Hollywood Stories: Interviews
I consider myself to be a pretty personable guy but when it comes to job interviews, I always freeze up and drop the ball. A recent interview went pretty poorly as I was just on a different page as the interviewer. I'd tell a story and she'd draw a completely wrong conclusion. I'd tell a joke and it would fall flat. Basically, if I had just walked in, farted, and walked out, I probably would have left a better lasting impression.
That wasn't my worst interview though. One of my first job interviews, I was basically a mute, too nervous to talk. Then in an interview with writer/director Jake Kasdan, to be his assistant on "Orange County", I walked in and noticed a chair that was pretty far away from his desk. He even mentioned that it was pretty far back. So I decided to sit on the bench in between his desk and the chair. Now, anyone who has ever been in any sort of office would immediately recognize the "bench" that is in front of a couple of chairs as actually being a coffee table but for some reason I didn't. I plopped my posterior down, Kasdan seemed surprised, and I immediately realized what I had done. Interviews are hard enough but they become immediately more difficult when you're constantly thinking "I can't believe I'm sitting on his coffee table".
Then again, not every bad interview has been my fault. I was actually having a great interview for one company. They then explained what their show was: "Small Medium at Large". I don't know if the show ever aired but it was about a midget psychic who went around helping people. He would "see" the problem of a person and then unleash a team of little people to help out. Kind of like a little person version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I thought it was odd since little people don't really have the stereotype of being fashionable or whatever but I glossed over that question. I did have to ask how they planned to prepare for the shows. I mean, if they were going to be able to produce it, they'd have to know ahead of time what the issue at hand was. The answer was that they would know in casting what the problem was. I then wondered why have the psychic involved since it was complete hooey. The answer, "We just really like the title."
My first job in reality TV was basically a comedy of errors. I applied for a job as a casting assistant and got a call about it. The phone intervew went really well until I mentioned I wanted to be a writer. The interviewer asked what I was writing and I explained the plot of "Freaks"; in the Old West, a traveling freak show gets stranded in a town of xenophobic, homicidal maniacs. The travelers have to realize that the townspeople are the true freaks and find a way to escape before it's too late.
As soon as I mentioned the premise of my script, the tone of the interview changed. The guy seemed like he wanted to get off the phone with me ASAP and basically just told me to send in my resume and he'd get back to me. When I reminded him that I had sent him my resume (which, you know, was the whole reason he called me in the first place), he seemed flustered and said he'd get back to me.
About a month passed and I applied for a different job at the same company. And then the same guy called me up. Two things became immediately apparent: a) this call was about the same casting assistant job (and not the logging job I'd more recently applied for) and b) the interviewee had absolutely no recollection of me whatsoever. I basically did the whole phone interview exactly the same as I did before, this time omitting the mention of "Freaks", and the guy told me to come in the next day for a formal interview.
The next day, I met with HR and said I preferred the logging job (since it already seemed like the casting dept. was, if not disorganized, a bit flighty). I went upstars and met with someone and it went well. They wanted to give me the job. Then I left. I drove about two miles before I realized that I probably wasn't supposed to have left and that I should have met with the HR person again to finalize the details about the job. I pulled a U-Turn and got back to the office. I popped back into the HR office and the woman was like, "There you are. I couldn't find you. Where'd you go?" I can't remember how I explained my disappearance. I might have said I went to the bathroom or maybe that I got lost but it was enough because I ended up getting the job.
And so began my career in reality TV.
