The following is an excerpt from my book How Not to Become a Supermodel. This is an excerpt from the chapter about model casting and the physical/athletic skills I lied about having to get work. For example, can I play the drums? of course:
Was I a professional level ice skater? Er, yes:
By the way, these were necessary little lies. Because I had no physical skills at all and couldn’t jet ski, surf, horseback ride, or even swim underwater. If I had chosen the “until I made it” route, I would have eliminated half of my chances of getting a job.
In this chapter, I end up in some compromising but strangely zen-like posture, completely losing any shred of dignity I thought I had.
So, without further ado, here is an excerpt (summary) from “How Not to Become a Supermodel.”
When it came to casting models, I was willing to do almost anything in the name of a big paycheck. There were a lot of skills that were in high demand, but they were usually things I didn’t have. Apparently, it didn’t matter.
“Baby,” my agent Texana would say, “can you ski?” This is for a Breitling watch, and you need to be able to slalom and hit shots. ”
“I’ve never skied,” I said, “No.”
‘Never? ‘
‘no. ‘
“Baby, anyone can ski. Just tell them you skied when you were a kid.”
“Okay, but if I get a job, will I actually be skiing?”
“If that happens, we will take action.”
or
“Hello darling,” my other agent would say, “can you drive a scooter?” . .OK, but what if the push comes?
The worst “pretend sports” casting I did was for a newly launched women’s sportswear brand and their range of yoga wear. And the responsibility this time was completely on me.
“Baby, are you doing yoga?” Texana asked when I called to confirm my appointment for the next day.
“No, but your mother will tell you.”
There was a pause.
“Okay, baby, but…do you want to do yoga? But this casting requires you to do a series of poses, so you need to know the terminology.”
“Yes, you can stretch and cross your legs,” I said. You can probably still do a headstand. ”
‘right . . . ” Texana said. “I’m just… I’m wary of a repeat of the beer commercial situation.”
“Where did you do the Karate Kid moves?”
“Oh my god, baby, what the hell? They said it was like watching someone drop acid and then try to fight themselves in a hall of mirrors.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Now, let’s practice some yoga poses.”
“Strike a pose, baby,” Texana said. “It’s called a pose.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “My body is getting softer as we speak. I’m going into a downward spiral with my warrior dog.”
The yoga casting was held in a dance studio, and the atmosphere was beautiful and bright with the sunlight streaming in through the two full-length windows and reflecting off the mirrored walls and onto the wooden floor. The customers, three friendly women in their 30s or maybe 40s, were seated behind a table stacked with modeling portfolios. They look very gentle, with their hair tied up loosely in ballerina buns or flowing over their shoulders, and all are dressed in soft fabrics and gentle colors, stealing their clothing from 18th-century vampires. It looked like a duck.
“Nice to meet you, Ruth,” said my first client. “We’ve been looking forward to booking you into our campaign, so we’re thrilled that this yoga series is the perfect fit. You have exactly the look we were hoping for.
“Let’s start in warrior pose,” client number 2 said, playing spa music.
Warrior pose? What kind of earth was this? Wouldn’t they be happy just to see me in leggings and a crop top? Maybe someone will prepare my legs and arms on the day of the shoot?
“What’s important to us is that whoever we use is practicing yoga wholeheartedly,” said customer number three.
oh.
“We really want our campaigns to feel authentic and for our images to speak to our customers. Instead, we are a brand that uses models who actually wear our clothes.” Join us if you are a real sportswoman, athlete, mountaineer and preferably an experienced yogi. ”
hang on. what?
“Yogi?”
“Let’s get started and see what the samples look like,” Client 2 said. “I can’t wait to try on the taupe harem pants.”
For warriors, they pretended to hold a spear in one hand and place the other hand on their hip. To be fair, I wasn’t a million miles away from the correct pose. In fact, I had a strong, wide-legged stance that looked relatively convincing. The slouch pose was self-explanatory and miraculously I actually knew the bridge. What really surprised proverb fans was when other poses and more abstract names appeared. Who would have thought that “mountain pose” would mean “standing up straight”? What is a mountain that looks like a rock, tall and thin, not round and big? I can fully explain why I think it should be squeezed in between. . .
“Okay,” Client 2 said, his voice shaking with just a hint of confusion. “Let’s move on to downward dog.”
I mean, how does a dog look down? Since they walk on all fours, aren’t they already mostly looking down?
“It’s more of a cow pose,” Client 1 said. “But it’s got all four legs straight. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anything like that, but that’s okay. Now let’s move on to child’s pose.”
good. Even under such intense pressure, my mind kept spitting out ideas left and right, God bless you. Sensing an extreme crisis in his career, he rose to the occasion and offered posed solutions to every prompt without even a second or two of hesitation. It’s as if I’m participating in some weird version of Charades Mastermind, where the presenter calls out random words and I wonder which actions have a likely – one in a thousand – chance of being the correct match. had to come up with.
My mind and body had never had to work so hard. And now, after doing cow and downward dog, and mountain pose and boat pose (I was pretty happy with how it looked like I was able to use my arms as oars and one leg as a mast) , I took a pose. The final challenge. This is a child’s pose.
‘do . . . Need some help? ” Client 3 asked as I stood quietly on my mat, closing my eyes and breathing in through my nose and exhaling through my mouth. Buy time.
“No,” I said, keeping my eyes closed and my hands over my ears. Because it just felt right. “I’m fine, thank you. I’m doing some breathing exercises before the next position.”
What poses did the children pose? There was a fetal position, but it didn’t seem to be very stretchy for a yoga pose and was my least preferred option, so I was thinking of skipping it. But you can’t hold the skip pose or skip in slow motion unless you want to look like a complete fruitcake. So that’s also unlikely. The kids loved climbing trees, and I once did a tree pose with the branches outstretched and my toes undulating on the floor like roots (a nice touch!). So what are the chances of them repeating the same thing to me? No, it would have to be my fourth choice. And so far they hadn’t asked me for any of my solid, proven yoga moves, so I was pretty confident in it. And since I wasn’t all that keen on doing headstands in front of them, in a stinking hallway, I was in the middle of a pose that all children under the age of 10 have to do for hours during the school week. I took the most childish pose of all. Boiled vegetables: Sit cross-legged.
“Um,” Client 1 said.
“Hmm,” said number two.
“I’m not sure if that’s what we’re looking for,” Client 3 said as I awkwardly stood up into a standing position, or “normal pose.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “I know my type of yoga isn’t for everyone.”
How Not to Become a Supermodel is available here in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. If you’re not in the UK, please note that Waterstones ships worldwide. At the time of this writing, there are a limited number of signed first editions available with this topping.
