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[0:04] Kerry Butler: Once I played a penny who just couldn't stop the bead. Yes, with all their skits on her feet. Oh, those are just recently to see. A real quo. Use a glove version of Tina. Tina. Now come with me, Emma. I am your host, Miss Kerry Butler. Together, you and I are breaking Runaway.

[0:55] Kerry Butler: Welcome back to Breaking Broadway. For Mental Health Awareness Month, I decided to do some rejection stories because those always lift me up when I see people who I admire and hear that they were turned down a lot. Makes me think, okay, I could keep going. I have so many. I have so many. I had agents tell me I would never make it. My college almost cut me from school because they didn't think I was doing good enough in my musical theater program. But another really good story is one year I did the readings for a bunch of new musicals. So I think we've talked, yeah, we've talked about how they create new musicals and they always do readings, and you have to audition for them, and it's basically, you know, they're raising money for the show, so most of the time, the people who do the readings end up going with the show to Broadway.

So I did the readings for, I was Ariel in The Little Mermaid, I was Elle in Legally Blonde. I was Kira in Xanadu. I was, I don't remember her name in Wedding Singer. And I think there was one more, but I don't remember. But anyway, that's starring roles in four big shows that were going to Broadway. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like which one am I gonna choose? I am feeling so full of myself. Cut to, getting replaced in every single one. All of them replaced me. And luckily, and if I, and I was thinking, if I had to choose, I would have chosen The Little Mermaid because I'm obsessed with The Little Mermaid. Um, she's my favorite Disney princess. But I didn't get to choose, and then Xanadu, they cast Jane Krakowski, obviously, because she's a bigger name than me, and she also can roller skate and she's amazing.

So they cast her in Xanadu, and then she decided that she couldn't do it or she didn't want to do it, something maybe it conflicted with her schedule. So she wasn't gonna do it. And then they came back to me and asked me if I would do it. And I was like, oh my gosh. And then that is what got me the Tony nomination. So you just never, you never know what's gonna happen. I always think like when I get rejected, it's because something better is coming along. So my first guest telling their rejection story is one of my best friends, Laura Bell Bundy, who funnily enough, ended up getting Elle in Legally Blonde. Um, and I remember her calling me from her car and being like, Carrie, I can't stop listening to you singing on these demos for Legally Blonde.

And I'm like, What? Um, but she ended up getting Legally Blonde, and I could never ever do what she does. I mean, she was fantastic, and I can barely walk in heels, and she was an incredible dancer, singer, triple threat in that show. Now, Laura Bell Bundy is starring in the TV show Fairly OddParents. Laura Bell, tell us your thoughts on rejection.

[4:14] Laura Bell Bundy: There is not a single one of us in this industry that hasn't experienced rejection. It's just the name of the game. You don't get 80% of the things you go in for. And you couldn't because there's not time to do all those projects. I believe that you get the projects that you're supposed to get. Um, because your life changes with every project. And you make friends that are in your life forever, like you're in my life, Carrie, because we were both not rejected from Hairspray, but we were rejected from other jobs that kept us available to do Hairspray and then become lifelong friends. So I think there's something almost spiritual about it in terms of like how I deal with rejection. Uh, rejection is perhaps protection from something that your soul doesn't want for you. So I look at it like that, but I will tell you a pretty good rejection story.

[5:16] Laura Bell Bundy: So I had just finished doing Wicked, and I decided that I wanted to go out to LA, and I was like, you know, I'm not coming back to New York until I am the lead in an original musical on Broadway. Okay. That was like the goal I had set to myself and put into the universe. And I went to LA and I thought, you know, I'm gonna do TV. And it was pilot season, and that was back in the day when pilot season was like an actual thing, you know, every network was doing pilots and there was a ton of them, and um, and so we all you would do is just go on like two or three auditions a day. And there's something called testing. So that's when you know, typically how it works, and depending on your level in the industry, you go in to audition for casting, and then if they like you, you come back for a callback, which is with producers, and then after that, um, if it's going further, you're gonna test.

