Go Home, You have Ugly Hair

Video castings (aka commercial auditions) in Milan are notorious for taking forever and a day. You sit in a room with pretty much every model that is in town and wait for hours on end until your name is finally called. I kid you not, it was pretty normal to sit at one of these castings for four hours before it was your turn to smile for the camera. Most of the time I would bail out after an hour and just go to all of my other appointments or to the nearest gelateria to stuff my face. I hated video castings.

Halfway through season I decided that I wasn't going to go to anymore of these castings unless the job seemed really promising and included a trip to some exotic location or something great like that. It just wasn't worth my time, and commercials in Milan generally paid crap compared to commercials in the US......I love me some SAG. And although I cringe at the memory, one of the few commercial castings that I did end up going to after I vowed to boycott them ended up being one of the most mortifying experiences in my modeling career.

I don't remember what the job was for, but apparently it was good enough for me to warrant spending too much time in a tiny room full of models, most of which had yet to experience the joys of deodorant.....just cuz you're purrty doesn't mean you don't stink......I think it may have been a United Colors of Benetton spot or something and I though it would be a kick in the pants to get it....their campaigns always look like so much fun.

Well, there I am, sitting on a plastic folding chair that is pinching my ass most fiercely and trying to maintain my composure because the boy that I was totally crushing on just happened to be sitting next to me.....all of a sudden the casting director comes out and starts doing the line-up of shame. She has us all stand up and points to each model with a "stay" or "no thank you". When she gets to me she asks me to let my hair down. Now, you gotta remember that at this time I was the Milanese hair job queen and my hair was short and impossible to style.....impossible for me, anyways, since I have zero talent when it comes to my hair and its upkeeping. I was famous for my tiny pigtails and that is what I would wear to manage my unruly coif....either that or a bandana/kerchief. So on this dastardly day, I happend to have my piggies in and when I took them out, my hair was tweaked out and well, just not cute. The casting director took one look at my unfortunate head and scoffed "Your hair is so ugly! You can go home!".

I felt a full body blush coming on at that point and with an Academy Award winning fake smile, I picked up my bag and walked out....all the while fighting back tears and the total shame of having been humiliated in front of way too many other models included Mr. Crush. Self-esteem is not something you gain from being a model. Nope.