by Wil Wheaton
—U2 Running To Stand Still
Chapter 4. Stop Me If You Think That You’Ve Heard This One Before
IT WAS EARLY OCTOBER, and a thick blanket of gold and orange maple leaves covered the grass outside my office window. I looked up when I heard the phone ring, and saw Anne playing catch with Ferris, who seemed to have as much fun bounding through the piles of leaves as she did chasing the ball.
From the kitchen, Nolan shouted, “I’ve got it!”
“Hello?” he said. “No, this is Nolan. Do you want to talk to my mom?”
I laughed, and remembered all the times when I was his age that I was mistaken for my mom on the phone.
“Okay. I’ll get him.” A moment later, he stood in my office doorway.
“Wil, it’s your manager and he wants to talk to you . . . and he thought I was mom!" He laughed, and ran back out of my office.
“I love how he’s still got two speeds: running and sleeping,” I thought as I walked out to the kitchen and picked up the phone.
“Hey, Chris. What’s up?”
“Well, please apologize to Nolan for me. I should know better, but he sounded just like Anne.”
“I’ll tell him,” I said with a grin.
“Have you ever heard of a show called Win Ben Stein’s Money?”
“Of course I have. It’s hilarious! Do I get to be a contestant?”
“Better than that. Their cohost, Jimmy Kimmel, is leaving the show, and the executive producer wants to meet with you. If he thinks you’re funny, you’ll do a dry run of the show with him and some other executives, then a test for the network.”
Prove To Everyone, who had been quietly slumbering for over a month since I came back from Las Vegas, woke with a start.
“Oh my god, Chris! If I get this, I’ll be on TV every single day!”
“Yeah, and you’ll get to show people how funny you are, and you’ll get to write.”
“Chris, I can totally do this! I’ve got all that experience from writing sketch comedy for ACME, and I know how to be a good cohost from working on The J.Keith vanStraaten Show !”[6]
“This is a huge opportunity for us, Wil. Your meeting is at 2 tomorrow afternoon. I’m faxing the details right now.”
I hung up the phone, and raced to the backyard to tell my wife about the meeting.
“Oh Puss!” she said. “I’m so happy for you!”
She turned to Ferris. “Your dad is going to be on TV again!”
Thump thump thump thump thump. I picked up the ball and threw it across the yard.
“This could turn everything around,” I said.
“When’s the meeting?” Ferris came racing back, and dropped the ball at my feet.
“Tomorrow at 2!”
We may have done a stupid little dance because we were so excited, but I’d never admit to that in public. Or in a book, for that matter.
I knew that I was a perfect match for this show, and for the first time in years I felt supremely confident that I could book a job. While I waited for the fax to arrive, Prove To Everyone said, “You’re going to blog about this, right?”
Before I could answer, the Voice of Self Doubt convinced me to keep the specifics to myself: “You’re going to look like a big stupid asshole if you talk all about this and don’t book the job, Wil. Talk about the opportunity, but don’t give any specifics.”
05 OCTOBER, 2001
Tree Huggin’ Hippie Crap
I can’t go into the details, but I have a HUGE opportunity sitting in front of me and tomorrow is do-or-die time . . . if this thing happens, I am back baby! We’re talking career rebirth, a new computer and nice things for Mrs. Wheaton.
So here’s the deal: if you don’t mind, would you take 60 seconds or so and send some good thoughts my way? I would be especially grateful if you were doing this between 2 and 3 p.m. Pacific Time tomorrow (Thursday).
If this works, I will have the coolest story, EVER, to post.
In less than an hour, my weblog was filled with over one hundred comments of support and “mojo.” Many people promised to hold a good thought for me during my meeting, and as crazy as it seems, I swear it worked. Thanks to the positive energy and support I felt, I was able to leave Prove To Everyone and the Voice of Self Doubt in the car (with the window cracked, of course) when I had my meeting. I was relaxed, confident, and focused. I had fun, and I left the building certain that I’d get called back for a proper audition.
09 OCTOBER 2001
More Tree Huggin’ Hippie Crap
Last week, I put out a plea for some vibes, mojo, good thoughts, tantric chanting, or whatever anyone felt they could throw my way, because I had an extremely important audition.
I said that if it worked, I would have the coolest story, ever, to tell.
I am the most skeptical person you could ever meet, but I swear, I felt mojo coming my way when I needed it most and I was relaxed, funny, charming and all the things I needed to be on my audition.
I don’t let myself get too high or too low about auditions. As I’ve said before, being the best actor usually isn’t what gets an actor the job. There are so many factors that I can’t control that I just focus on doing my best read or having my best possible meeting. For me, a successful audition isn’t necessarily one where I get the job. It’s one where I leave the room knowing that I was the best I can be.
So, having said all that, I can tell you that your mojo and vibes and all that worked, because I was walking on air when I left that room and every time the phone rang, I was excited that it would be my agent telling me that I’d been hired.
But the phone call that came did not tell me that I’d been hired, but that they were bringing me back one more time, to perform again. This time it was between me and one other person.
