It was not my botime

So I had this bojangles callback
The saga of Lauren and Bojangles is that I freakin love bojangles, but we have an abusive relationship.  
I've had too many auditions to count, and 4 or 5 callbacks for them. Clearly, we all know I'm not the bojangles girl yet soooo.... lolololol

so this was my 2nd callback for bojangles.
The call back was not the requested audition scenario-- this happens ALOT! another reason we can't get 'married' to our one or two ways of 'how we think it should go'
In the taped audition we were at the drive thru getting the food from the employee at the window and we were to have friends in the car and we are the driver handing out the various items before we drive off to our wonderful friendship day made perfect by fried chicken lol

They are going to have us eat on camera in the callback as if we are inside the restaurant for the callback.
so of course,  I focused on how to eat for days.( I got the callback call on a thurs or friday and the callbacks were the following monday so there was a two or three day gap. )
I focused on putting the food in the back of my mouth so you don't have food bits in your front teeth, I even took pictures of different colors of nail polish on my hands to see which shade of polish looked best with chicken tenders I practiced eating the mirror and on my camera phone.

get to Charlotte to C&J. My Turn. Go in.
They explain what they would like to see,
place your favorite Bojangles food order here, then get your food from the employee at the counter, and take it back to your table, and eat it. 3 x's on the marks they want us to hit.
That was it.
Okay. Simple enough?
So I of course have to overly indicate my love of the product by making a ridiculous order and talking a bunch on this take. I order my whole little shpeel with all my add ons and my 'legedary sweet tea.'
They hand me grapes.
GRAPES.
my brain melted.
So clearly they aren't going to provide the 100 people doing callbacks with fried chicken but for whatever reason I was not prepared for this scenario and oh man, did it throw me for a loop.
but I also know I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. MOVE. MOVE. TIME IS SLIPPING AWAY. I become very aware of everything in the room other than my relationship to the product or the camera. I retreat to the 3rd mark of the seat where I'm supposed to eat my food.
so what did I do? I popped them little guys in my mouth, like ya do with grapes. Does that make sense? I 'placed my order' I got my food, I sat down where they told me and I THREW MY HEAD BACK AND POPPED A GRAPE INTO MY MOUTH (like popcorn). Then I sat there.
But I was not PRESENT in any of that. It was all out of obligation to 'do it right' and it was all bullshit.      It's so painful to type all this even years later lol

Director: Okay great thanks Lauren that was fine, please do it again but this time make it not about the grape. and also not so much about the specific order, remember;the grape represents your order, which will be our chicken and biscuits, so lets see you enjoy the chicken. light chuckles from him and others met by a nervous chuckle from me an and overly zealous OKAY SURE! NO PROBLEM AT ALL!

immediate self loathing and feeling stupid.
So the second take I held the grape as if it was a chicken tender and proceeded to take a teensy bite of it, because, you don't eat chicken tenders whole.
Please go try to take a small bite of a regular sized grape. go try it. yeah, looked real stupid, huh?  
If anything, I did the exact opposite of what he told me to do, and I made it even MORE about the stupid grape.
I think it's true that when we audition we literally just transform into morons.  
The director, bless him and his kind hearted soul, gave me A THIRD TAKE, clearly seeing that my hair color was natural and I was probably totally capable of doing what he asked, but was being a nervous idiot.
The third take was exactly fine. But what did I do? NOTHING. that's the point. they were desperately waiting for me to EXPERIENCE THE BOJANGLES and REACT TO THE FLAVOR, SMELL, MOUTH FEEL, ETC.
have a REACTION that was real-but not a real reaction to grapes. CLEARLY TO ANYONE ON EARTH THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN CLEAR.
But my actor brain got in the mother fucking way and I lost that day.
It still haunts me and I still have nightmares about it.
I did not smell chicken. I smelt my smelly pits from nervous sweating.
I did not see chicken. I did not see biscuits. I did not see the inside of bojangles.  I saw fucking grapes and ugly carpet and a plastic chair and people laughing at me.

If I had taken a moment, gotten centered, and made decisions out of creativity and not fear, I probably wouldn't have to have my shitty day job anymore.
If I had TAKEN THE APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF TIME with the Improv of eating chicken tenders- that's what this was by the way, an Improv audition-

Here's to the next time, when I'll be ready. Next time I'll remind myself to be confident, because if you got a callback, THEY WANT TO BOOK YOU. It's imperative we make it easy for them to do so.

xoxoxo

I remember the first time you told me about that. Because of what happened in your call back. I started asking Jon, and you what to expect in call backs. I had never done one before. Thanks to you I had a new set of questions to ask. So believe me this type of real world example helped me tremendously.

Okay but what do you do if its a food you don't like? If that had been me I'd be doomed. I can't stand grapes. I don't know how much sensory memory would help me for something like that.

I guess you'd have to remind yourself of the $$$$$
Money motivates me, even though I blew this. totally screwed myself over. thus the night terrors five years later.
I'll never make this mistake again and I hope I can help anyone who is a SACtor never make it either!!

non food times where you still gotta make it the best thing ever when it's the worst:
I had to makeout with a person whom I absolutely did not vibe with. not only was this person a stranger whom I had met three hours prior to filming,, and when I asked him if he would like to go chat in the corner during our lunch, I said "Hey! Since we have to make out with each other soon would you like to go try and get connected or just chat a bit?" he said
"Uhm, no. They hired me to be hot, and I woke up that way, so I don't need to practice it."
Another time I had to kiss a person whom I absolutely DO NOT LIKE. IN ANY WAY. it's personal.

Now, I guess we won't be kissing folks anytime soon.
But hopefully the point was made

I have full belief that you can figure out how to make the gross stuff not gross!

xoxoxo

Thank u so much for sharing the whole story!!!!

Blowing callbacks! Oh, the scourge! Success is assured by being the person, who does the thing in a state of belief. I am now at the point in my life where I can;t eat what I like. I have decided to learn to like fish. One can overcome taste challenges by substitution and slowing down to really see. It’s not a performance it is living in that moment with a product that must be loved.