Be My Sunflower

Patricks birth

"I'm so excited for casting this morning!" Kory chirped, he was buzzing around the house with unusual energy for being 7 am.

"I am too, I'm happy people actually showed interest. One of my biggest fears is no one would want to audition." I said, grabbing a coke.

"We had a huge list of people for Patrick respond, and a lot of people for Miranda's mom." Christopher said, "Going to be a long day. Hopefully they know the project starts pretty quickly and they will have to move to Vancouver."

I nodded, "God I hope we don't cast someone and then they decline. What a disaster!"

Auditions for Haters Back Off

"Alright, who's up first?" I asked Kory, he was bringing people in and out with headshots and their information.

"We've got.... Erik Stocklin, auditioning for the role of Patrick Mooney." He handed me his headshot and his information which I read over and passed to Christopher.

"Hi, Erik!" Christopher said, laying his headshot at the top of the table.

"Hello, nice to meet you both." He shook our hands and he went back to stand in his spot, holding the script in his hand.

"Alright, lets start on page 6 where you are telling Uncle Jim about your ideas for Miranda and yours first date." Christopher read for Uncle Jim and I pushed record on the camera.
I thought Erik dressed the part of a nerdy homeschooled boy and noted it, I wasn't sold on him based on first impressions.

Erik slowly slouched his shoulders and pulled a face, delivering his first line and my jaw dropped. As he did the scene with Christopher I felt extremely emotional and fought back tears, I knew without a doubt this was our Patrick. I knew we had to have chemistry and prayed to the gods we did because he brought Patrick to life in a way I never could've envisioned him.

Our first audition of the day for Patrick and I didn't want to see anyone else, I hated that but why waste time. I noted down a big fat yes on his notes along with: Charismatic, looks the part, conveys Patrick's awkwardness, kills it!

"Good read man, wow. I'm impressed how you did that, with your body." Christopher shook his hand again.

"Thank you." Erik smiled.

They looked to me and I smiled, "Yes that was...amazing, you do this a lot?"

He shook his head, "No, most of my roles are bad boys. This character resonated with my inner nerd." He laughed, "I just went all in."

"Well it paid off, We just need a chemistry read with Colleen if you're ready Coll." Christopher said taking the notes from me and pointing to what I wrote. (YES! THIS is patrick!)

I nodded and he gave me a thumbs up, he saw how perfect he was too.

Miranda's character never saw Patrick as a love interest, always uninterested and oblivious to his admiring looks. I dropped into Miranda mode and delivered my line, looking ahead of me. Through our dialogue I knew I wasn't looking at him at all so I turned quickly and made eye contact, he was so in character it was tripping me out.

To stand with a character I made up and spent years creating down to the look and the way he was, to see this guy convey feelings with just his body language and face was maddening. I was nervous, I could feel my heart racing beneath my ribcage and was so excited for him to be this character.

"Well I would say you got the awkwardness down," Christopher laughed, I took a deep breath and nodded. "Let's see about the romantic chemistry. Try the kissing scene without the kiss cause that needs to be awkward and unrehearsed."