, so I set off back to the site where I had left my comrades to wait it out in the cold. By the time I got back the once mighty python of a line was now barely a worm crawling its way towards the gate, and it wasn't long before any trace of a queue vanished all together.
I ate a couple of oranges. Eventually, and slowly, people I knew began to emerge. They hadn't been selected for an interview but the process had still taken hours, and it ended up being hours more before the few who had been interviewed were released. Altogether a nice, if uneventful day. Sam and I discussed business plans over yet more KFC before parting ways to get our respective trains home again.
And so that is the story of how I did not audition for Star Wars. Tune in next week when I fail to even apply for Guardians of the Galaxy!
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