If the casting call website is written accurately, they’re only looking for two roles with these open auditions. That means 99.99% of the people I saw will not be cast, and that’s assuming that the best talent is in Chicago and not some other city. But still, despite the odds that are almost impossible, even for a computer, people were cheerfully excited about Star Wars in general.
While it wasn’t quite Hoth, it was a pretty cold Chicago night. So cold in fact that I had trouble holding my recorder towards the end of my time wandering the streets. The wind was gusting so hard that I had to scrap a few interviews due the recording sounding like the center of a twister. But no one was leaving due to the cold. People weren’t bitterly standing beneath blankets trying to keep warm. It’s as if the hope of a potential role was warmth enough.
Standing outside the doors to the theater, I saw probably 100+ people leaving after their meet and greet. And with every group that left, there were people embracing, exchanging phone numbers, and remarking on how nice it was to have met. Almost no group I spoke with in line was entirely comprised of people who had been friends prior to that night, but they all acted as if they were in the same X-wing squadron.
Star Wars has brought people together for years. Whether it’s on the scale of the various sci-fi conventions that fans get dressed up for, or on the simple level of some buddies getting together every few years to rewatch the trilogy. For its most fervent fans, Star Wars has always meant something.
Even if these auditions don’t yield new, unknown stars for a galaxy far, far away, they brought people together on a blustery Chicago evening, showing that even for those who are hardly old enough to remember the release of Episode I, let alone the original film, Star Wars will forever bring hope, and that’s commendable in itself.
Let’s just hope that someone, somewhere is the actor that they were looking for.