Yesterday I kinda made the best fool out of me by being over confident.
I have acted in TV plays and TV commercial from 2001 till 2003, and I have been thinking about getting some acting jobs again (due to my acute boredom with life). Well, yesterday I had a meeting with Mujahid, head of casting and planning at 7th Sky Entertainment in Karachi.
My arrival and departure both were in complete contrast. I entered infected with boosted levels of confidence. (I had been fully loaded with imagination of realistic acting and have thought, quite lately, that how difficult it could be to act.) Well, I entered and waited for Mujahid. Soon he entered with a six feet gap in the atmosphere and we phased through the traditional infusion of introduction. He said that 14 years ago it was to have 80% of acting skills to be able to act but now anyone with 40% would do fine. On this occasion the old me would be like “Oh I hope I have that required 40 percent.” (with modest look). BUT I have no idea what landed in my head to steer me into the shit hole of over confidence. I jeweled my reply with “Oh, I surely have more than that.” (eh?)
Mujahid must have dipped into the belief that I was the ‘ONE’. (yeah, sure right, confidence is all one requires for acting.)
My blah blah did not wake me up yet. I topped it up with some MORE IDIOCY. “Give me a script and I will perform right now.” (was the part where I was suppose to realize that I have ONLY been practicing and mimicking the Hollywood actors with English dialogues. Ah…I still did not realize that placing facial expression in English is different than doing the same in Urdu. I also forgot that Sub continental and Middle Eastern plays are soaps (full of drama) I was stupid to have wasted my time and enthusiasm on motion pictures. (Now see how OVER CONFIDENT I am once again. tsk tsk tsk)
The script was a minute and a half long boring scene of two people. (I m sure this type of scene has been shot several times before.)
Mujahid left the room and I read it thrice and viola…I announced I WAS READY! (That’s what I thought.)
I, then, went on performing and he kept on messing up with recording. I guess he shot 5 broken clips. Yeah that’s not all…the more he attempted to retake, more my expressions reduced. At one part I FROZE over and over again. I couldn’t move my cheek muscles to act surprised on a line. It wasn’t a line actually. It was long paragraph of my partner. (I didn’t think it was possible to stay surprised that long.) Well my muscles kept delivering anger expression as an alternative. (I think I responded to the current situation. I was upset on the long para. ) That should qualify for ‘realistic acting’?
I salute Mujahid for his sustained politeness through out.
At home I act very well (But in English). Urdu dialogue delivery MUST need a mechanic. I felt jammed. While my mouth was saying those dialogues, my brain was using their translation (in English and French) to distract me. This replaced my impression of an intelligent women with a bimbo sitting in a chair.
Well, after all the damage was done and all the ‘first impression is the last impression’ had gone down in the drain, I woke up and told him that I could do better. On which he passed the script to me and gave me a chance to perform and send him the recording through watsapp.
I tried maintaining my trademark poised walk on my departure with someone in my head laughing, “Stupid has left the building!”
by xandria noir
xandria aisha