“whatever happens, you’re the one.”
January 23, 2020
I had them nerves, boy. They were mostly from excitement - to finally be trying, you know, but also because the actor who I was about to call was fairly accomplished. His resume and reel were great; he had been in some legitimate things and it was surprising to me that he had applied to my project. On my Macbook, I fired up FaceTime and took a breath. It rang; “Z” answered. His room was dark, with only the soft glow of a lamp just out of frame. He seemed tired. For him, in Shanghai, it was very early in the morning, but I forgot that and asked him how his day had been.
He told me he had stayed up late watching a movie; it was a newer, theatrical release but the Chinese government had allowed online streaming because of a virus that had recently sprung, temporarily closing the movie theaters. “Z” asked me if had heard about “the thing in China.” I told him I had heard some rumblings but did not know all the details. He spoke cautiously, if not concerned, about it before we moved on to speak of other things. As the hour passed, I felt no connection with “Z;” he gave canned answers and showed forced enthusiasm for the project. I certainly didn’t help, though, with my ambiguity and constant hesitations. — At the end of the call we both knew we’d never speak again.
January 25, 2020
Call number two. Things are so much better the second time. I felt more at ease as the computer rang. But still, on my notebook in front of me I wrote in large letters, “LOOK AT THE PERSON.” Introversion is real, ya’ll; it’s not just for memes on Instagram and I noticed when talking to Z that I barely looked him in the eye. … “M” didn’t answer. A few minutes later she called me back, and she explained to me, nonchalantly, how she had been taking a nap and wasn’t quite ready at our scheduled call time. “Oh, that’s okay,” I lied. We continued but again I felt no connection and “M” showed no real enthusiasm for the project.
Thank God she didn’t. You see, both “M” and “Z” reminded me from the start of something so important - that I am not special and neither is my work. After a few years of rattling around different ideas and executing different false starts, I had decided 2020 was my year to truly try. And to try meant making something on my own, of a certain level, that could help break me into a career in acting and film. So, by New Year 2020, I had work-shopped three ideas among selected strangers and friends and landed on So Far Bound, a script about people who run away to same, far off place, come together and then - you guessed it - their plot thickens.
It was always my favorite. And so, I had what seemed an interesting story with a wanderlust setting; I had the (small but effective) experiences in film and TV work from living in Los Angeles the past few years. And most importantly, I now had a significant decade (my 20s) of memories and observations behind me and I thought what I was putting together was just so cool and that I was the dude for thinking of it. Mercifully, I did not go around town saying that, but in my head the legend of Evan Quinn Sandoval grew.
I don’t think it was arrogance. It’s just that it can be like that when we’re alone. We think we’re special. We think the idea we just had in the shower is groundbreaking; we think the headache we’re experiencing is the on set of a disease; we believe that the dog by our side is literally the best one in the world. … “Z” and “M” put me in my place, quickly. They did not apply because of how “great” the idea was - though they may have had some interest in it. They applied because that’s what actors have to do - apply to many things - with the hope that something hits. Moving forward, I realized, it would be my job to connect with and entice them, not the other way around.
January 26, 2020
It was late afternoon when I typed in ESPN for my daily (ah hell, hourly) sports fix. — BREAKING NEWS: Kobe Bryant dead in helicopter crash. “Oh, shit!” I said aloud, alone. Like most people, I’m sure, I did not immediately click the article, but rather, for a moment sat still. … I’m a Kobe hater (like, fake, sports “hate”). As a North Carolina native, I worshipped Michael Jordan and somehow, somewhere along the way, MJ, Kobe and Lebron got tagged together in competition. If you favored one, you had to shade the others in service to the idea that your favorite was the one, true greatest of all time.
In the days after his death, though, I was so inspired by Mr. Bryant. I was in awe of the emotional effect of his passing, not just on the basketball community, but on the whole goddamn world. I learned more about him and his ruthless dedication to craft, as well as his vastly creative and cultured life outside of basketball. But what Mr. Bryant and all those involved in the crash inspired most - in an utterly tragic way - was the brutal reminder that the time comes. It can be later or it can be right now. Either way, it comes, and we should act accordingly.
It does feel wrong to tie a stranger’s death - even if they are a public figure - to my objective. I think it’s like that, though, when people die. That’s when we love them the most. That’s when we tell stories of how they affected us or what they meant to us, in an effort to show their worth. And so, I wanted to write about January 26, because when Mr. Bryant died, I wrote a note, which I still hold and reference today, of how badly I wanted a legacy also and of how I have to keep going, because the time comes.
