Want To Make Sure Your Kid Doesn't Book A Job?

I witnessed one of my all time favorite "parent audition moves" this past week.  I felt bad for the kid actor yet was completely amused by the entire incident.

Zach had an audition on Thursday afternoon at Paramount Studios.  The audition fell in the middle of three events that were happening within two hours.  

Dana and I were working a jewelry show in Studio City so Zach had to be ready for the audition well before the actual audition time.  We went to Studio City at 3pm  to set up for the show while hoping that the "Pineapple Express" storm held off until after the show.  We left Dana at 3:30pm and raced to Paramount Studios. His actual audition time was 4:45pm but I wanted to get him in early because he had another audition at Second City at 5:30pm.  Paramount and Second City are only a little over a mile apart but I wasn't willing to risk getting stuck in LA traffic.

We arrived at 4pm and parked near the Gower gate.  Paramount is a huge lot with a variety of programs filming at any given time.

We got lucky in that the audition room was about 30-seconds away from the gate we used to enter the lot.  The audition was in the Lucy Bungalow Building.  The building is the site of Lucille Ball's personal bungalow/office/dressing room.  The Paramount lot was the site of Desilu Gower Studios from 1957-1967 and "The Lucy Show" was filmed there in the 1960s.

The bungalow is attached to Stage 25 which is often called "lucky" because so many shows there have gone on to great success.  A few of the shows filmed there include "The Lucy Show", "Bosom Buddies", "Cheers" and "Frasier".

We signed in for the audition and waited for Zach's turn.  There was a flurry of activity between casting directors, wardrobe people and various assistants coming in and out of the hallway.  It's getting near the end of year shutdown time for Hollywood so everyone is moving at double speed to get work finished before the break.

There were about 15 people waiting for their time in front of the casting director.  The show was casting for a variety of parts so young and old males and females filled the room.  

At one point the casting director came out and couldn't read the next name on the list.  She tried her best to get the name out but no one was helping her identify the person in question.  In the middle of her frustration, a mother decided to ask a question.  She asked this simple, yet badly timed, question:

"Do you validate parking?"

The question hung in the air as everyone processed what a bad idea it was to ask that question at that moment.  I imagined all of our faces looked like this:

The casting director looked at her, she took a good look at the child there with the mother, and then took one more good look at the mother,  She gave her a very cold and stern "NO" before skipping the name she had been trying to pronounce.

It was easy to tell the poor kid had absolutely no chance at booking the job thanks to his mom. It's always amazing how some people can't read social cues in any situation.

We haven't heard yet if Zach booked the role but I'm confident he still has a chance (unlike the other kid)!

This Actor Knows How To Read The Room