Many, many years ago I was chosen to be in a TV commercial ... for possibly All Bran cereal, as I recall. I was given a box of the stuff and asked to eat it every morning for a week before the ad shoot (a term I have to be careful using these days lest I am accused of encouraging violence.) It was suggested that I find the cereal to be nutty, crunchy, toasty, and yummy. Unfortunately, I barely could down the stuff (see the picture) even after I covered it with milk and lots of sugar. To me it tasted like chopped-up, very-stale old rye bread (covered with milk and sugar.)
The day of the taping came and I was told what to wear (a blue turtleneck, I think) and given fifteen minutes of make-up pampering. And then I was sat in front of the camera and a bowl of that horse-feed. I was then supposed to taste it and spontaneously regurgitate (good one) the lines I had been pre-fed (another good one.) I did my very best without totally compromising myself. But I discovered that day that acting consists primarily of compromising oneself ... because I lasted only only about three takes before they had hustled me out the studio door and into the cold light of now my un-glittzy life.
