The Chandara Saga

She's got the "Look"

There were two actresses who I contacted directly about the role of Chandara before I put up the casting notices. One of them aesthetically had the qualities I was seeking for the role, the other actress had a different look than I had imagined for the role  however she was physically stunning. I sent the first actress the entire script to read, the other actress I sent Chandara’s introduction scene, a synopsis of the script and Chandara’s back story/character analysis. To this day I do not know if either of them read the material I sent them. After NO reply from either of them, I made one more inquiry to see if they had read the material and if so, if they were interested in doing the role. Once again, NO reply.  There are two scenarios that I believed happened. I don’t think the first actress read the script and if she did read it she most likely found it to be a bore, she did not “get it”. She was 20 years old.  The instant gratification mindset of this generation is not familiar with storytelling and stories told well, if something does not grab their attention in the first 3 seconds they have already moved on. Whether she read it or not, is not of  importance, her lack of professional courtesy to not even respond told me that she was too immature for this project. I believe the second actress did read the material that I sent her and she did not like or understand it. Again no response from her told me that she lacked professionalism. I understood and accepted  that there would be people who would not like or appreciate this story, I expected that but I also expected a simple “no thank you”. Sadly, professional courtesy is not  familiar practice in the entertainment business.  The second actress had what I would call ” I claim to be an actress but the truth is  I want to be a celebrity and I  have no desire to learn the craft of acting” syndrome.  Her motive and goal was not about the money it was about  fame, specifically the quest for fame and it certainly was not about the craft of acting.  For her, it was about seeing and being seen, hanging out at the newest hot spots, in the tightest dress, it was about taking gigs in which she could fully promote her tits & ass. Yes, I needed a  smoldering hot actress but also an actress and who could act and wanted to act. I received almost two thousand responses for the role of Chandara. There may be more? I was not able to check every one of my casting notices.  Out of those two thousand only about two dozen actresses came close to my checklist for the role.  I eventually narrowed that 2 dozen down to 1 dozen.  My heart and my head and my gut told me that only 6 of that dozen might be right for the role. The woman who was my first choice, the one I really wanted for the role, lived in New York, on the opposite coast. I first came across her music profile on MySpace even before I had started writing “The Last Anniversary”. She had some clever tunes but it was her promotional photographs that seized my attention. She was a striking beauty, a smoldering Latina. I requested to be added to her MySpace  fan base and she granted me entrance, a wise artist always seeks to expand their fan base. Yes, I was a faceless number and that was what I expected to be. When Facebook became the next big thing I requested to be added to her Facebook friends and I was added, still a stranger and another number. I use these types of connections as a Rolodex of  talent  for future projects.  Her look was captivating, extremely photogenic. In the back of my mind I thought she would be a great candidate for the role of Chandara, but she lived in New York, she needed to audition and even if she did audition and I wanted her for the role how could I get her to Los Angeles and then back to New York? I had NO money. I needed to find money. I found money. More to be revealed later. I knew she was a singer/songwriter but did not know if she had any acting experience or ambitions. I e-mailed her and asked her if she was an actress and if so was she interested in doing independent movies. She replied that she had done theater and was indeed interested in acting if the right role in the right project came her way. I sent her my script. She read it but not all of it, she did not read far enough to discover that the character I wanted her to play was not the person the audience meets in the beginning of the script, Chandara has depth, she is not superficial, she has a soul. I did not know at this time that she was also going through a transitional period in her career, she had both obstacles and avenues to navigate.  She respectfully declined the role. Casting her as Chandara was a long shot and I had a half of dozen actresses in Los Angeles that I felt could give the role justice. at the very least one of those had to be right for the role. However I remained intrigued by this New York woman, she lingered in my thoughts, there was something about her. I googled her name and to my surprise her name came up in a music video. The video was several years old and during that time she was in  a “girl band”,  in her case , it was just her and another girl. Their song was well done, it had a hook but it was her screen presence that floored me. The camera loved her,  she oozed a raw and natural sensuality, she was saucy, bold, fearless and red-hot sexy, not forced, not affected, it flowed naturally through her and around her. She was Chandara.  If she could deliver a line she would be perfect. I e-mailed the link to her music video to a colleague of mine.  He is a long time friend and a close confidant.  He  had  read most of my scripts and he was  involved with “The Last Anniversary” even before I wrote one line. I had told him about the blog that inspired the idea for the script. “The Last Anniversary” became one of  his personal favorites out of all of my scripts. He had his reservations about my very first Chandara, he agreed she was beautiful yet she could be molded into the character but he always felt there was some key ingredient missing.  Concerning the two  actresses that I had contacted about the role of Chandara,  he did not see it in either one of them as well. When I e-mailed him the link to the video I did not say anything except , “What do you think about this girl for Chandara?” His response was, ” Holy F–K! That is Chandara! That’s her! ” He knew it and I knew it. However, she did not know it, yet. I wrote her again and addressed her concerns and hesitation, I asked her to reconsider. She wrote me back and asked if I would allow her manager and her creative advisor to read it.  Yes, was my answer. Both her manager and her creative advisor read it and thought it was a great script and a great role for her. Hence, she  finally read the entire script and after she did she wanted to do the role. I had my Chandara but I still scheduled auditions for  10 Los Angeles actresses as  back up plan, just in case my New York actress did not come through. Always have a back-up plan and a back-up plan for the back-up plan and sometimes that is not enough. On the day of auditions, out of my ten scheduled Chandaras not one of them showed up to read, zero out of ten, I had received a few e-mails that apologized for missing the audition but most did not even bother to offer an excuse. In my opinion, they missed out in a role of a life time. The good news was I had a flight and hotel room booked for my New York Chandara. I cast her without reading her or seeing her in person. I cast her on my gut feeling, based on her mesmerizing presence  in her music video. Some people thought I was crazy, but I felt it in my bones, she was the one. She was Chandara.