Yipster

I make my living doing television commercials. This is a terrific way to make a living and I feel very fortunate. It’s nice work if you can get it and sometimes I get it and sometimes I get it less. Last week at an audition, I was paired with another woman, meaning we were going to go in together, slate (which means say your name into the camera) and then do the dialogue and action we’d been given. We had two groups ahead of us which meant five-ish minutes to chat and wait.  When I introduced myself to the girl I got a weird vibe. I know a lot of the women I see at the auditions, at least by sight, we are all usually in the same category (quirky) and are relatively old friends. Some of us have worked together and at this point (late 20s edging in on “young mom” territory) we are pros and can congratulate each other on the jobs we didn’t book because they did.  This person I was paired with was new to me and very nice but weird, there was something weird going on. She was nervous, which is unusual (see above, we’ve been kicking around for a while) and telling a lot of anecdotes about college. An old friend of mine from my own university days was at the same casting office and come over to say hi and this woman stammered and blushed and said, “oh! I know you from iO, I see you all the time!” And then it hit me: she was very young. I’m not saying I’m not excited about improvisational comedy, or running into people I’ve seen perform or auditioning, because I am, those things are (still) exciting, but I saw in her reaction to my friend, that this was still new.

“Did you just finish school?” I asked. 

“No, I finished in May 2010” she said. I told her that was just finishing. She said, “Maybe if you graduated a long time ago.”  So I proudly told her I was class of 2005. 

“Oh my god!” she said, “you look good, girl!”

I was completely taken aback.  I blurted, “Yeah, I’m 28”, which meant, 28 looks good. That’s not…old…yet. That’s just the beginning of age spots and avowals to never get fillers (definitely not if you are quirky and make your living slinging modestly-aspirational goods). But then, just as I realized that she was young and that she thought 28 was old and I looked younger than that and therefore she thought she was complimenting me; I realized I do the same thing to people. I’ve done it to men and women, because being an actor (even a commercial, off-center actor) means a constant, tedious, evaluation and objectification of the way you look no matter your gender or conventional attractiveness. This is the way it is and that’s fine when you’re working and harder when you aren’t. That’s when you start tinkering with bang-length and audition clothes and self-loathing. I have said, so many times, “Oh wow, you look great!” when someone whispers, “I’m 36.” ”I know the old joke that you tell people you’re 5 years older than you are so everyone tells you how young you look. That is an old joke, right? But if you’re being honest…

I know people like to hear they don’t look their age, but I also know that people don’t like to hear that their age isn’t worth looking like.

I hope we both book it. She was sweet.

—Bridget