In the comedy “Who Invited Charlie?” which premiered last month at the Toronto International Film Festival, Reid Scott plays a New York finance guy who decamps to the Hamptons with his wife and kid in the early days of the pandemic, only for his former college roommate — a wild card of a guy played by Adam Pally — to arrive unexpectedly and start stirring things up.
“It was written by one of my oldest friends and frequent collaborators Nick Schutt, and he wrote it during the early days of lockdown,” Scott said. “It reminded me of a few movies that I grew up on, including ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ and ‘Uncle Buck’ and ‘What About Bob?’ And once we got Adam Pally to sign on — who is another old buddy of mine, we’ve done a couple movies together — it really just crystallized.”
Scott might be best known for playing Dan Egan on “Veep” opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. His other roles include everything from TBS comedy “My Boys,” to the superhero movie “Venom,” to “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” to guest roles on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Black-ish.”
When asked about a worst moment in his career, he recalled an unusual audition for an iconic TV series early in his career.
My worst moment …
“This must have been 2002. I got a call to audition for ‘The Sopranos.’ I had just shot my first pilot in Los Angeles, but it didn’t get picked up, so I was back in New York. And then this audition came up and I was thrilled.
“There wasn’t much to the part yet, it was literally just one line that I got for the audition. But as it was explained to me by the wonderful and weird casting director Georgianne Walken, who is the wife of Christopher Walken, that the part was for Meadow’s boyfriend and there would be more for him to do next season.
“So in this scene, he and Meadow are on a date and some of her dad’s goombahs show up, sort of eyeballing him, and all he says to them is: ‘What the (expletive) you looking at?’
“And I had all these questions. Is he a tough guy? Is he a sweet guy? And she was like, ‘We don’t know. Just kind of go for it and make it your own.’ And I’m like, all right, make it my own, So I tried it a few times with her and she said, ‘Great, great, you’ve got a great handle on it, I’ve got a really good feeling about this.’ And I thought, OK, fantastic.
“Later that day she was like, ‘Come on back.’ And we went to the production offices at Silvercup Studios in Queens, where the show was based out of. And I was like: Oh my God, this is happening right now! Here we go!
“So we go upstairs and she leads me into this white-on-white-on-white office. The entire room was painted white, all of the furniture was white — white couch, white coffee table, white desks, white curtains. It was almost like something out of a Stanley Kubrick movie. It was odd. It felt very sterile. Like, they’re gonna whack me (laughs).
“I walk in and seated on this L-shaped couch in this living room kind of setup were all of the producers of ‘The Sopranos.’ Like, all of them. And everyone is dressed in suits and ties. It was so formal, like they’re all about to go out to a meal someplace in Little Italy. And it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of summer. This was really intimidating. Like a Murderers’ Row of genius writers. And I’m staring at all of them, they’re staring at me. And Georgianne whispers to me: ‘Whenever you are ready.’
“And I say (the line). And she says, ‘Good, good — do it again.’ So I say it again. And then one of the producers leans forward and says, ‘Good — do it again.’ I say it again. And then another producer leans forward: ‘One more time.’ I say it again.
“And this went on and on, and I probably said the line 30 times with every possible permutation of inflection. Everything I could think of. And after a while, the words just don’t make sense anymore. You’re just grunting syllables.
“It kept on going and I started to dissociate from reality. I’m a huge ‘Simpsons’ fan and I instantly hearkened back to this episode where Bart Simpson is auditioning to play Fallout Boy in the new ‘Radioactive Man’ movie, and they have him say the same line over and over again. And his line is: ‘Watch out, Radioactive Man!’
“So in the middle of the audition, I’m saying the line over and over again, and then I say ‘Watch out, Radioactive Man!’ — because I’m thinking someone in the room must have been a ‘Simpsons’ fan and would get the reference. And no one knew what I was doing.
“They thought that I had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the audition. They all just cocked their heads at me like: What is wrong with you? It was just complete crickets. And I looked over at Georgianne like: Help me out here, help me laugh this off. And she just shakes her head and looks at me with this disapproving stare.
“And I said to the whole room: ‘OK folks, that’s it for me — I’ll show myself out.’
“I got a call later from my agent who was like, ‘What did you do in there? Oh my God, you blew it.’
“I was so surprised. This was the height of ‘The Simpsons’ in the early 2000s, everybody watched ‘The Simpsons.’ But no one got the joke. I was just mortified. And I thought: I’ll never work again. I blew it for this casting director, I blew it in front of all these producers. I will never work again. I’m done. That’s it.
“I ended up moving to L.A. after that. I got out of town because I was like, I’ve burned all the bridges — and tunnels — here in New York, so I packed up.”
This was an inflection point in Scott’s career because he only had one screen credit at that point (on “All My Children”)
“This is true. I also had done that pilot, which may not be on IMDb, which was called ‘With You in Spirit.’ That would have been the spring of 2002, this audition was the summer and then the next thing I booked was a guest role on ‘That ‘70s Show’ in the fall.
“The summer before, I had auditioned for the pilot of ‘Scrubs’ for the Zach Braff role and I loved the material. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I was like: I’m J.D. And the casting director ended up calling my agent the day after the audition and was like, ‘This kid sucks. I just don’t get it. He’s doing some weird stuff, his cadence is strange.’ And my agent told me this and I was crushed. I was like, oh my God, I’m terrible at this, I’ll never work.
“And my agent was like, maybe you should take some more classes. And I was like, oh wow, am I really that off? So I threw myself into classes. But I was really shaken to the core.
“Then a month later, I got a call from my agent who said: ‘Hey, that casting director sends his full and utter apology. He says that for whatever reason, he must not have his finger on the pulse and that what you were doing really impressed the producers. And just so you know, they want to send a bit of encouragement, because it came down to you and another guy to go out and test for the show.’ And I was like, oh wow.
“I ended up meeting that casting director for something else and he was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I feel terrible that for whatever reason I didn’t understand what you were doing and I’m embarrassed that I went as far as to call your agent about it.’ And I was like, ‘Well, thank you for that.’
“So that was a bit of a feather in my cap. And I was like, at least my instincts aren’t totally wrong.
“And then I booked the pilot, and I loved it. It was from Steven Levitan, of ‘Modern Family’ and now ‘Reboot’ fame. He gave me my shot.”
Is it unusual to have auditions with only one line of dialogue?
“Definitely. I don’t think I’ve had another audition that was just one line. It was really odd. I guess it was the kind of thing where they would know what they wanted when they saw it, and that’s all the line they needed to figure this guy out. Or maybe it was more of a look or just general energy?
“I know that the guy they cast was doing something different. He was a little more mild-mannered and buttoned up. And maybe it was my sheer chutzpah in the room that made them say: ‘No, not this guy.’”
The takeaway …
“It’s a badge of honor at this point. Had that been the thing that sunk my career, maybe I’d have some PTSD around it, but it’s a fun story to tell.
“I don’t think I’ve quoted ‘The Simpsons’ in an audition since. Most of the people I’ve told this story to, if they know that reference, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, that’s hilarious,’ and they totally get the reference.
“But ‘The Sopranos,’ even though there’s humor in it, it’s not a comedy, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Brilliant dramatic team, but don’t know (anything) about ‘The Simpsons.’”
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