My senior year of High School, actually, I had enough credits that I could almost have graduated my junior year. But we had moved that summer so I had to take a couple of classes that were specific to that state - I had actually moved back to Missouri. I was out of school at about eleven in the morning, so I had a little bit of extra time - you know, more than a normal student would. I was taking classes constantly. It really amounted to six days a week. I was taking some private classes, and taking three or four group classes at the time.
Within a month the talent manager - who was friends with some casting directors - he brought one in to do a sort of training course for us. They had the option of scouting if they wanted to - if they found someone they thought was amazing. Basically it was a chance for them to get out of the city and teach a bunch of kids who knew nothing about Hollywood. There were actually two people that came in. Robin Mathis - who used to be the head of ABC Television - she was the first person that I ever met that had anything to do with Hollywood. I'm sure I made an absolute fool of myself because I didn't have a clue.
She had brought sides from actual sitcoms that she had cast. Of course, she knew them backwards and forwards and everything about them. I didn't know blocking, and I didn't understand exactly how a screenplay was written - some of the phrasing and exactly what the directions meant. She completely walked me through it and was such a blessing.
Immediately after - she went home on Friday - she talked to the person that at the time was head of soaps for ABC. I was sent sides for a soap and I was supposed to tape them and send them back. And I did - having no idea what I was doing. Anyway, the story goes that they were supposed to take me to New York, and do this big screen-testing thing. But my parent freaked out at that point. "Are you kidding me? We thought this was a hobby. Now way, you're barely seventeen, this isn't going to happen."
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