I’m ready for my close-up:

When The Pitt News heard “As the World Turns” was holding casting calls on Pitt’s campus, we… When The Pitt News heard “As the World Turns” was holding casting calls on Pitt’s campus, we decided we needed a piece of the action. So, purveying our staff, we selected our own office heartthrob, assistant opinions editor Eric Miller, to find out what’s really happening behind the scenes. This is his take on his brush with fame.

The first step was hiding the picture.

The casting people requested that every applicant come to the audition with a 4X6 photo in tow. I went all out with mine, employing a small team of Pitt News photographers and graphics editors to make it perfect. After a rather lengthy photo shoot, they went to work with airbrushes and various other computer tools to clean up my image and make me as beautiful as the technology would allow. So as I walked up Bigelow toward the casting trailer, I stuffed the picture among the pages of a book so that no one could possibly see the cold gaze of my “soap opera face.”

There was a radio station broadcasting from the sidewalk, and a fence had been erected in a circle, forming what looked very much like a pasture for farm animals. I’d like to blame it on how tired I was, but for some reason, it didn’t register with me that the fenced in area was intended to hold the line of people for the audition. I assumed it was meant to restrict crazed radio station fans, and I passed it by in order to check my email in the lobby of the Union. It wasn’t until I came back outside that I realized I was an idiot.

After being admitted to the pasture, I took my place in a line that had grown exponentially larger than it was when I first passed by. Minus a few who looked like they had gotten lost or unexpectedly trapped in the corral, the other hopefuls were fairly typical – attractive girls who wanted to make it in show business. I talked briefly with Heather, a very pretty young lady who was a fan of the show and wanted a piece of the action more than fame or fortune. But our conversation eventually slowed to a halt and the boredom of waiting picked up where we left off.

“It’s theater. It’s always like this,” said one girl who was apparently in the know.

We stood there for what seemed like ages. The leaves on the trees above us turned from green to red and orange, broke from their perches and slid to the earth. Soon after, the air grew cold and snow flurries fell until the ground was carpeted in white. And it wasn’t long then until the ice began to melt and flowers burst forth from the muddy lawn. The local children were just packing up their sprinkler and Slip ‘n Slide when the line finally started to move. It was then that I was faced with the real tragedy of the wait – I still didn’t have a full beard.

The hopefuls were ushered toward the trailer in groups of 10. I was ranked eighth in my group, thankful to make the cut and shake the dust off my once clean sleeves. After we were chosen, the members of my group were granted the opportunity to present our glamour shots. I slid mine across the table to the casting rep with a quick, fluid motion, assuring her that the face on that shot was not the real me, just my soap opera aura. She smiled and assured me that it was “totally soap opera” and that I fit the description of one of the speaking roles. I waited in line a little longer, watching with delight while the policeman on duty chased away line weasels and suspected line weasels alike.

I waited for almost a full hour when I finally received the call to enter the mysterious casting van. Inside I found the interior of a typical camper with another of the attractive casting women sitting at a table. She handed me a script and gave me a few moments to read over it before we began.

After a preliminary run through, in which she must have noted I was nervous but extremely talented otherwise, she explained the setting to me in greater detail. Appropriately, I was Eric, and I was speaking to Alison, who is running from the law with two close – and beautiful – friends. Their travels have taken them from campus to campus across the country, and now Alison finds herself poor, scared and alone. She is stuffing cookies into her pockets when the scene begins.

I was still a little nervous after the first run, so I tried to ease the tension with some trite actor humor.

“What’s my motivation?”

She smiled and held up a picture of the girl I would be acting with if I got the role. Needless to say, it was very motivating.

We read through it a second time, and I think it went better, but I was still a little disappointed. I didn’t live up to my massive potential.

“Ah, screw it,” I thought as I stepped out of the van, “I’m a journalist, not a heartthrob.”

I may not have become a soap star in a day, but at least I got to talk with people who may or may not get coffee for them. And I may not have made out with Alison and then Lucy behind Alison’s back, but I did see a fairly large poster of them standing next to some guy who is arguably more attractive than me.

And though my soap career may end today, I will always have this experience, and I will need it someday if for some reason I never become Joey Tribbiani for real.