It turns out that there is a fetish for just about anything you can think of. Someone with a sexual fetish obtains arousal from a nonsexual object or situation. For as long as I’ve been going out on auditions, I’ve come across obvious fetish scams, things like “woman in heels driving sports car”. I thought I was pretty good at spotting and avoiding them, but only just recently I let one slip by and I got duped. While I can’t change what I’ve already done, I hope that my experience will help someone else avoid the same mistake. So I’m going to walk you through everything that happened to me highlighting what I did and what I should have done.
The first thing that happened is my agent forwarded me an email that this “filmmaker” had sent him saying he had a film project coming up that he wanted me to audition for.
What I did
- Emailed the filmmaker directly and said I wanted to be involved in the project.
What I should have done
- Researched him. I would have seen that he had no actual film experience. And I should have kept all contact with him limited to only with my agent or manager, or at least my husband posing as my manager.
Then the “filmmaker” emailed me trying to book an audition date months in advance. He also explained what the project would be like and that the audition would be improvised and he sent me the scenarios I would be acting out. The project was to be a Sci Fi movie with a group of female agents who develop a shrink ray and shrink men down to ½ inch tall. He went on to say that because of the nature of the film, the audition would be taped from various angles and from the shrunken man’s POV. He also sent me very specific guidelines for what to wear on the day of my audition including boots and multiple silver rings on each hand.
What I did
- While the email seemed weird, I just thought the “filmmaker” was inexperienced and micro managing. I told him I could keep that audition date as long as I didn’t get another job on that day and I told him I could come up with something in line with the style of the wardrobe he was talking about although probably not that specific.
What I should have done
- Forwarded the email to my agent or manager to get a second opinion, and I should have googled “shrunken man fetish”. I would have seen right away that this existed and that the rings and boots were a part of that fetish and then I would have reported the guy and blasted on the internet for my fellow actresses to steer clear.
Then the audition rolled around. I had to reschedule the first date that he wanted me for because I was shooting a commercial. He got upset at this and implied that I was being unprofessional.
What I did
- Still wanting a paying job, I apologized and explained that I couldn’t turn down a commercial for an audition that I may or may not book. He rescheduled for me.
What I should have done
- Stopped all contact with him for being so obviously not an actual member of this industry.
I went to the audition. At the audition it was just “the filmmaker” and his handheld camera. The first thing he commented on was that I wasn’t wearing boots. He seemed upset about this but let it go. Then he asked me to improvise the scenes he had described. He would kind of act out the scene in front of me and then have me do it. Again I just chalked it up to his inexperience and tried to remain a good little actor. He had me stand on a step stool while he shot me from a low angle. He never asked me to say anything sexual. It was all very normal conversation stuff. Then he asked me to hold the shrunken man in my hand and talk to him. When it got weird is that he asked me to talk to the shrunken man with my mouth right up to him almost as if I could swallow him. Then he would change a small detail like have me talk abnormally slow or bend my fingers a certain way and ask me to do it again.
What I did
- I let this go on for about 30 minutes, until I realized that he was not paying any attention to my acting and really this was not an audition. I told him that I no longer felt comfortable and that I thought I had done enough for him to decide if he wanted to hire me or not.
What I should have done
- Stopped the audition much sooner and gone to the people at Space Station casting and reported him as well as tell the girl waiting to audition after me to get as far from this creep as possible. And again I should have blasted it to the internet heavens for everyone to stay away from this guy.
Even at this point, I didn’t feel like I had done anything dirty I just felt like this guy really didn’t know what he was doing. But there was something inside me that felt off. I called my husband as soon as I got in the car and told him what had happened. He got on the internet right away and found out about this fetish. He was irate! He called up Space Station casting and reported the guy. They said that they had been getting some other complaints and concerns about him and that this was the last straw so they would shut him down. I think they still let him finish his session though (thanks a lot). Then my husband, wonderful man that he is, mustered up all of his legal jargon and sent the man a very intimidating email. We always try to avoid going to court though. Luckily I never signed any kind of release so if he does use any of the video he obtained, we can nab him. Chances are he’ll only use it for himself, which unfortunately I can’t do anything about. But what I can do is what I should have done from the beginning and that is warn all of my fellow actresses to steer clear from this jerk and anyone else like him.
The bottom line is that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Trust your gut and your experience. This industry has a standard way of operating and while it can be annoying at times, it really does protect us from people trying to take advantage. Anything outside of that standard needs to be scrutinized. I know that as actresses we feel like we can never say the word, “no”. We are all so afraid of losing an opportunity that could make our career, but we have got to be extremely careful. If you’ve ever had a similar experience, I would love to hear about it and how you dealt with it. Leave a comment below.