February 13, 2020
I made first contact with “V.”
February 15, 2020
My first “business call.” I’m sitting in my sister's car in the parking lot of her apartment complex in Dallas. I was there for a couple days, en route to visiting North Carolina from LA. The first person in the US - that we knew of - had the thing from China and my sister joked that I “better not bring that shit with me from the flight.”
It was cold; I turned on the car and called “A”, who had seen my casting calls about the pilot and contacted me about a potential producer role and investment. Before “A”, I had no real plans for seeking outside help. Shit, I didn’t think it was even possible to get help. The pilot was ambitious, sure, but still small enough that I could conceivably (at the time) fund it on my own. “A” and I had a pleasant conversation just that one time, but the damage (he says sarcastically) was done. I started having … ideas. Why not think bigger? If “A” was interested, who else might be? What levels could I reach? What hustles could I pursue?
February 23, 2020
My first video call with “V.” We talked longer than I had talked with anyone before. She sat at a small table in the corner of what looked like a bedroom. In her dark sweatshirt, she stood out against all that white from the table, the walls and the door around her. A lamp, from somewhere up above, shone down on her. I thought she lived in New York and was Russian, but she lived in Miami and was Romanian. Above her forehead, she had a large, patch of stressed gray hairs, even though she was only 30. As we spoke, I would learn why, though she did not dare tell me.
The project - the pilot - I was casting for was a “drama.” The format and the subject matter was drama. I always thought about the characters, though, as sitcom stars operating in a dramatic world. I wanted to have characters that were funny, in fact downright silly, first, but that carried a weight, always, placed upon them by some tragedy. I wanted cold with hot. I wanted Lucy and Ricky Ricardo doing their usual hi-jinks but with this invisible (tragic) anchor around their necks. It was something I had a hard time explaining (still do!) and at the time, I honestly even had a hard time seeing — until I met “V.”
March 2020
The “thing from China” was spreading. Rumors were starting that things might soon close. And then, on March 19, Los Angeles instituted a shelter-in-place order. After visiting North Carolina just a few weeks prior in February, I soon returned back East. … Early on, I knew my job in LA was done for. I was newer, compared to other people at the company, and, hell, the entire business revolved around strangers gathering in place (it was a co-work office company). In about a month, it would be official. The pilot was my only job now.
By this point, at least 10,000 actors across three casting sites had applied to my project and with my newfound free time, I went through all of them. Of course, I didn’t talk to them all, but every submission got, at minimum, a sincere glance. There were dozens I had video interviews with. It seemed like so many people and so much screen time; and it was, however, relative to the total number of applicants, it was insignificant. In fact, it was discouraging. All these applicants, but I just wasn’t seeing many of them as a player for the project. Maybe I just can’t see, I thought.
Even if I wasn’t having luck casting the characters, I was at least having educational, interesting, wonderful and also downright terrible conversations with people all around the world. … I’ll never forget “K,” holding the dam before finally breaking us both down into tears over her ill father who was half the world away and all the things she told me about him. I’ll never forget “R” who, in response to a question of mine, went on a monologue about how he did not like the American perception of “family.” As an Indian, he did not understand how people could not care for their family. When he finished, I told him, calmly, that I was not close with mine and that I did not particularly care. “Fuck off,” he said, before ending the call.
… “N” told me about how he had recently had sex for the first time (“Oh, bro,”he said); “D” asked me if I wanted to come “stay” with her in Minneapolis; “T” taught me about the black experience in Saudi Arabia; “L” schooled me on child stardom in the Philippines; “H” told me about fighting the Nazis as a child in Belgium; “C” told me about not knowing who they were at 50, and thus, told me about starting a new business. … “O” told me about her mother’s suicide and her transition into motherhood at a young age for her siblings. “O” shared a lot of things and at the end she asked me if she was the most interesting person I had talked to. “No,” I told her, before explaining why.
The best people were not the ones with the craziest stories but the ones that took charge, or at least, partnered in the flow of conversation, instead of just having me ask all the questions. I told “O” this and she understood but countered that she did not know she could ask questions, that in all her auditioning she rarely, if ever, was considered as a person, only as an actor. — Why was I asking so many questions? This was about a role in a show, right? This was for an acting gig. Where the hell was the acting? My interviews had become more first dates and then therapy sessions, rather than acting auditions. I wasn’t even asking for self-tapes.
