First Audition part 7

I’ve been talking to everybody about this Jeffrey Lau movie. I was originally up for a very small singing part. I would have spent maybe a few hours on the set, one day at most. Now I’m up for a small speaking part. The good news is they don’t expect me to speak Chinese. They specifically want a foreigner who speaks English. The bad news is I don’t know how long it would take to film the part. No one can tell me.

The problem is that I have a job. Disney doesn’t like it when I take too many days off. They didn’t care when I started working there. I could take off as many days as I wanted whenever I wanted, but now they want me to work more. That’s good in the sense that they want me around, but bad when I want to take time off.

There’s a slight possibility I might have to choose between Disney and the movie. Ryan thinks I should leave Disney if it interferes with the movie. He says the movie will do more for my career than working at Disneyland, even such a small part, and he’s probably right. How many people hit the big time working at Disneyland? Steve Martin is the only one I can think of and working at Disneyland had nothing to do with his success. No one ever made it working at Hong Kong Disneyland. Disney makes lots of movies and TV and they’ve started lots of careers, but they don’t cast their movies from their theme parks.

Lily thinks I should choose Disney. My Hong Kong ID and visa are all because I work at Disneyland. If I stop working there, I can’t legally live in Hong Kong, unless I get a visa from somewhere else. A small part in a movie isn’t going to get me a visa. The fact that I don’t need a visa is probably a big plus in the eyes of the producers. Disney is also very helpful when it comes to all the government paperwork. They know how to get through it and the government knows Disney. Even if I had a steady stream of acting jobs, the government wouldn’t recognize my employers the way they recognize Disney.

I think it’s too soon to worry about it. I haven’t heard back from anyone after my callback. If I don’t get the part, none of this will matter. Even if I do get it, I might only be on the set for such a small enough time that it won’t hurt my job. I like to be prepared, but in this case I’ll ignore the problem until it actually becomes a problem.