Zac Efron can breath easy

About 3 months ago, Shnookie1 was at the mall with his friends, and he got stopped by a talent scout. They were looking for extras to be in High School Musical 3 (being filmed in Utah), so they took Shnook's number and the numbers of 2 of his friends. They actually called him in for an audition a week later. My little girls were OUT OF THEIR HEADS excited...sure their big brother would be the next Zach Efron. They were soooo bummed when he couldn't go to the audition because of work. Way more bummed than Shnook.

We somehow went on with our lives.

3 weeks ago, Shnookie1 was at a skate park with his friends. This time he was approached by a scout looking for skateboarders for High School Musical 3. They took his number and that of another of his friends. This time he was a bit more excited. Being paid to skate all day...be in a movie... sounded like a pretty good gig to him!

A week passed, then Shnookies 1 & 2 went to Park City for a week. Towards the end of the week, Hubby was checking his cell phone voice mail and found a call from the agency, asking Shnookie 1 to come in for an audition...ten days ago. (He doesn't check his messages often, since his mom leaves 8 to 10 a day for him and he needs a big chunk of time to wade through those...I mean, listen to them and take copious notes.) Hubby called the agency, and they said "Oh no, it's not too late, come on in!"

Since it was my turn to shuttle kids to odds ends of the earth (okay, it's always my turn for that), I ended up taking him to the appointment with his 'agent.' What ensued was definitely one of the oddest experiences of my life. First of all, we sat down with Mr. Hollywood Agent, and he said "So, you skateboard and you're good. Darn. We could've used you last week when we filmed for High School Musical. But that's all done." Great. "But since you're here, let me tell you about the books I've written, where to buy them, all the stars I've worked with, the five years I was a Navy Seal, my advanced degrees in political science and English, and the five languages I'm fluent in. Oh, and let me do it in character as the Colombian drug lord I played in my last movie."

Man, do I wish he said all of that so succinctly. Instead, he drew it out for an hour, all the while bestowing strange bits of wisdom upon my son, intermixed with reminders that he (Shnookie) was gonna have to do an emotional reading for the man and CRY during it. This process involved a lot of pontification on Mr. Agents theories about the "man walls" that keep men from crying.

Any one who knows Shnookie1 well knows that he displays only one range of emotion. Evidently, he feels more than that inside (or so he tells us), but on the outside, we see one guy...same expression...24/7. It's literally taken me ten years to figure out when he's feeling something. Even then, I cannot tell the difference between depressed and angry. Elated looks exactly like mildly amused. He's a tough nut to crack. So for someone to ask him to cry on cue; well, I laughed out loud. (Briefly. I didn't want to undermine his confidence. As if anyone would know.)

I've heard those stories about people who can't express emotions except through their acting, so I was trying to keep an open mind, waiting for Shnook to show a sign whether or not he really wanted to go further with this. Eventually, I could plainly see 2 things: 1) Mr. Renaissance Agent Man wanted my son to catch the acting bug so that we would shell out money to them for acting classes, and 2) Shnookie had no desire to cry for the odd little man. (I guess the hour of his squirming, foot tapping and sweaty palms finally tipped me off on that one.)

So I intervened. We left with 3 website addresses (written on a sticky for us by the agent himself): one for an 'extras' site, where you can sign up and they'll call you for extra's roles in Utah movies; one for a website where Shnook could view a clip of Mr. Druglord's latest movie; and one for a site where we could buy his book. I kid you not.

I think that was enough Hollywood to last both of us a lifetime.