Joining the Faithful at ‘Departed’ Auditions

By Georgina Brennan

Maybe it was the money, or the fame, or the chance to utter the lines “You talkin’ to me?”

Whatever it was, hundreds of Irish people camped out for hours on McLean Avenue in Yonkers on Monday for a chance to star in a movie about Irish gangsters.

The mean streets near McLean Avenue were packed with the Gangs of New York. There were Goodfellas, a Taxi Driver and a girl called Alice who doesn’t live here anymore.

Everyone of them was a Martin Scorsese fan, each one hoping the man described as the greatest living American director might just be around to discover them.

Scorsese himself wasn’t in Rory Dolan’s on Monday night, but the entire Irish American community was.

“It’s a great day for the Irish,” said Paul Cunnane, a roofer from Knock in Co. Mayo who was counting on all his Hail Mary’s to get a part in the movie The Departed. “Just look around, look at how many of us there are,” he said as he surveyed the throngs of people.

Cunnane and his friend, Kevin O’Malley from Galway, took time off from their roofing business to try out as an extra for two crowd scenes in the movie that has already started shooting in Brooklyn.

“I brought him as my agent, but he’s now my worst competition,” laughed Cunnane, pointing at O’Malley. “I guess he will have to be fired. Show business is cutthroat.”

The crowds were so huge that people were afraid to leave to smoke or go to the bathroom. At one stage, the line was so long it extended three blocks over into the Bronx.

Although casting directors were only taking auditions from 5-6:30 p.m., the crowds started arriving at 3:00.

“I wanted to get here early, so they would remember me,” said Aine Buggy from Limerick, who brought her green dress for the occasion.

“It’s more like St. Patrick’s Day than a casting call,” said Cavan native and the bar/restaurant owner Rory Dolan in the car park after the event.

Of the hundreds that turned up, over half wore some kind of green. There were even leprechaun hats dangling off some heads. Dolan was amazed so many had turned up for the event.

Scorsese, who was born in Queens, had put a call out though his casting agency in the Irish Voice asking for Irish-looking extras to fill in the background of the movie about Boston cops and Boston gangs starring Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Irish actor Gerard McSorley is also starring, and the movie is produced by the company owned by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

The movie has two scenes that required a lot of Irish faces — a funeral and a police cadet graduation ceremony. Everyone in the line started to practice their Irishness a little as a casting agent was seen walking the room.

The casting call was for extras only, but hope sprung eternal that somewhere in the crowd a star might be born.

“Jesus I can’t wait for them to ask me to talk,” said Aidan Martin from Tipperary.

Even though it was a competition, bonds were made standing on line for three hours. That was until the doors of Rory Dolan’s function room opened and everybody started to try and skip the line.

“We are Leonardo’s family,” said a group of boisterous 70-year old ladies as they fought their way past the somber looking casting counter.

Some wannabe stars were so tired standing they opted for a pint at the bar. Once inside the audition room, all camaraderie vanished.

“Do you have to put down your Social Security number?” someone called John asked the guy to his left.

“This is a competition John, I’m not your friend,” said his neighbor and roommate in real-life.

An insanely handsome Irish guy asked if they were still casting the main roles. “I think Leo beat you on that one,” someone snapped at him.

Chris Stynes, a young, fit Carlow native, was almost beaten in a race to get in the door by an 80-year-old man. A collective hysteria was taking over.

Such was the interest in the casting call that the Irish Voice was even getting headshots sent to our e-mail.

Darren Flynn lives in Dublin but was interested in flying to New York for the casting call. “I have no experience in acting, well none that anybody wanted to pay me for it. I really don’t know why I am sending you this e-mail, but I would love an opportunity to act,” said desperate Darren eager to be discovered.

But sadly for many who had turned up, maybe even flew in from Ireland, the casting agents only wanted legal New York residents.

There were just as many working actors lined up as there were neighborhood characters. And some of them were annoyed that there were so many construction workers and reporters.

“Do you have a resume?” one snapped at me in the line. “I have a monologue ready.” he said. “Do you?”

Well, I didn’t, but he started me thinking like a wannabe actor instead of a reporter. I wasn’t sure what the audition would involve.

When I was 15 I was rejected as an extra for the movie Circle of Friends even after I did a jive for them. I was determined not to fail this time. And not to do a jive.

Trouble was, the casting agents were looking for one thing. Off the boat Irish who look like they come from Ireland to play Irish wise guys, police cadets, detective, barflys, and neighborhood types. Which could have meant anyone in the room could be picked. There was no exact type.

All Irish life was there, from a 1-year-old with the biggest brown eyes, to a 5-year-old with curly red hair, to a 15-year-old with long blonde hair, to a 20-year-old welder, to a hairy 40-year old to a 79-year-old man in a green suede jacket.

So wide was the casting net that even passers by joined the line. “Is this the line for food?” said one woman. “I heard it was good but this beats everything.”

When told it was an audition she promptly joined the line and was later seen trying to catch the casting director’s eye over the crowd. Even the staff at Rory’s were thinking lights, camera, action instead of lunch, dinner, dessert.

“Opportunities like this don’t come around every day,” said Scorsese fan Johnny Keenan, an Irish American 23-year-old waiter at Rory Dolan’s lining up for an interview.

“If he catches me, you never know,” said David Hughes, a 26-year-old bartender.

Everyone felt like a star as they were told to line up to have their picture taken, no monologue required. It was all over too soon.

“I wanted to talk,” said a pretty blonde.

“You never shut up,” said her friend elbowing her out of the way.

As the casting agent called people up to the headshot area, everyone put on their best movie face. I stood three feet higher than the 70-year-old man beside me. I thought it gave me an edge.

But I worried when I heard the man behind me tell his friend not to smile in his picture. I tried to have mine, smile-less, taken again, but I didn’t want to cause any scene that wasn’t going to be in the movie.

After handing me a Polaroid, the agent looked at me and smiled. I think it was a don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you smile, but it could have been a welcome-to-Hollywood smile.

Who knows? I guess we will have to wait and see if I’ll be joining Scorsese’s faithfully Departed.