3 Stage Fright and Howard Stern
THREE
Stage Fright and Howard Stern
Triaminic. Dunkin’ Donuts. Banana Nut Crunch.
Jergens Ever Soft, the lotion that lasts even after you wash your hands.
Hershey’s. Wendy’s, back when Dave Thomas was still alive.
Nix lice prevention spray, where I played the girl who used it and didn’t get lice.
My advertising jobs piled up, and I appeared in about fifty commercials by the time I was five.
Most commercial shoots were uneventful. But there was one I’ll never let myself forget.
When I was almost five, I was cast in a commercial for Chex cereal.
At one of the early rehearsals, I planted myself in a chair at the set’s kitchen table, where a milk-less bowl of Chex sat on a placemat.
I looked to my right and watched the dreamiest nine-year-old boy I’d ever seen approach me.
He had big blue eyes, wavy hair, and a kind face that seemed to say, I don’t care if you’re only four. I think you’re amazing.
“Hi, I’m Hayden,” I said, picking up a few pieces of Chex and shoving them in my mouth.
“Nice to meet you,” he replied, sitting down. “I’m playing your brother.”
We began to read our lines, and I moved in on the Chex.
They tasted delicious—even without milk—so I gobbled up a few mouthfuls.
Suddenly, my wishful logic crystallized: this boy and I were here because of Chex.
Chex was an incredible cereal, and we should all love it.
If I showed him how dedicated I was to this job—and by extension, to Chex—he’d love me, too.
“We need to start filming,” the director said to Mom. “Can you ask her to be ready?”
“Hayden,” Mom whisper-yelled from across the room as she made a slicing motion across her neck, “stop eating the cereal right now.” Her eyes were so big and round I thought they were going to pop out of her head.
I did as I was told, but the Chex was too tempting, and I grabbed a bite.
Mom and the director asked again, their patience clearly growing thin.
One empty bowl of cereal later, the director politely told Mom that while they were sure I was talented, they needed to cast someone who could focus on something other than food.
Or, apparently, the boy playing my brother.
Mom laughed it off at first, but then she made it clear she wasn’t pleased that she’d lost a full day to traffic, makeup, hair, and my lust for boys and Chex. If I was under her watch, it was going to be the first and last time I got fired from a job.
Soon I was auditioning for television shows.
Mom had discovered Howard Stern, who started bright and early at 6:00 a.m. on 92.
3 WXRK-FM, so she’d rush me into our car at least twice a week and crank up the volume.
We were always running late, so we’d barrel down the Palisades Parkway through New Jersey, and I’d recite the lines she’d taught me while Howard said something unfit for children’s ears.
We’d head east over the George Washington Bridge, straight into Manhattan, then zip south toward our final destination.
With so many callbacks, I had momentum as a child actor.
As I transitioned from toddler to little girl, my voice grew loud and husky and my hair got longer, curlier, and messier.
I started to roll my eyes when Mom bought me pink, girlie clothes, and I begged her to let me dress in pants and sweatshirts, like the tomboy I’d become.
In auditions and on sets, I put on a spunky, sassy attitude.
In everyone’s eyes, I was a grown-up in kid form, capable of telling it like it was about the deliciousness of Wendy’s chicken nuggets or the need to give me just the right medicine when I was sick.
I was faking that confidence during pretty much every audition.
I tried as hard as I could to hide it, but when I stepped in front of producers, the director, and a casting director, my hands and voice would start to shake.
Before I opened my mouth to say my lines, I was racked with nerves, convinced I’d settle on the wrong word, lose my train of thought, or forget my lines entirely.
At first, the adrenaline forced me to step up to the plate, but then I’d realize I was being scrutinized and judged.
My nerves motivated me, but then they turned around and paralyzed me.
If I messed up, what would people think of me?
What would Mom say? I knew it wouldn’t be good.
During our drives into the City, I felt like I was teetering on the edge, and Mom’s driving didn’t help. One time, she hit the guardrail on the right side of the George Washington Bridge, and our car squealed and shuttered as it scraped against the barrier’s concrete base.
“Damn it!” Mom yelled, turning down Howard Stern and swerving back into our lane. “I got distracted. Say it all again. And please, do not phone it in.”
“Don’t phone it in” was her favorite line. It was my signal to get my act together and reach the top of my game—stage fright or not.
Parents of child actors are required by law to always be on set during filming, but not during auditions.
So, either Dad or Mom was always outside waiting for me.
Most of the time, it was Mom. I’d say my lines, trying my best to be cute and projecting my voice the way that Mom had taught me.
When the director called “cut,” I always stopped what I was doing, marched out the door, and ran straight to Mom.
“I think I did okay,” I’d say tentatively.
“Did you give a hundred and fifty percent?” she’d ask.
“I did.” But the truth was more complicated than that—and I didn’t tell Mom. My fear was so pronounced it took every ounce of strength I had to get out there and ace it. I was determined to make Mom and everyone proud, but the pressure overwhelmed me.
Then my worst nightmare happened, and I did freeze up during an audition.
Just before Jansen was born, I auditioned for a Kodak ad, and as I stepped toward the masking tape “T” that marked my position, a boy appeared out of nowhere.
He was about my age, and he was cute—about a thousand times more than Chex boy.
“Just say your lines to each other,” the casting director told us.
I thought I was doing this alone, I said to myself as red heat rushed to my face.
My heart stopped and my hands started shaking.
Between this perfect four-year-old specimen standing across from me and the fact that I was terrified of making a mistake, I didn’t know where to start.
So, I smiled and took a deep breath. The director called “action,” and the boy began reciting his lines.
My tongue felt like it was coated with peanut butter, so I mumbled mine in response.
He said his next few lines, this time with more confidence, and I paused, then opened my mouth.
Not a single word came out. I took another deep breath, then cleared my throat.
Again, nothing. I stared at the boy, and he smiled meekly, like he was both embarrassed for me and mystified that I’d frozen up.
I’d been doing this whole routine since before I could walk, and this was never supposed to happen.
I turned toward the casting director and her assistant.
Their faces blurred, then melted together into one face with purple eyeshadow and coral-red lips.
Mom.
I stepped off my “T” and skulked toward the door, stopping at the casting director’s table before I exited. “Uh, did I get the job?” I asked, deep in denial.
“Oh, we’ll see,” she answered kindly. “Now go find your mom.”
I opened the door and walked right back to where Mom was sitting.
“How did it go?” she asked.
For a hot minute I contemplated letting my manager tell her later, then I relented. “Um, I didn’t do it.”
Mom stood up. “You didn’t do it? I drove all the way here and you just walked out? We’ll talk about it in the car. Get in your stroller.” Mom had brought along the stroller because it made hustling a four-year-old down a Manhattan street easier for a pregnant woman.
Mom pushed me out the door and onto the sidewalk, moving a little more quickly than she had on the way to the audition.
My heart was pounding. Mom was a perfectionist, and she knew what I was capable of.
She expected the best from me, and I hadn’t come close to delivering that.
Now she was disappointed in me, and that was a fate worse than death.
Mom had several levels of anger. When she was irritated, she opened her mouth ever so slightly.
When she was mad, she clenched her jaw. When she was so angry that my best option was to hide under my bed, her lower jaw migrated a few centimeters forward.
I looked up and back at Mom, and there was that soul-shattering underbite.
We got in the car and drove home in silence as shame overcame me. It was after 10:00 a.m., so I didn’t even have Howard Stern to distract from Mom’s anger.