Drunk, Naked and Desperate

By:
Jonathan ‘Cao Cao’ Kos-Read


I am desperate for work.

I list, in this column, with some frequency, the degradation I deal with at the hands of rotten producers and retarded directors. But there is a third shitty thing about being an actor, and that is the terrifying, soul excoriation of unemployment. So this month, so you won’t be confused about the nature of what I do, I’ll chronicle the last two months of desperate, grinding panic as I struggled and failed to get a job – the whole process made all the more frightening because I don’t want my new daughter to starve to death before her first birthday or grow up like retarded or deformed from malnourishment.

Around Spring Festival I was thinking, “Damn, the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” There were like three shows all lined up saying, “Cao Cao, you are a God, you are the One, if we can’t have you then we don’t want anybody.”

But then everything somehow fell apart.

A sure thing about a hard drinkin’, poker playin’, American code breaker fell apart because the producer scammed me.

Another sure thing about a Russian mechanic, sure to the point that the director called me himself and told me it was a done deal, fell apart because I then got greedy and asked for too much money.

A show about a banker fell apart because I was too young.

A show about a tourist in love fell apart because I was too old.

A movie about the Olympics fell apart because I have all this fresh-eyed new competition flowing in from America who (who the hell knows why) want to make it in Chinese soap operas. Damned, cheap foreign labor!

Then I was too expensive again.

Then two shows just fell apart on their own.

So two months later I was fucking panicking, literally, couldn’t sleep, stomach convulsed by cramps of terror, middle of the night drenching icy sweat panicking. Would I ever work again? Was it all over? And then finally, from out of these depths of depression, despair and penury came a call – for a show. And as I stood there, phone in hand, I knew that the crunch time, the time that separates the men from the boys had come. Failure, as they say, was not an option.
Unfortunately though, when I got the call I was at a friend’s wedding and, as is proper at such an occasion, I was falling down, piss on my shoes drunk.

“Whoa man sorry, I’m like all booked today, you know?” I told the AD, trying really hard not to slur, “How about, like, tomorrow?” This was a lie, obviously, but I could barely stand up.

“No, if you don’t come today, we can’t use you. Director is only here for one day.”

I thought about this (or tried to through the booze). On a normal day I’d have just told him to fuck off, said, “Gosh, yeah, what an amazing opportunity, it would be so super to work with you, but gee, just can’t make it today, what a shame! Next time I guess.” He would’ve translated this (correctly) as “Fuck off. I’m too cool and too busy,” and they would have rearranged their schedules to accommodate me, the diss convincing them that I was valuable, making them want me even more.

But drink and panic were clouding my judgment - I needed this job.

“Let me see if I can re-arrange my schedule,” I said.

I hung up and found a wall on which to take a shaky piss. I threw up for a few minutes then called him back. “Hey, yeah, I, like, moved a meeting so, ah, I can swing by at eight o’clock. Okay?”

Then the second problem reared its head.

Directors have no imagination. They decide whether to use you twenty seconds after you walk in the door. And they love clichés. So the most important question I ask before I go see one is, “What does the character do for a living?” If the answer is businessman, I go in a suit, stand up real straight and act like an asshole. If the answer is WWII air force pilot, I go in a bomber jacket, wear tight jeans and chew gum. And the directors (who inexplicably never catch on that it’s a costume) exclaim, with relief and joy, “My God! He IS the character!”

But this time I was caught off guard.

Because the answer was, “He’s a caveman.”

I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him right, “you mean like a wild, hairy guy from before civilization?”

“Exactly,” said the AD.

Shit, I thought. I mean, it sounds funny now right, but like I said, I seriously needed this job so I genuinely had to figure out and put together, in under an hour, and stumbling drunk, a caveman costume.

“Ahh . . . “ I said, “Ahm . . . got it . . . see you at eight.” I hung up and staggered off to find a cab, only stopping once for a long beer pee behind a tree.

An hour later I flounced in, ready for action: I’d done some thinking in the car. I squinted around. There was the director, a bunch of nervous actors. There was some Italian guy with long hair who looked like a caveman - clearly competition. The director asked, “Can we do your audition now?” And my answer was a big, drunken, “you betcha” because, like I said, I figured I had it scoped.

“Gimme two seconds,” I said.

I ran outside and spit a huge loogie into my hands and then used it to make my hair stick out in all sorts of wild directions. Two minute later, hair all crazy and with dirt from the hallway floor smeared all over my face I walked into the audition room butt ass naked and slurred out, “All right dudes, I’m ready.”

I stumbled my way through the audition, more on adrenaline than any actual skill but, you know, I was drunk so it was at least exuberant. When the director finally yelled cut, you could hear a fuckin’ pin drop, not a sound.

And then . . . and then . . . the director started clapping. “Perfect!” he said, “perfect!” he turned to the other actors in the gymnasium. “This is an actor! You see? You all suck! No one paid attention when you auditioned – because you were not committed!” They sat around looking sullen, probably thinking, “dude, we paid attention ‘cause he was naked,” and then on further reflection, “shit, should I get naked too?”

“So there it is,” I thought as I stood up there in front of them, hangin’ in the breeze, “ I guess I’m perfect for a desperate, emaciated wild man scrabbling in dirt and filth for his survival.”