Category Archives: my girls

The casting call

I took my daughters on a casting call last week.

(Now there’s a sentence with the potential to fan the flames of internet controversy like no other! Oh wait…maybe if I wrote “I took my daughters on a casting call last week and rewarded them with a gift card for a boob job.”)

Of course I had to turn it over in my mind six hundred ways, and over-analyze it to death. A casting director friend asked me to bring the girls by for five minutes to get their photos taken, and I finally concluded, eh, no big deal. The photos alone sound like a dream experience to them.

We didn’t really discuss what it was for. We didn’t really talk about what casting is, or what it means to book a job. They didn’t know that I caught one look at some of the stage moms there–especially the one sporting the track suit with the crystal beaded fabric that somehow got lost on the way from LAX to Halle Berry’s next Oscar dress–and thought, we soooo don’t belong here.

They just knew that they were going to meet my friend Julia and smile for the camera. And that there were a huge packet of DumDums on the table, one for each kid.

On reflection, I think maybe the reason I didn’t mind bringing them is not because of the likelihood that would book a catalog job and land a few hundred bucks towards college–but because of the likelihood that they won’t.

I cast actors for a living. This is my world. I can say honestly (and not without much reflection) that while my girls are the two most awesome kids in the entire world, modeling is probably not their calling.

I can live with that. Big time.

That said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there is this little twinge of “what if…” somewhere inside me. Who doesn’t want to hear that their kids could be…something, anything, even if you don’t choose that path. I would imagine that most parents find a certain level of satisfaction in hearing their kids that are the prettiest/smartest/kindest/most talented in the whole wide world. It makes me see how the pageant circuit can be alluring to some parents; who doesn’t want to have raised a winner?

Even if what the kid is winning at is wearing false eyelashes and wiggling to All The Single Ladies.

Okay, yeah. So maybe not.

We’ll stick with ballet and soccer.

We left the studio holding hands, and waited for the elevator. I turned to Thalia and Sage and asked, “Did you have fun?”

The answer: a resounding YES!

“Because having fun is the most important part,” I told them.

‘Yes,” Sage said with remarkable seriousness.  “It’s not just about the lollipops.”

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