But why? Well, for one, I was ignorant, which allowed for imagination. While in LA, I had been in and around the entertainment world, but I still didn’t fully know how things normally worked. I had never been a part of building a TV show. Nor did I go to school for film or anything else related to entertainment. I had not been told where to look, and thus, looked in all directions. … It just seemed natural to consider who a person was first before seeing how they could act. And when I’d talk to people, I wasn’t just picturing them in a single scene or episode but as potential figures for something more substantial.
— Transfer Food Hall in Raleigh, NC and the couch where hundreds of profiles were reviewed.
March 05, 2020
“V” wrote me an email not long after our first call. She had watched The Apartment, which on most days is my all-time favorite movie. I had raved about it when we spoke for the first time and I was thrilled that she had watched it on her own. She wrote to me, thought-fully, with the things she liked about the characters and the cinematography and the tone of the story. … We’d correspond again soon about Portrait of a Lady on Fire. We were both wowed by it; I sent her an article about the careful use of the French pronoun “vous” in the movie and in her reply she taught me how in the Romanian language a similar affect can occur. … I enjoyed learning from “V” about her native home, a Latin island in a Slavic sea.
April 01, 2020
All along, interviews continued, and then, on this day, I met who would be the second cast member, after “V.” It was late morning on the East coast; Sanjana answered the Zoom call but I could not see her. The phone whirled around the room. “Hello?” I said. Sanj’s face appeared and she greeted me while walking hurriedly to another room. I laughed to myself - had she settled in for the call, answered, then abruptly decided it wasn’t right? She finally sat and the phone wobbled in her hand. I asked her to set it still and finally, after a couple minutes, we began. She lived in New York, but was stuck in her hometown of Mumbai because of travel restrictions. I was in North Carolina, where I told her and others I was visiting, though I knew I was not going back to LA.
Sanj did not have much to say; or rather, she didn’t initiate, which as mentioned, was a barometer I had set. But there was just something about her. (Such is life, huh? You have your rules and guides until a certain someone or something, and then, you don’t). Sanj had thick, dramatic, black hair, hanging straight down. She looked tough and enigmatic, but by the end, she wasn’t. And the answers and ideas she did give were sensibly unique. Before the call was over I asked her if she had anything final to ask - like, this was her chance to leave an impression. With that, she asked if I preferred pancakes or waffles. I answered waffles but she did not reveal the meaning, or say more. “Ok. That’s it.” she said. “Ok. It was nice meeting you, Sanjana.”
April 09, 2020
In life - in damn near anything - once that second person (or first follower) appears, it’s like it opens some kind of universal portal and numbers grow and progress speeds. Just a week after meeting Sanj, I met Janice, who would become the third main cast member of what was supposed to be eight - four women and four men of a certain age. On the call, I looked up at Janice as if she were a giant. She was parked in her car in LA and had set the phone somewhere low on the console. She remarked on how she had just been to Rio de Janeiro, in reference to the lone piece of imagery I had put on the project’s website. She, too, loved it and compared its natural wonder to her hometown of Hong Kong. … After some time talking, Janice told me how she had recently punched some guy in the face at a bar who was bothering her friend. I think I hid it in the moment, but there was something about that anecdote, a cherry on top of the worthwhile conversation we had that excited me and catapulted Janice to the top of my wish list.
The thing was, though, there was no role in the script for Janice. I had written characters a particular way and from particular cultures, because, well, I had to start somewhere. But, I had kept the casting calls open to anyone, even if they didn’t match tonally, culturally or gender wise what I had originally written. My reasoning was I did not want to close any doors on someone interesting just because a particular character was written differently in a first draft. And so, in just over a week, I had outlined an entire new draft around Janice. I didn’t even know if I would see her again; we had not yet scheduled a second call. But, Janice confirmed what it would be like for the rest of the way. I would keep a general story in mind, and then ultimately tailor the writing to the people along the way. I would work with what the land offered to me, not the other way around.
In a larger sense, it was an admission to starting over. When I began in January, I had a story - a script - which should inform most things, but now, I had decided, I would wait and see what new story emerged from the dozens of conversations I was having and from the personas of the people I was casting. Instead of finalizing a cast with much of the structure of production in place (which is more common); I was now trying to finalize a cast just to be able to start the story. — To this day, I don’t know if that choice was right or wrong. It was certainly backwards, though, and I do not believe I would do it again, which, sure as hell sounds like it was wrong.