And when you test, you negotiate your entire contract for like six years, six seasons, they tell you how much money you're gonna make, and uh you start to realize, oh my gosh, I'm seeing my future in front of me, and you start wrapping your head around it, and you're like, oh my god, I've made it. Um, there's like this feeling that, and it's so nerve-wracking. And then when you test, you go um, you know, you do you basically essentially audition for the studio and the network. And by the time you test, there's only two to four people in the running for your part. Um, and when you test at the studio, uh it's probably four, and then when you go to the network, there's always two. Uh it seems like there's two.

Um, and it is this thing of like one person's destiny is gonna be really altered because they got so close to this thing. So I give all this explanation to I'm out in LA for the pilot season, and it starts to go well for me. I get uh some callbacks and I get asked to test uh for I don't remember the first one, I think it was My Name Is Earl, which was actually a successful show, and I got past the studio and I got um to the network, and it was between uh me and uh the gal who got it, whose name is blanking on me, Jamie Presley. It was between me and Jamie Presley for the part, and I didn't get it. Okay, so I go back in and keep auditioning for other things, and I get I test for something else, which is something called Kitchen Confidential. And I didn't get it. And I then I got asked to test for another thing, and I tested for 10 things that pilot season. And I didn't get any of them.

[8:11] Laura Bell Bundy: And so I saw my life flash in front of my eyes, this possibilities for myself of getting so close that I could taste it, you know, going from the fact that a hundred girls auditioned and said it was just between me and another one, and it kept happening and happening. And actually, the like eight times I literally put a wood chip on my shoulder, which is ironic, the song "Chip on My Shoulder" in Legally Blonde. I put a wood chip on my shoulder just to give myself like a sense of confidence.

[8:38] Laura Bell Bundy: I have a chip on my shoulder, I keep doing this, I keep getting so close. So I don't get the last one, which was a pilot called Dirt Bags. And about a week and a half, two weeks later, I'm on a jog, and I get a phone call from this woman in casting that I was friends with at Fox and she says, so your deal, your test deal is up, but we would be curious if you would still honor your test deal for Dirt Bags. And I was like, What? And they said, Well, we believe we've made a mistake. Um, and so would you be available to work next week? It was just the craziest thing. It was like, it ain't over till it's over, and I had put it out of my mind completely, and I definitely went through like a little emotional moment, you know, after the 10th one that I needed to be like scooped out of by love and friends.

Um, but then it ended up coming back around, and I did this pilot. Of course, it doesn't get picked up because they don't. But there is something about like what ended up happening in the year or so that followed is all of these shows went. They all ended up getting picked up except for the one I did, Dirt Bags, and going for a while. A lot of them did. And the next year is when I got called about Legally Blonde. And I believe I was supposed to do that musical in my life. I was supposed to do that thing. And if I had done those TV shows, I wouldn't have been available to do that thing. So, however, I was guided in that way. But you know, it's hard. It's hard to be in this business. You can't predict the future, you don't know what the universe holds for you.

Um, but you do have to trust. And the most important thing is that when you're auditioning, that you go in and you commit, and then you make strong choices and you have a good time. And you imagine it that your audition is as if you have the job. And that feels good. That's fun. And we can do that, and then we can leave the audition, and we can toss the sides in the trash and never think about it again. But we had a good time when we did it. So that's my philosophy around that. And uh yeah, rejection's a bitch, but it's also protection, and it's also saving you for the best thing that's right for you.

[11:20] Kerry Butler: Thank you so much, Laura. Laura and I became friends during Hairspray. Very fast friends, and um our dressing room is always a mess. Um next up is a new friend, Telly Leung. We performed in Disney together, uh in the actual Disney World because I was Belle and he was in Aladdin, and uh Disney has Disney on Broadway concerts, which is amazing. We get to perform in Disney World, my dream. And so Telly is gonna tell us uh his rejection story, kind of about how he got Aladdin.

