"Guy who Likes to Eat Grapefruit"

"Laid-back guy who likes to eat grapefruit." This is one of the many casting notices I browse through on "www.ActorsAccess.com," a website devoted to putting out audition notices and to give any actor easy "access" to said auditions. I figure, who can't be a guy who eats grapefruit? Besides, the breakdown has been posted by NYU grad students. Booking an NYU Grad film would be roughly one step shy of booking a Law and Order episode, or so people would like me to believe.
By the time I submit myself for this breakdown, I've already submitted to at least a hundred and twenty roles on this site and never been contacted. Seriously. I know "acting is a competitive field," yada yada, but these are not paid jobs I am applying for. I have paid acting work in my background. Mine is not a resume that someone who is not willing to pay should be overlooking. Throw me a bone. Bitches.
Naturally, I'm thrilled when I get a call from the director of this NYU film. In spite of my previous work, it has been a long time since I last worked on a film project, which adds to the spring in my step as I approach the main NYU building.
I find my way past the security guard through the winding halls to the waiting room for this particular audition. The chairs are hard, orange and plastic. Sitting in one makes me feel like a very large child. The room would be better suited as a foyer for a decrepit ER.
I look for the sides (the lines the actor must read) for the "guy who eats grapefruit." It turns out they have provided the entire script, all ten pages. Okay, a short film. I skim through it. The plot is simple with a great twist: a guy is cutting grapefruit when a strange man walks into the kitchen, strangles him, forces him to give fellatio, then drags him out of the house, hefts him onto the back of his motorbike, and here we have our twist....The blood is fake, the victim unharmed. It was all an elaborate sex game. They ride off happily into the sunset.
I'm sweating. "Brokeback Mountain" has not yet been released in theaters. It is not yet "cool" for straight guys to take part in graphic gay scenes .
Never say no; you don't know who you're dealing with. Maybe it's an artsy film. I mean, this is NYU. How bad can it be?
Think of this as an opportunity to expand your horizons.
These thoughts and more plow through my head as I walk into the blue, carpeted, audition room. A fairly small space featuring a table, three chairs, the director, his shoulder bag and his gay reader. The director is Asian-American with a very smart looking face. His tight clothes, his thick-rimmed glasses, the slightly messy but not too messy hair and his arrogant demeanor all lend him quite well to the field of le directore. His reader and assistant is a little less confident and a lot more boyish. Mutt-American. Brown hair. Much shorter than I. He hasn't yet figured out that you need to dress like an artist to be one.
The director gives me a warm smile. "How's it going?"
"Good," I say.
"Good..." he looks down at my head shot and resume, "...Lucas Van Engine."
"Van Engen."
"Oh," he says, "Nice to meet you. You've read the script?"
"Yup."
"Great. This is your reader, Dan."
"Hi, Dan."
"Would you be comfortable giving Dan a fake blow job while he pretends to force your head into his crotch?"
...
"Like, on my knees?"
"Well," he says, not showing any discomfort, "yes."
"Yes," I say, not showing any discomfort.
I watch as that word comes so easily out of my mouth. New York has trained me well. I am now floating just above and behind my body. Did I really just say, "yes" to this? Have I sunk so low?
You will in a minute. Man up, boy. You call yourself an actor??
I'm down on my knees. Dan has my head in his hands. He's grunting. It all happened so fast! I'm gargling an imaginary penis two inches from his very real cock.
Thank God he kept his pants on.
I really feel like I'm being raped.
Damn, I'm a good actor.
I will say I was convincing.
The director does not flinch. "Let's try that again. This time, I'd like to see a little more pain in the experience."
"Okay."
WHAT THE FUCK? Who are you? You grew up in a Christian Reformed Church. Are you fucking kidding me? Stand up for yourse...
Grunt. Knees. Hands on head. Gargle. Pain.
The worst is over. I'm sitting in a chair in front of the director's table. He and the reader are behind the table, obviously thrilled with my performance. Frankly, I am thrilled with my performance. What other straight guy would have the balls to go through with that? Which is probably why they're about ready to hire me on the spot.
The director studies me, unable now to hide his glee. "Before you go, let me show you what we're looking at, so you have a sense of the film." He pulls out a large photo album from his shoulder bag and opens it to the first page.
Multiple bedroom scenes featuring naked men on naked men.
My face flushes bright red. I need some air.
He flips the page. More men. This time threesomes.
Next page. Oh, look, a woman. How did she get her leg in that position while he...?
Next page. Next page. Each one more impossible than the last. He finally approaches the last page and pauses with dramatic anticipation, proud of himself. Perchance picking up on my discomfort, he says, "It will get no worse than this." The final page is filled with cartoons. The sexual positions represented in the cartoons are so impossible, so unthinkable, that I can't make out where hands nor legs, heads nor tails are. Nothing seems connected. He closes the book.
"So what do you think? Of course we have to audition some more people, but if we call you, say, tomorrow, do you think you would be up for this?"
I close the unsafe position that my lower jaw is in. I swallow. I believe I'm in shock.
"I have to think about it," I say as I slowly back out of the room.
No way in hell.


Postscript
They wanted me for the part. I had to refuse more than once. I did some research and found that it truly was an NYU Grad School film, not a porno posing as a grad film, porno though it may have been.