Big Smile No Teeth

This is the first of my interviews that I’ve read and, wow, it’s really like hearing yourself in a recording and saying ‘shit! is that my voice? I sound like an idiot!’. 

Not that I was taken out of context, or misquoted, nope, I said exactly everything in the interview, but reading it back you realize just how incoherent you sound. 

It is a strange thing to see your rambling put to paper, or in this case the disturbing permanence of the internet.

Anyway, the photo is linked to the interview.  Read it or don’t. 

The folks at Astro who had the task of taking care of me while I was in Malaysia for the Oscar publicity run sent me a plethora of photos.  I didn’t realize I’d met so many people.  At NSTP group there was Ramlah, Amirul, Suriani, and Bibi.  Over at The Star I came for an interview and ended up answering phones for Lai Yee and Ann Marie. 

Thanks everyone!  If anyone needs there office phones answered, give me a ring.  I’ll work out a package discount.

Seriously, here’s a photo of me answering phones at The Star.

Made it back from KL and days of interviews.  Had a great time, maybe too good.  At one point an interviewer told me he thought I was drunk during the interview (which I wasn’t).  Guess I was high on life, or maybe it was the fact I was eating sugar cubes to calm my nerves.  Don’t do that. 

The most fun was an interview with JD and Dilli at MIX FM.  The interview contained a rich tapestry of Oscar picks, Black Swan related innuendo, and bodily functions. 

They probably only have 30 seconds of usable material. 

On the eve before my first day of media visits in Kuala Lumpur to promote (say this following part in an announcer voice to complete the plug) The 83rd Academy Awards on STAR MOVIES, it occurred to me that something feels different.

It’s not the hotel room, or the prospect of working closely with a crew of people I’ve just met, or being in unfamiliar territory.  No, all that stuff is normal in modeling too.  In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve landed a direct booking, so I sort of missed that stuff.

No, what’s different is that when I arrived I received a briefing package outlining the questions that I may be asked, the major points I’ll be expected to emphasize, and some background on the different news organizations that will be interviewing me. And that’s when it hit me, I actually have to know… stuff. 

And when you have to know… stuff, it actually makes you feel somewhat important.

That’s what’s different with modeling, that smiling girl at the center of the TVC for digital cameras, who looks like the focus of everything, was not the focus of everything during the shoot.  Sure they babied her and tried to keep her happy so she didn’t cry and ruin her makeup, but she didn’t actually do anything—save for smile when she was prodded to.  It seems counter intuitive but models are the least important thing on set.  Get their hair done, get them dressed, and then stash them where they can’t eat too much free food, or wander obliviously into the street.

Models are props, like a nice potted fern to brighten up the room.  No one cares what a fern thinks, no one wants the ferns opinion, just as long as the fern stays pleasant and neat looking, everyone’s happy—it’s the same with models. 

I’m used to being a fern.  A big, dumb, apathetic, fern.

Now I’m here and people are asking me to read press junkets and are actually expecting me to perform beyond just showing up at work (when you’re a model, showing up is about 90% of getting your job done). 

After years of being as useless as tits on something that shouldn’t have tits (a building perhaps?), now I’m necessary, and I have to say I’m missing the familiar, comforting, apathy of a modeling gig.

Oh, and I suppose useless isn’t really the word I’d use to describe Baconaisse, heart-attack-inducing-death-spread is probably more accurate.