[11:50] Telly Leung: Oh, Kerry, my favorite rejection story. Oh gosh, there are so many, Kerry. Which one to choose from? Um, but um the one I'd like to share with you is actually a rejection story that has a happy ending. So in 2008, I auditioned to replace one of the evil eels in Disney's The Little Mermaid on Broadway. Um, and uh it was Flotsam or Jetsam, I can't remember, it was quite some time ago, 2008, right? So uh I remember also at the time that every actor in New York City was running around in their Heelys in preparation for auditions for The Little Mermaid. Heelys were these sneaker-like shoes with wheels on the bottom, and that's how all of the underwater characters swam on stage, and they were really popular with kids at the time, so but every adult I knew who was in show business tried to find the adult-sized Heelys, and I remember spending many hours at the New York Sports Club on 41st Street, which was right next to Rent, which was the show I was doing at the time, spending many hours in that workout studio dancing in my Heelys and having everybody look at me like I was crazy, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the job, right?

Well, all of those hours in my Heelys paid off because I made it all the way down to final callbacks for the entire creative team, and of course, for Tom Schumacher, who's the big guy in charge at Disney Theatrical. Well, I made it all the way down to the wire, it was just down to me and a couple of other boys, and I did not get the job. Now, you have to know when you're that close, and you're all the way down to final callbacks for a Broadway show, and you don't get the job, and you're so close that you can taste the job, it is of course gonna be a disappointment. And of course, as actors, we deal with rejection all the time. But when it's so close that you can taste it, it stings just a little harder.

And so, you know, like all actors do, I was upset about it, of course, and I was disappointed and I felt rejected. I called friends, we had a margarita, we had a drink over it, and then you know, eventually you move on and you move on to do other things, and you have other auditions and uh and other successes and other disappointments, right? Well, fast forward nine years. Now I am doing my very, very first press event as Aladdin. Uh, this was for an event called Stars in the Alley, which was a live concert, a free concert in Schubert Alley. I wasn't even in the show yet. My debut as Aladdin was gonna be the following week. But this was sort of gonna be my way of um introducing myself as Aladdin to the entire Broadway community.

It was my big first press event in the role. I was singing Proud of Your Boy with a full orchestra. Um, and Tom Schumacher was there. Well, the performance goes over very, very well. Tom pulls me aside, he congratulates me, he tells me he's very excited to have me in the show, and he makes a little confession to me, which is that he says to me, you know, Telly, I still remember your audition from The Little Mermaid 10 years ago. It was almost 10 years ago, and he was like, We loved you then, it just wasn't a right fit. We've been trying and waiting for something to fit at Disney for you. And I feel like Aladdin is finally that show, and the opportunity finally came where you were really, really right for something, and we've been waiting to work with you for 10 years.

It blew my mind that somebody like Tom Schumacher, who, besides being a wonderful human being, is also one of the busiest people in show business, that he would even remember that audition from 10 years ago, that that audition, which I thought was such a disappointment and such a moment of failure for me, was actually a moment that helped me get another job, another amazing job, almost 10 years later. So for everybody out there, just you know, I know this business is full of rejection and it is um it is hard on the soul sometimes, but please hang in there and also know that when you do get those moments of rejection, that oftentimes it's not about you or your talent or what you're bringing to the table.

There are so many factors that go into whether or not somebody gets a job. Sometimes it's just really truly not a good fit. And if anything, if you make a great impression, people will remember, and who knows, it might even help you get a job 10 years later, right?

[16:14] Kerry Butler: Thank you so much, Telly and Laura Bell. Uh, I hope that you found these rejection stories inspirational. I sure did. I always say to myself and to my kids, you get what you get and you don't get upset. And that's what I think about parts. I get what I'm meant to get. Thank you so much for listening. If you like this podcast and want more episodes, please take a second to rate it. Check out my website, kerrybutlercoach.com for more info on private coaching and teaching at schools. You can follow me on Instagram, @kerrybutler1, and visit bpn.fm/breakingbroadway for always to listen, follow, subscribe, hear past episodes of Breaking Broadway, and find out more information. Together you and I'm Breaking Broadway.