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When I was 15 years old, I was a hard-core “Thespian.” Which basically meant I was a tool who wore black and crystals, enjoyed misery, took my big freaking tome of The Complete Works of Shakespeare with me everywhere and read interpretive poetry about my pain aloud in front of mirrors back-lit by candles and set to music like “Gloomy Renaissance Nose-Flute Quartet: The Greatest Hits” in my bedroom.
(Dork.)
I was also a gifted singer, but while I was in two choirs, lessons, and did musicals, it was not my primary focus as a teenager. I wouldn’t realize that that was my true, god-given gift and how rare it was until a few years later.
(FYI people, those of you who hear me dork-sing at conferences or with a radio HAVE NOT REALLY HEARD ME SING. My kind of singing is in a gown in front of an orchestra or in a choir, not doing karaoke. My “for the masses singing” is OK, but nothing to write home about. But I’m good. Promise.)
Theater was my focus and my love.
And I did a shitload of it.
At my highest point of “busy,” I was involved in one aspect or the other of 11 different productions and projects. One of my gigs was with a Shakespearean troop, and I was excused from school once a week to go around to different schools around the valley and introduce kids to The Bard.
I loved it.
On the advice and referral of one of the directors I worked with, I went and saw a couple of agents. Before you do that, you have to get head shots. The photographer was good-humored, but said he was having a hard time getting a good shot. That I had to die down my expressions because when I laughed or smiled too hard, my nose scrunched and made me look like a gargoyle. So, at times he would say, "Gargoyle nose, Loralee!” and that would be my cue to cut back on the grin.
Even though he was funny, I was young and never forgot it.
Then I went and met with the agent.
I took my plus-sized-shape self into his office with my head shots and resume.
He looked at them, took off his glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief as he leaned back in his chair.
“I’ll be honest with you, Miss Mitchell. I respect the man who sent you here, and if he says you have talent, I believe him. But you need to know we work primarily in print and commercial casting, and I will never use you for any kind of print or film work. You have much too prominent, harsh features for it. You have a “far away face” that needs to stay on the stage and far-off to be pretty.”
All I could do was sit there, listen, and try to not to let the burning feeling in my chest and eyes spill over into humiliating tears.
It was not even close to the last time I would hear similar things and have similar reactions.
The audition process over years can be really shitty for your self-esteem. For every chance you have to shine and be a star (WHICH IS AWESOME), there are usually dozens and dozens of rejections. People can say horrifyingly blunt things to you. One of my college professors told me I was moving across the stage like a fat truck driver, AND I WAS PAYING THEM TO BE THERE.
It’s just the way it is.
I’ve never told anyone that story. Not my parents, not my best friends, no one.
Then came Houston.
When I went to Mom 2.0, I attended a panel on incorporating vlogging (video blogging) into your website. (I’m the one on the laptop sporting theFlashdance look.)
Not only was one of the most truly wonderful Internet people I know moderating, but I was very interested in the subject.
I have been told so many times that I should get into vlogging because my personality is awesome.
But ... I have a Far Away Face.
I couldn’t vlog.
Could, I?
So, I went to this particular panel that featured the staggeringly beautiful and talented Chookoloonks, Girls Gone Child, and Rob Morhaim of Deca TV. I wanted to know if me having this unfriendly-on-film-face would be too much for people to watch.
How important was being photogenic on film in vlogging?
I raised my hand and took the microphone.
To give a quick background, I told
