Earning a crust on others' whims

Casting calls highlight the less glamorous side of the modelling industry. Photo / Isaac Hindin Miller

I tagged along with NZ model Michael Whittaker to all of his castings today, and I can safely say that there are plenty more glamorous ways than male modelling to earn your crust.

Sure there's the international travel, the parties, the girls, the being really really ridiculously good looking, but how about the cattle calls, the endless waiting around, the uncertainty of not booking any jobs, the realisation that your entire earning potential rests on factors as trivial as 'that casting director got a better vibe from that other similar-looking model'. Poor little attractive buggers.

Michael refuses to eat anything but McDonalds. That's not technically true because we did have dinner tonight at a pizza place ($1 slices - the best tasting and biggest slices you've ever seen), but every other meal so far has been McDonalds.

I only realised this today but when we were in Milan together in June we ate McDonalds for every meal - at the time I thought it was the convenience of its proximity to my hotel but now that I think about it, he always suggested it. Can you believe I went to Milan and didn't even try the pizza?

In his defence Michael doesn't just eat Big Macs, he's big on the McDonalds healthy choices too (today it was the South Western salad).

Speaking of models and McDonalds, I heard a story a couple of months ago about a young male model from New Zealand living in New York who had so little money that he was forced to go to McDonalds every day to eat packets of ketchup.

I think you call that condiment-chic.

We waited at one particular casting for forty-five minutes. It was frustrating as it was obvious the casting director wanted big buff guys... but Michael had to wait his turn anyway.

At the next casting all the skinny guys got turned away immediately. Anything resembling a 30 inch waistline was far too small.

That's the exception to the rule though - most often it'll be the buff guys being turned away in favour of the skinny boys. Generally speaking the successful working guys are around 6'2" with 28-30 inch waists.

Last casting of the day was Lacoste.

Over a hundred and fifty male and female models were crammed into a long but skinny hallway. And not just no-namers, there were some well known ones floating around - Australians Myf Shepherd and Skye Stracke, and former models.com number one male model in the world Mathias Lauridsen - who has done several Lacoste campaigns in the past.

It amazes me that models who have done campaigns for brands still have to cast for their shows.

There were successes though - Michael was confirmed for several of the shows that he cast for, and is on hold for plenty more (including one particularly exciting one - but I won't jinx it just yet). And how many young New Zealanders get to go live in New York at the age of 19?

I think one of the male models summed it up best today when he told me that the hardest bit about the job is that "you're sitting in a room with all these other guys who could do the job just as well if not better than you, and the only thing stopping them from booking it over you or you from booking it over them is the way you connect with the designer or the casting director... If you're having a bad day, forget about it."

And that's that.

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