Rhymes with Super!
Lambasting the Screen Actor’s Guild brought to mind the last time I unsuccessfully tried to join them. It was my final audition in Los Angeles, having spent the year unsuccessfully seeking roles on such notable television programs as Life Goes On as a waiter who reports on successfully filling up salt shakers, on Step by Step as a real life Beavis and/or Butthead, and on Married with Children as Nerd #5. I had already started making plans to move to Jackson Hole and run a theatre up there, but my agency called and told me they had set up an audition for a spot on Beverly Hills 90210.
The role was some guy named Jack Gruper, a bespectacled geek who had two lines, which, surprisingly, I actually remember. They were:
“Rhymes with super!” and “Duh! Rehearsal’s over!”
Understand that television auditions are a demeaning waste of time. You usually get about twenty seconds with the casting director, and you have to somehow distinguish yourself from the 500 other people who walk in and say the same two lines you’re supposed to say. I clearly recall the Life Goes On audition, because it consisted of precisely one line: “Already did it, sir!” It’s experiences like that where being conversant with the complete works of William Shakespeare really comes in handy.
Anyway, the 90210 audition involved about 50 bespectacled geeks sitting in a holding tank waiting for a casting director to call us into her office. When I finally got in there, the woman, smoking a cigarette, didn’t even bother to get up from behind her desk or even look up at me. She just read my cue line, which was something like “Meet my friend, Jack Gruper.” After that, I was to say my first line – “Rhymes with super!” – and we’d proceed from there.
Well, at this point in my career, I knew that I probably wouldn’t have been able to take the job even if they had offered it to me. I was leaving Los Angeles for good the next week, and for the first time, I couldn’t have cared less about what some Hollywood hack thought of me, so I was more than willing to burn this particular bridge to keep myself entertained.
So after Smoky Woman muttered my cue, I struck a pseudo-heroic pose, thrust out my arms like some spastic elk and wailed “Rhymes with SUPER!!!” in an accent best described as Monty Python on crack.
That got her attention.
“Yeah, um,” she said, looking at me the first time, “ why don’t we do that again, only tone it down this time, will ya?”
“Sure thing.”
“Great.” And so she read the cue line again. “Meet my friend Jack Gruper.”
“RHYMES with SYUUUUUPAAA!!” Ha ha!! I did NOT tone it down! I was bigger, badder, bolder - King Lear howling against the wind! I would not go gently into that good night!! I raged! Raged against the dying of the light!!! RHYMES WITH SUPER, indeed! I'll show YOU what rhymes with SUPER!
I was done. I didn’t even get to go on to “Duh! Rehearsal’s over,” which is too bad, because it would have been brilliant.
The role was some guy named Jack Gruper, a bespectacled geek who had two lines, which, surprisingly, I actually remember. They were:
“Rhymes with super!” and “Duh! Rehearsal’s over!”
Understand that television auditions are a demeaning waste of time. You usually get about twenty seconds with the casting director, and you have to somehow distinguish yourself from the 500 other people who walk in and say the same two lines you’re supposed to say. I clearly recall the Life Goes On audition, because it consisted of precisely one line: “Already did it, sir!” It’s experiences like that where being conversant with the complete works of William Shakespeare really comes in handy.
Anyway, the 90210 audition involved about 50 bespectacled geeks sitting in a holding tank waiting for a casting director to call us into her office. When I finally got in there, the woman, smoking a cigarette, didn’t even bother to get up from behind her desk or even look up at me. She just read my cue line, which was something like “Meet my friend, Jack Gruper.” After that, I was to say my first line – “Rhymes with super!” – and we’d proceed from there.
Well, at this point in my career, I knew that I probably wouldn’t have been able to take the job even if they had offered it to me. I was leaving Los Angeles for good the next week, and for the first time, I couldn’t have cared less about what some Hollywood hack thought of me, so I was more than willing to burn this particular bridge to keep myself entertained.
So after Smoky Woman muttered my cue, I struck a pseudo-heroic pose, thrust out my arms like some spastic elk and wailed “Rhymes with SUPER!!!” in an accent best described as Monty Python on crack.
That got her attention.
“Yeah, um,” she said, looking at me the first time, “ why don’t we do that again, only tone it down this time, will ya?”
“Sure thing.”
“Great.” And so she read the cue line again. “Meet my friend Jack Gruper.”
“RHYMES with SYUUUUUPAAA!!” Ha ha!! I did NOT tone it down! I was bigger, badder, bolder - King Lear howling against the wind! I would not go gently into that good night!! I raged! Raged against the dying of the light!!! RHYMES WITH SUPER, indeed! I'll show YOU what rhymes with SUPER!
I was done. I didn’t even get to go on to “Duh! Rehearsal’s over,” which is too bad, because it would have been brilliant.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 10:13 AM
4 Comments:
Well at least it finally came out. Now we know why you hate the guild. I bet it felt good. Meanwhile we must continue to wait for a certain someone to finally admit they were fired from Universal studios.
I am pretty sure that episode never made it on the air. imdb has no Jack Gruper on 90210. I think you're making the whole thing up. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I couldn't find a Jack Gruper, either. I wonder if I'm misremembering the name. All I know for sure is that it rhymed with super.
Was it Jack Pooper?
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