Memoirs of a Geisha

Aloha everybody! wOwee..I can’t remember the last time I blogged here..hehe, a thousand apologies Leong 😉 Anyway, *update! update!* life here in Hawaii is nice and relaxing. Another 49 more days before I go back to Malaysia. Yey 🙂 Anyway, I’m currently on my Spring Break and it’s nice to have the entire room, floor and toilet to yourself for a week cuz everybody sudah balik kampung to the mainland (my room mate is in Arizona). Heh. But sadly, the Cafeteria is closed for the week so I’ve been surviving on maggi mee, frozen pizza and maggi mee for the past 8 days..*help* I can’t wait go back to school. I need proper fOod!

Anyway, since I was SO DEAD BORED during the Spring Break, I took my Theatre Professor’s advice and went for the casting call for the lead role for “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Yups, the up-coming Hollywood movie directed by Rob Marshall (the director of Chicago) and produced by Steven Spielberg. Production is scheduled to start in September 2004 in Japan and Hawaii.

Well, I actually went for the first casting 2 weeks ago and they called a few days after to go for a second round. To be honest, when i reached the agency, I had no idea what was going on. I’ve never read the book so i was almost peeing in my pants when they gave me the script to memorize. I mean, I had no clue what the character wants- and lead role somemore! But luckily, they allowed me to bring it back home to memorize the first section of the script. *phew*

When i came back home, the first thing I did was to call my sister up cuz I had a hunch my sister already read the book…and true enough: she did. 🙂 So for the next 1 hour, i kept bombarding her with questions about the book…who in world is Sayuri..what happened to her…why this..why that.. Man, chee: you’re a life saver!! Super Duper thanks! 😉

About this show, well, it’s based on the book..and it’s about the story of Nitta Sayuri, sold to a geisha house at the age of 9, the training she goes through to become a geisha, and the life she leads as one. You can check it out on yahoo! movies. Everything you wanna know is listed there. Anyway, so there were 3 roles to be casted, and of all roles the casting agent had to select for me is the role of Nitta Sayuri. argh! I wanted to audition for the supporting role of Pumpkin but my face wasn’t round enough.. bummer.

The audition turned out okay although i was so so nervous cuz there were 3 cameras placed in different directions to film my moves and expressions. Yikes!

Anyway, I was told that almost 500 people are vying for the role of Sayuri and that casting calls are also held in New York and LA. Wow. Well, although I know chances are very slim for me to be casted as Sayuri, (hey, they want a pure Jap to play this role: I’m Chinese! 🙂 it was definitely a great experience that i’ll never, ever forget. And at least when i watch the movie, i can tell myself “Hey, i was one of the 500 girls to audition for that lead role” HAH!