May 2020
The universal portal opened wider. From May 8-10, I met Adrian, “C” and “Y.” On the 18th, I met “H.” Four more people who would all become cast members, for various amounts of time. … The interviews continued. Upwards of 20,000 people had applied by this point before I closed the main postings. I asked one of the casting sites how the number of applicants compared against other, non-union works. I did not do this out of ego, I swear, but genuine curiosity. I understood, more than ever, how it was a numbers game with actors. How they must throw their hats into as many rings as possible, hoping to find a fit. And so, I wanted to know if the number of applicants meant anything and if this project that was consuming more and more of me was actually worthy of the expenditures I was now considering. A managing editor replied, coyly, though she did say it was an abnormal size for such a project. I read her reply through my rose-colored glasses and kept on.
May 28, 2020
When I left LA at the beginning of lockdowns, I had put much of my stuff in storage, including my car. The thinking was I would come back in a couple months and just start over when the pandemic cooled down. I wasn’t exactly disappointed to leave the place I had been living in, anyway. … Well, I don’t need to tell you that things would not be re-starting anywhere, anytime soon in May 2020.
Back in NC, I was paying a lot for those storage costs, with no job, and so I swallowed my pride and admitted that for the foreseeable future, I would be closing the door on Los Angeles and staying with family in North Carolina. On May 28, almost four years to the day since I’d first moved to LA, I boarded the plane at RDU to LAX, masked and gloved up, barely moving in my seat on the five and a half hour flight to Cali, so as not to catch anything.
I landed and after checking in to the hotel went to the giant, storage facility in Glendale. I packed up my car and drove most of my things to a city dump. I drove to my old neighborhood in Fairfax, one of the few places in mid-city where, pre-pandemic, you’d actually see people walking around as the streets in that area are full of cafes, bars and shops. This time, though, there was no one. It looked apocalyptic. The next day, I drove my car to an impound in The Valley. I had applied for an environmental program which would pay you a set amount of money just to get your car off the road. It wasn’t what the car was worth, but it wasn’t too far off and I had a car back in NC. So, into the great car beyond it went.
I took an Uber to the airport straight from the impound. The driver looked distressed in the Mad Max-like wasteland he picked me up in. At LAX, I felt sad. The identity I had envisioned for myself for 2020 - as this hustler and creator in Los Angeles was gone. Now what? I would be a “movie producer” in … Raleigh? But also, I just liked it there; I like big cities. But also, even more, forget how I felt. The world as we knew it, had stopped.
June 2020
Sometime in early June - I’m guessing; in all of this some moments I have recorded exactly, some I don’t - Janice and I were on a call. I don’t fully remember the context beforehand but we were about to sign off and she told me that, “Whatever happens, you’re the one to do it.” … It was the way she said it and because it was Janice who said it, that it stuck with me.
When the words came out, they sounded instinctual. Like a truth you blurt out after too much to drink. She looked down and spoke softly. Like, maybe she was a bit concerned? Like, she really cared about the outcome - of the casting choices, which I had not yet told anyone. But whatever happened, she thought I was the one do it (tell the story / make the pilot). … To be fair, it was late and we had been speaking for a while. Janice and I could have easy, long conversations. So maybe she wasn’t even really present when the words came out, but I remembered - I remembered how she had said previously that her greatest value in life was to observe and to pay attention and that she always wore a particular ring with a tiger on her finger to remind her of that and because of all that it just felt really great to hear from Janice that I was the one to do it.
Along the way, in anything, it’s nice to hear such things, even if, in the end, it’s not true.
June 21, 2020
There they were, right there. Once all four of them - “V” (in Miami), “Y” (in London), Sanj (in Mumbai) and Janice (in Los Angeles) - appeared on the Zoom screen I felt so excited. This was the group (of ladies) for the pilot. After months of interviews and thousands of profile’s viewed it had come to these four (the four guys, that would complete the original, main cast of eight, would crystallize later in the year).
The five of us got acquainted. I was on some real bullshit about these four, specific songs that “encapsulated the entire ethos of the project.” (Jesus, Evan. They just want production details). “V” left the call early, only because she had to, then the four of us continued and when the call ended I was really very happy. The ideas were swirling and I couldn’t wait, after all this time, to start. To build a script and a production and a mission and an adventure around and for these people — strangers, from all over the world. *
— Development can be tedious, so along the way I’ve depended on a few songs for dance breaks and mood boosts. Each post we’ll go out on a new one. Today’s feature: “Tootsee Roll” by 69 Boyz.