The Times Magazine 23he apartment I lived in above my
dad’s garage was 520sq ft. Newly
returned from Ireland after eight
weeks of shooting my first movie,
Circle of Friends, I sat on the
small sofa and stared at my huge
suitcases. I’m not sure what I had
expected upon my return. Phones
ringing off the hook, I suppose, thick ivory
cards on top of my nonexistent fireplace
inviting me to parties in Cannes. Barely
having time to unpack before heading
off to do another movie with a handsome,
floppy-haired actor like Hugh Grant, if not
the actual Hugh Grant.
One leading role in a movie and I thought
the shape of life would look different. How
could all that excitement, all that adventure
and creativity not have conga-lined its
way off the set and into my real life? Jesus,
I thought, wanting to do this job is insane.
You don’t just have to win the lottery, you
have to keep winning it again and again and
again, and who the f*** is going to have that
much luck?
The ten grand I’d been paid for Circle of
Friends had seen off the mountainous debt
I’d accrued. It also bought four new tires for
my Ford Fiesta.
Two days later I hurried down Brewer
Street in Soho, having been called up to
audition for a commercial. The room was
already filled with girls. There’s a strange
feeling when you walk into a casting call
full of actresses. Everyone’s nice, but it’s
slightly serrated.
Each girl was in her best pick-me!
outfit, but there were a few subcategories
of approach in general. Some had already
given up, having noted that the girl sitting
next to them had gotten the last three jobs
they had both gone up for. Some appeared
to be completely uninterested in the whole
process and indicated that they had much
loftier things to be getting on with: another
script that they must busily highlight, a loud
inquiry to the casting assistant about how
long this might take as there were four more
auditions to get to that morning. The smiley
chatterbox who asked you where you’d
bought every single thing you were wearing
and interspersed each question with an, “I’m
never gonna get this.” The steel in her eyes,
though, said she actually thought she might.
Eventually my name was called and I was
ushered into a large room with more people
in it than I had expected. Usually at a casting,
it’s the casting director, an assistant operating
the camera, and sometimes the director. This
room was filled with almost two rows ofchairs in a wide semicircle, every seat taken by
a man in a suit, mostly with their jackets over
the back of the chair and their ties loosened.
A stool stood in front of the semicircle and next
to it was a tall receptacle, like you see next to
the sofas in a hotel lobby, you know, an ashtray,
but it was filled with pieces of chocolate.
“OK, lovey,” said the bored director, “pop
your coat off and just leave it on the floor
as we’ve run out of chairs. These gentlemen
seated behind me are from the ad agency, and
I’m Martin, your director.” He half bowed with
a wan flourish.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the stool.
“Is that an ashtray?” I asked, pointing to
the tall receptacle filled with chocolates.
“Not currently.”
There had been no script provided, so I
wondered what exactly they needed me to do.
“OK, so what we’re selling today is
chocolate. You’ve seen the movie When
Harry Met Sally?
“Yes.”
“You know the scene where she fakes
an orgasm?”
“Yes.”
“OK. Eat a piece of chocolate and do that.”
“Fake an orgasm?”
“Yes. Unless you fancy having a real one.”
He chuckled odiously. The 17 ad executives
leant slightly forward in their chairs.
“I’ll need you to do it twice, once just
normally, then make the second one bigger- that’ll be used for the Netherlands market.”
I tried to digest this information.
“Um, do the Dutch really...”
“Look, just get on with it, will you, lovey?
Tick-tock, etcetera.”
I thought about all the girls waiting outside.
All of us vying for an opportunity that was
actually humiliation dressed up in a pick-me!
outfit. I wanted to run out there and warn
them. I wanted to tell them we were better
than this, better than being lunchtime
entertainment for a bunch of pervy execs,
their perviness sanctioned by this being
considered “work”. But of course I didn’t,
because the fire was lit and it required fuel,
and any fuel, however troubling, will burn
just the same.
The chocolate was revolting, a feat of
cocoa avoidance and ersatz sugar.
“Mmmm... mmmm, mmmm,” I said,
throwing my head around like Meg Ryan in
Katz’s Deli. I attempted her cries of, “YES!
YES! YES!”
“NYESH! NYESH! NYESH!” I gurgled,
on account of the gumming agent used in
the chocolate.
“That’s it,” said Martin Scorsleazy, “really
show us what that chocolate can do for you.”
Beyond gagging, there was not much.
I attempted a few more groans and seizures
and then, realising there was nowhere to
spit out the chocolate, I did what so many
women do in the name of pleasing men, and
I swallowed.
“OK, lovely, that was indeed lovely. Now
let’s see it again but remember this time
do it bigger for the Dutch.” I swiped my
tongue across my teeth, trying to remove
the vestiges of chocolate, to accommodate
round two. The chocolate had shellacked
my teeth with a hard, sweet, presumably
brown finish.
“I don’t think I can do it again,” I said.
The room snickered as one.
“Course you can, love, that’s the best bit
about being a girl!” came a voice from the
ad-men cabal.
I tried to keep my lips over my teeth
as I began to speak but then realised the
audience actually deserved to see what they
were promoting. My ambitious fire that
needed fuel would have to go unfed.
“No, what I meant to say was I won’t
do it again because I will throw up.” They
thought I was talking about the chocolate,
but it was really my shame at having gone
along with the whole grotesquery. And the
f***ing chocolate.
Scorsleazy sneered and rolled his eyes.
“Well, all the other girls have apparently
very much enjoyed this.” I gathered the
good coat I’d worn off the floor, smiled
mightily and said, “They were faking it.”
As exits go, it wasn’t bad. nManaging Expectations by Minnie Driver is
published by Manilla Press on May 12 (£20)T
‘I DON’T THINK I CAN DO
IT AGAIN,’ I SAID. THE
ROOM OF MALE EXECS
SNICKERED AS ONEWith Chris O’Donnell in
Circle of Friends, 1995‘Fake it twice, but the second time, make it bigger for the Dutch’
BOOK EXTRACT