Naked and Unpaid

Technically, I never agreed to be naked. I just didn’t understand what they were asking me.

See, I was a big shot. I went straight to callback. I didn’t have to go through the first audition like some two-bit chump. Straight to callback meant the casting director had seen my work and loved it. They wanted me.

Or maybe it meant everybody at the first audition was lousy and they were getting desperate. Yeah, let’s go with that.

But I was so high on the 25 milligrams of straight to callback, I was caught off guard when they asked if I was comfortable wearing a nude suit. So I said, “Sure!”

You know, a nude suit? Like a green wetsuit, right? That covers my entire body, right? And later they superimpose the body of a sexy naked person … right?

RIGHT?

Yeah, no. It’s just a pair of skin-tight, skin-tone briefs. And believe me, I’m the last guy you want to see in briefs. Actually, scratch that. I’m not the last guy you want to see in briefs. That implies I’m at the bottom of the list. I’m not on the list at all. I’m not the last guy you want to see in briefs. I’m the guy you absolutely do not want to see in briefs, under any circumstances whatsoever.

I don’t own briefs. I’m more of a boxer guy myself. TMI? Look — I was going to be naked in front of a large film crew. You can’t get more TMI than that. If you’re offended by boxers, this ain’t the business for you.

“No problem,” they told me. “Wardrobe will provide the briefs.”

And, true to their word, when I showed up on set I went straight to wardrobe where they handed me a pair of briefs large enough to fit around an acorn.

“Please remember to bring these back,” the nice lady said. “We have to return them, because we rented them.”

Wait. Who did what now?

I wanted to ask, “Who the heck rents underwear?” But I realized that question might lead to an avalanche of other questions that were probably best left unanswered.

That’s how I ended up spending an entire day hanging around a commercial set, in rented underwear, waiting for my turn to be a star.

My big scene was with a lady I had just met, who was also discovering what a nude suit is. We sat, side by side, in clawfoot bathtubs. Yes, it was a commercial for a boner pill.

The tubs were high up in the Santa Monica Mountains. Somehow, in the process of dragging them up there, my tub got clumpy streaks of mud in it. I wanted to clean it, but they wouldn’t let me. The sun was sinking. We were losing daylight.

So I sat in mud. Fresh mud. Liquid mud. Then I brought the rented underwear back to wardrobe with goopy, runny, brown streaks. I tried to explain.

“This isn’t …” I stammered, “I didn’t …”

“It’s ok,” she said. “You don’t have to explain.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “I think I do. I’m only in this situation because I didn’t take the time to clarify certain things up front. I want to make sure we’re crystal clear on this.”

The real cream in the coffee is I never got paid. I guess my paycheck went to replace the underwear.

Or maybe, when they finally saw me naked, they said, “Yeah, we’re not paying for that.”

Which is the same thing a lot of editors say about my writing. But at least as a writer, I get to wear really nice boxers.