So here I am, putting out yet another plea for mojo, vibes, good thoughts, voodoo dances, or whatever you’d care to send my way.
My final, final, final callback is today, at 3 p.m.
So, if you can, please send mojo between 3 and 4:30 p.m. PDT and I will give up all the details of the project, the audition process and all that, later on today.
Later that afternoon, I wrote about my meeting.
Got my mojo risin', there’s a poodle in my strudel!
. . . Minky Boodle!!
Wow. What a day.
Short story: I killed. I felt the mojo and it was good. I won’t know anything until sometime tomorrow, at the earliest.
It was a great audition. Everyone, including me, knew it. I was funny, I was smart, I was having a blast, and I was entertaining as hell. When I left the studio, I excitedly told Prove To Everyone, “In just a few weeks, we will be BACK, BABY!”
When I got home, I anxiously waited by the phone.
And waited.
And waited.
When it didn’t ring for three days, my spirits darkened. I’ve worked in Hollywood long enough to know that when days go by with no word from the studio, I’m not getting the job.
12 OCTOBER 2001
MojoJojo
Well, at last the phone call has come and I can tell my story. Now, you can know where all your mojo has been going the last two weeks.
Before I get into the details, I have to say that, whether it is placebo or not, I felt more confident than I have ever felt, as I went through this audition process and I know that it helped me relax and do my best work.
One of the coolest things, ever, came from Susie, who takes care of kids in a day-care here in SoCal. On the day of Mojo-needing, Susie had her kids draw me good luck pictures. She said to me, “Is there any better mojo than the mojo of a child?”
I think not.
She scanned and e-mailed the drawings to me. I was going to put them all up, but I’ve decided that I’m going to keep them just for me. I’m giving too damn much of myself away on this site as it is, anyway.
So here’s the shortened version of the story: I was auditioning to be the new cohost of the Comedy Central show, Win Ben
Stein’s Money. It was a long process and it was the most fun I have ever had, ever, auditioning for any show. The producers and everyone who works on that show are so fucking cool, I can’t even begin to describe it.
Oh, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I didn’t get it. It came down to me and one other guy and, everyone say it with me, “They took the other guy.”
Something that is really shitty for me right now, as an actor, is that I have don’t have enough of a “name” and enough recognizability to put me “over the top” for shows, but I do have enough to take me out of shows. I can’t even do commercials, because I’m not a big enough celebrity to be an endorsement guy and I’m too well known to be an average Joe. I wonder if that came into play on this job? I don’t know.
The challenge for me right now is to get producers to see me in a different way. To see past their preconception of me and let me show them something that they weren’t expecting.
Like this website. How many people came here expecting some jackass celebrity site, where the celebrity has nothing to do with it? How many people came here expecting me to be a complete ass?
Did I give them what they expected? I certainly hope not.
So this news has devastated me. I really wanted to work with the crew over there, because they are all so cool.
Get this: the producer of the show, the EXECUTIVE FUCKING PRODUCER, actually called me, to tell me how sorry he was that I didn’t make it and how he really liked me and how he called other producers to let them know about me. That just doesn’t happen and I am floored by that. He is, truly, one of the coolest people I have ever met.
A sincere “thank you” to everyone who sent me mojo and kept me in their thoughts. That was very cool and I think I’ll be calling on you all again. I didn’t get this one, but I’ll get one soon, I can feel it.
I almost made it to the end before Prove To Everyone asserted his voice and said, “I didn’t get this one, but I’ll get one soon, I can feel it.”
The only thing I could feel was overwhelming, nearly suicidal depression, pretty much the opposite of what I portrayed. The rejection could not have come at a worse time. Anne’s ex-husband continued to find new and exciting ways to disrupt our marriage and our relationship with her children. For the second time in two years, he took us to court, in an attempt to get full custody of Ryan and Nolan. He was costing us thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and every parenting choice I made was heavily scrutinized. I was portrayed to the kids and the court as “The Evil Stepfather,” and I felt like my life was under siege.
The second-place finish (out of hundreds of actors) was nothing to be ashamed of, but finishing second paid the bills as much as finishing last. I was utterly, completely, and totally destroyed by that phone call. I knew that I had given the performance of my life in that final callback—the executive producer of the show told me that on my way out of the studio, but as I said in my weblog, being the best is never enough. The job that I’d fought so hard for, the job that I’d earned, had been given to Jimmy Kimmel’s cousin, Sal. The pain and frustration I felt when I faced the reality of continued financial and professional struggles was compounded by a feeling of injustice. It was so unfair! Nepotism was something we joked about in audition waiting rooms. It wasn’t something that actually happened. As usual, it didn’t matter that I was smart, or funny, or talented, or capable. This time, I wasn’t “related to the outgoing actor” enough for the job.
I told my wife, “I suppose it’s not as bad as `You’re not edgy enough,’ but not by much.”
* * *
[6] I’m Ed McMahon to Keith’s Johnny Carson on a Tonight Show-style late night comedy talk show that he and I do together for live audiences at the ACME Comedy Theatre.
Chapter 5. Last Place You Look
I SPENT NEARLY THREE WEEKS wallowing in misery and self-pity. The Voice of Self Doubt and I spent long hours together replaying the auditions for Win Ben Stein’s Money, but even with 20/20 hindsight, I couldn’t find a single thing that I would have done differently.
“You know what the worst thing about being an actor is?” I rhetorically asked my wife. “The not working. You know what the second worst thing is? Knowing that my entire career—hell, my entire life—can turn around with just one phone call.”
I’m not making this up, but at that moment, the phone rang.
Okay, maybe I am making it up, but it certainly makes for good drama, doesn’t it?
It was my manager.
“I just got a call from TNN,” he said. “They want to check your availability to play on an all-Star Trek edition of Weakest Link.”
Weakest Link was a trivia game show hosted by a woman named Anne Robinson, who had a reputation for being very nasty to the contestants.
“Really?! When?” I said.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “They’re paying 10 grand to you, and giving 10 grand to the charity of your choice.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? You’ll just be resting on your Star Trek laurels,” The Voice of Self Doubt said.
“Are you kidding me? They’re going to pay me 10 thousand dollars. That’s more than I’ve made all year, and we really need the money.” I said.
“Not only that, but you can show millions of people—in prime time—that you’re smart, funny, and not a kid anymore,” Prove To Everyone added. “If there are producers and casting people watching, it could make a big difference . . .”
I accepted the offer immediately, and tried to not let it bother me when I found out that I had only gotten the offer after they’d gone through their “A” list.
For my charity, I chose the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that lobbies for and raises awareness of privacy and free speech rights on the Internet—rights that were squarely in John Ashcroft’s post-9/11 cross hairs.
I had a wonderful time, and in front of a national prime time television audience, I held my own with my peers. I didn’t win, but I made the Ice Queen Anne Robinson laugh three separate times (which, strangely, didn’t make it onto TV).
30 OCTOBER 2001
Who was the Weakest Link?
I just got back from my taping of Weakest Link.
I’m bound by contract to not say a single word about the show, like who did what, or who won, or anything like that . . .
BUT!
I can say something that is going to rock everyone’s world. It certainly rocked mine.
I sat in the green room (a place where actors hang out while they get stuff ready—there’s food, drinks and TV, usually) and watched the World Series.
Not a big deal, right?
Well, I watched The World Series with WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER.
It was so goddamn cool. I was sitting there, talking about baseball with him, discussing Randy Johnson versus Curt Shilling (who was better), the various strategies employed by the teams during the few innings that we were watching . . . and he was so cool to me, I didn’t even know what to do. He was nice. He was funny. He was warm, genuine and basically just a 100% cool-ass guy.
Matter of fact, I can say this one thing about the show: William Shatner was the funniest I have ever seen him, or anyone who was in Star Trek, ever.
William Shatner has earned 50,000 cool points with me, after tonight. One for each monkey at this site.
In retrospect, it was probably just a strategy move, so I wouldn’t vote him off in the early rounds. I’ve seen him once since and he didn’t seem to remember me.
. . . but I didn’t care. When Captain Freakin’ Kirk is cool to you, you don’t take it with a grain of salt, man. You take it with a double shot of whiskey and leave a fiver on the bar.
Hanging out with Captain Kirk and bonding over baseball felt too good to be true, so over a year later, when Bill (yeah, I get to call him Bill now) did an interview with the website Slashdot.org, I asked him . . .
Seriously . . . are we cool?_by CleverNickName
Hey Bill,
Are w
e cool, or what? I mean, I always thought you didn’t like me, but I had a good time with you at Weakest Link watching the World Series.
So are we cool, or was that just pre-game strategy?
Wil
Bill:
Dear Wil,
We are so cool, we’re beyond cool. We are in orbit man. I don’t do pre-game strategy.
I look forward to some personal time with you.
Right there, in front of every geek in the world, WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER told me we were “cool.” Of course, the “personal time” he’s talking about could be in a Turkish prison, but I’m not going to read into this one too much.
Bill was voted off early in the game, but not before he’d done some incredibly funny stuff, including “making out” with Anne Robinson, Captain Kirk-style. I made it all the way to the final three before I froze up on some really easy questions and was voted off.
When we were finished, the producers informed us that we were the smartest group of celebrities they’d ever had, so they didn’t give us the typical “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb” questions that they usually give celebrities to make them look good. They gave us the same questions that they gave real contestants.
On my way out of the studio, I literally ran into Anne Robinson in a backstage hallway. Seriously, I almost knocked her down.
“Oh god. I am so sorry!” I said.
She gave me the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “Oh my dear! It was my fault. I wasn’t watching. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Listen, I know we’re not supposed to talk to you and stuff, but I wanted to let you know that I had a great time on the show. Thanks for playing with me.”
“I had a lovely time with you all. You were very good contestants,” she said. A girl from the network rounded the corner and approached.
“I’d better go,” she said. “It ruins my image when I’m seen fraternizing with the contestants. I’m supposed to be a horrible person, you know.” She winked.
