I’m on ’30 Rock’ tonight at 9PM on NBC!

So…. back in late October I randomly auditioned for and got cast on ’30 Rock’ to play Liz Lemon’s cousin.

Insane.

It airs tonight at 9PM on NBC.

And I really like that the sound of that. A LOT.

It happened really quickly. I auditioned on Monday, got the part on Tuesday, and started filming on Friday. It was a surreal, intense, long, dream like week. I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody and because I’m uber superstitious, I was just SURE that if I told anybody that it would throw off the whole order of the universe and they’d wise up and cast somebody else, or write off the role, or make him a Chinese woman. SOMETHING WAS SURE TO HAPPEN BETWEEN TUESDAY AND FRIDAY. THERE IS NO WAY I AM GONNA BE ON 30 ROCK was my general thought process.

I got a copy of the script that Tuesday night. It was sealed in an envelope and it sat on my floor, untouched for the next few days. The idea of taking the next step of actually OPENING said envelope and reading said script out loud…. in my apartment…. where I live…. in my room…. on the sofa…. where I watch TV was…. too much.

Nope. Can’t open it yet.

Can’t even touch it. It needs to stay RIGHT there on the floor until I can process this.

Over the following nights I’d wake up from my sleep, assuming I had dreamt the whole affair, and the only way I could tell for sure that it was real was by looking over at the script in my floor.

Its still there. Holy shit.

A few afternoons I found myself at my bathroom mirror, splashing cold water on my face and literally pinching my arm to again, wake up.

COME ON. THE LONGER THE DREAM GOES ON THE HARDER IT IS TO WAKE UP FROM.

And finally. Thursday night came and I got my call times. 9AM I was to report to the corner of 42nd and 8th Avenue. So I went to bed. Willing myself to sleep, trying desperately to close my eyes, get tired, get tired, get tired, think of pillows, sheets, pudding, anything.

But nothing.

I was very awake. The lines were running through my head (I’d opened the envelope containing the script by this point), the nerves, the fears, the holy shit THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING’s. After a few hours I realized sleep wasn’t any where nearby… so I got up…. and walked up to my roof.

It was well past one AM by now and New York was oddly quiet. I stood on my roof processing the whole thing…. I thanked the universe, attempted to check in, and come back down to earth for just a moment so I could hopefully get some sleep. I stared at the sky and went….. Oh My God. Oh My God. Oh My God. Over and over. I went back inside and eventually, sorta, dozed off.

It was a very long week of intense emotions, extreme energy, and mind blowing experiences (I got to film a scene with Matt Lauer!) but one moment in particular stands out, simple and uneventful it may be and definitely overzealous and over the top in my reaction, as a moment in my life…. maybe more so than any other moment before… that I thought….
Holy Shit. This is it. Everything else has lead up to this moment right here. Right now.

It was when we (Tina Fey and I….. rim shot!) were standing in the hallway of Liz Lemon’s apartment building, waiting to make our entrance through her front door. It was just the two of us and one man holding a boom mic in the corner. They called quiet on the set, or whatever it is they say, and everything was super still for the first time all day. I was standing looking at Tina Fey and the set, the the lights, the everything around me and for a split second I truly thought my head might explode.

A million thoughts ran through my mind. I saw myself onstage at the Rome Little Theater, I saw myself in Mrs. Dawson’s music room at St. Mary’s, I saw myself making movies in my backyard, I saw my TV set in Rome, Georgia open up and swallow me whole on my mom’s red rug that I spent every night lying on staring at the glowing screen way too close with visions of every sitcom I’d ever seen spinning in my head…. Mary…. Lucy…. Bob…. Roseanne… Dick…. Samantha…. Jeanie… Marsha Marsha Marsha…. this is happening… this really is happening…. they called action and we entered the scene.

The day went on late into the night. I cried a lot in the car home staring at New York on the Queensboro Bridge, overwhelmed and grateful. I went to my friend Jeremy’s birthday party and ended up staying out way too late. I had two days before I filmed again and I was filled with intense energy that I didn’t know what to do with. Finally…. I went to sleep after the sun came up…. I had been up almost a full 24 hours but I wasn’t tired…. I think my body and my mind never wanted that day to end.

It was pretty awesome. And I’ll never forget it.

On we go.

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized