The first time I saw Margaret Easley onstage was in July 2003, when I was reviewing a show at the ACME Comedy Theatre. As female actors don't always fare so well in the sketch medium, I was impressed by the women in the ensemble of The Sunday Show Reloaded; they weren't just relegated to playing arm candy or token girlfriends. One actor in particular caught my eye, prompting me to write, "Perhaps most notable is willowy stunner Margaret Easley, a gifted comedienne who also wrote and co-wrote two of the evening's best offerings. I'd advise Tina Fey to watch her back."
The following year, in one of those coincidences that seem far-fetched but are quite commonplace in Hollywood, I was introduced to Easley through a mutual friend. She then auditioned for a play I was helping to cast, and she would have booked the role had she not opted to make a movie with Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley instead.
It's not just that she's armed with a vicious wit and can be a brilliant mimic; she has a comedic timing that can rarely be taught. She is utterly fearless in her work; she never hesitates to make herself look silly or unattractive, something most actors--male or female--are often loath to do. She commits completely to whatever is asked of her and is compulsively watchable. As Danny Goldman, a casting director who has cast Easley in several commercials, puts it, "There's something about her that is magical. She is appealing to men and not threatening to women. She's one of the girls, but there's a part of her that's one of the guys. She's just adorable."
It was Goldman who got Easley started on her career as a commercial actor. While appearing in The Chicago Conspiracy Trial at the Odyssey Theatre in 1994, Goldman met Easley, a recent transplant to L.A. "The director, Frank Condon, had been teaching in Santa Barbara and brought some college kids down to play roles for the last two weeks of the run," Goldman recalls. "In comes this redheaded girl who is so charming and enchanting and smart and delicious and adorable. There was something about her that was so special, I never forgot her." Many months later, while doing last-minute Christmas shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, Goldman spotted Easley working behind the makeup counter and approached her with his trademark bluntness: "I said to her, 'What the f*** are you doing here?' She said, 'I'm working.' I said, 'Oh, no, you're not. I'm getting you an agent now. This is ridiculous. Give me a phone.' She didn't want to give me the phone, because she was working, but she finally did. I called [commercial agent] Pam Sparks and said, 'If you have a brain in your head, you're taking this girl.' She went in to interview and signed with her right away."
Easley began booking a variety of commercials, including McDonald's and Home Depot. She became the spokesperson for DirecWay on DirecTV, for which she shot a 20-minute infomercial that airs continually on Channel 227.
In recent years Easley has booked work on episodic television: She was brutally murdered in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appeared in an opening death scene on Six Feet Under, and played a presidential aide on 24. "That was a memorable one," she recalls. "My line was, 'Mr. President, Line Two.' They talked about giving me a spinoff, but it never happened." Easley became a favorite among casting directors, and she praises in particular Michelle Levy, Christine Smith, and Libby Goldstein, who were working in the same office at the time. "They really bumped my career up to the next level last year," she says. "They called me in for three things, three days in a row, and I booked all three, that same week." They also placed a call to agent Adam Lazarus, who agreed to meet with Easley. "We totally clicked right away," recalls Lazarus. "It seemed like a good fit from the beginning." After meeting with Easley and viewing her demo reel, Lazarus asked to represent her. "There's a very real, accessible quality about her," he says. "People can, for want of a better word, relate to her. At the same time, she's so funny. There aren't a lot of people out there who can do comedy. It's a difficult skill. She has the perfect combination of funny and real, which is hard to find."
As experienced as Easley is, she had yet to fully endure the actor's ritual known as pilot season. For the uninitiated, pilot season takes place the first four months of the year, when networks shoot pilot episodes of shows hoping to make it onto the fall schedule. Approximately 100 pilots are shot every season; roughly 25 percent go to series. During the early months of the year, actors, writers, and producers are frenetically working on what they hope will be the next Friends or Desperate Housewives. Of course even if the show gets picked up and goes to air, there's no guarantee it will be a success. But landing a role in a pilot is the first step in a long and arduous process, one Easley was fairly new to. "I'd never really had such strong reps before," she says of previous years. "It really does make a huge difference." Although she was working with her current representation last year, she didn't audition for pilots because she was too busy working--she booked roles on Scrubs, The D.A., Six Feet Under, and the aforementioned Bening-Kingsley film, Mrs. Harris--and the workload took her out of the running for many pilot auditions. So 2005 marked her first crack at pursuing a role as a series regular in a TV pilot. It was a period marked by a lot of hoping, several victories, and a few disappointments. Throughout it all, Easley spoke frankly with Back Stage West about the experience.
The Audition Period
Easley's first pilot audition of 2005 takes place Jan. 25. It's called Peep Show, based on a British series of the same name, and it's produced by Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the minds behind such hits as Roseanne and 3rd Rock From the Sun. The program is being ordered by FOX, and the story centers on two guys in their 20s: Mark and Jeremy. Mark is the responsible one, working a dull office job; Jeremy is the unemployed slacker. The hook of the show is that the story is told from the points of view of different characters. Easley is brought in to read for casting director G. Charles Wright, who also casts the Carsey-Werner program That '70s Show. She is auditioning for a character named Erin Wolf, described in the breakdown as the "office dragon lady. Attractive, but icy. Hates everybody but Jonesy (the hunk)." The audition consists of just Easley and Wright, whom she has never met but has heard great things about, in a room with a camera. As it turns out, Wright is familiar with Easley's work, having seen her TV appearances and a recent sketch show. "I had just seen her about six months earlier," Wright recalls. "She stood out because she's so solid and so funny." Wright adds that he knew early on Easley would be a contender for the role.
As it turns out, Easley excels at playing the bitch. "When I did theatre, that was almost always my role," she notes. "On TV I often get doctor, lawyer, studio executive. Lately I've been playing a lot of crying moms." She feels confident about the audition, and she knows better than to dwell on it. Still, she really wants this part. Over the next few days, she goes on five other pilot auditions--including Fathom, now titled Surface, a pilot that went to series. But she can't shake Peep Show from her mind.
Easley gets a call to test for the Peep Show producers Feb. 1 and is thrilled. "It took them awhile to call, and during that time I went out for some other things," she says. "And it was like going out on okay dates after you went on your dream date and the guy never called. It was very much, like, 'Please call, please call, please call.'" At the session she meets Jeff and Jackie Filgo, the married writers of the pilot. She leaves the audition and is on her way to an audition for the Jim Carrey film Fun With Dick and Jane when Lazarus calls and tells her to turn around--she's going straight to a producers' session with Carsey and Werner. The Dick and Jane audition is rescheduled.
Although the Carsey-Werner company is a veritable hit machine and Easley has never worked with them, she is surprised to find herself instantly at ease. "I was less nervous auditioning for Carsey-Warner than I was at some commercial auditions," she says. "And I attribute that totally to them. There was a vibe everyone in the room really liked what they were doing. So often you get people who are bitter or angry, and you just got the feeling they liked actors and loved the material and enjoyed the process and wanted to like everybody that came in the room."
On Feb. 10 she signs a contract to play Erin, but this doesn't necessarily mean she has the part. "Before you go in for your network test, you sign a contract," explains Easley. "I had to sign a six-year contract before the network viewed my audition tape." This is done so actors can't later up their rate when offered the role. After signing, Easley came to understand the term "on the list," which she had heard before. "People have always told me: Once you book a pilot, you're 'on the list.' I thought that was a phrase that meant you were 'in the game.' But there's actually a list that goes around every pilot season that says who booked pilots last year. Casting directors review it every year to see who they should consider. For years I've heard that phrase and didn't realize it was literal."
Then, on Valentine's Day morning, her manager, Tim Edwards, calls. It looks as though she will be offered the part, but the role might be changed to a guest star, not a series regular. "I was actually fine with that," Easley says. "I loved the character so much, I would have been happy to get it." At 5:20 p.m. she gets a conference call from Lazarus and Edwards. She has officially been offered the role on Peep Show, and Erin will be a series regular. To celebrate, Easley opens a bottle of champagne she bought for the holiday. "Getting the news sort of stole my Valentine's Day thunder," she jokes.
Read-Throughs: Early March
Easley attends the first cast read-through at Werner's house March 9. Here she meets the other actors on the series, including Johnny Galecki (Mark), Josh Meyers (Jeremy), Ken Lerner (Mark's boss, Jerry), and Rachel Boston (Mark's co-worker and love interest, Marsha). The atmosphere is laid-back and festive, and, according to Easley, the script truly springs to life. "I had thought the script was fantastic when I read it," she says. "But then at the table-read, even more comedy came out of the chemistry of the actors. I was blown away by how much more comedy they could find in an already hilarious script."
The read-through for the network March 11 is a little more formal, the actors sitting behind long tables with their character names printed on paper nameplates in front of them. At this read, Easley is less relaxed. "I was petrified," she says simply. "I was convinced my grasp of English would completely fail me. But they seemed to like it." The read-through takes place at the CBS Radford Studios in Studio City, where the pilot will be shot. There Easley is shown her dressing room and, much to her delight, a parking space with her name on it.
The Week Before: Friday, March 18, 2005
On the original call sheet, Easley was supposed to report to the set on March 21, a Monday. She is told on March 18 that the production has moved all the office scenes to Tuesday, and they will all be shot in one day. This gives her Monday off. "I keep having this nightmare where they actually tape my scenes Monday with someone else in the role," she admits. "And when I'm there on Tuesday, I'll do a take and they'll say, 'You know, the other girl did it better.'"
Shooting Day: Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Easley arrives at the CBS Radford lot promptly at 7 a.m. The lot is a maze of stages and offices, with streets boastings names such as Gunsmoke Avenue and Gilligan's Island Road. She has been here before; this is where the daytime serial Passions is taped, on which Easley made a couple of guest appearances in September 2001. But getting onto the set doesn't prove as easy as she expected. "Here I am, completely excited, my first morning as a series regular on what is going to be a hit sitcom," Easley recalls during her lunch break later that day. "I show up at the gate, assuming I'm just radiating 'series regular' presence, and the guard just looks at me and instantly assumes, 'Craft services, right?' I say, 'No,' and he says, 'Art department?' I can see him mentally scrolling through everything I could be doing. I finally say, 'I'm working on Peep Show.' He says, 'As what?' And I have to say, 'I'm an actor.' I guess he finally believed me, since he let me on."
Once admitted to the lot, Easley is dealt another blow: Her name is no longer on the parking space. Determined not to take this as a sign, she parks in the space anyway and heads up to her dressing room. Luckily, her name is still on the door there, although it's been abbreviated to "M. Easley," which, in its capitalized font, looks like "measley." The room is bare but spacious, with a couch, closet, and bathroom. On a coffee table sits a newspaper and a card--which turns out to be for someone else in the cast. She receives flowers from her agents and manager, and, yes, they are for her.
Easley is thrilled with her accommodations, though she's had private dressing rooms before. "My agents are really good about handling that. I let them take care of it," she says. "Because if it was me, I'd be, like, 'Whatever. A box is fine.'" She jokes that when her agent was negotiating her rate for Peep Show, he threw out a number to her. "My first response was to say, 'Yes, absolutely, I would be happy to pay them that.'"
Easley is in the room for less than an hour when someone--she calls him the "Margaret wrangler"--knocks on the door to take her to hair and makeup. As is traditional when filming, she arrived with neither done. She is ushered to a cramped trailer outside the main set that is shared by three makeup artists. Inside it's as if a Mary Kay bomb has been set off: All sorts of brushes and eyeliners and lipsticks line the small counters. The team, however, knows exactly where everything is and has her out within an hour, ready for her close-up.
Stage 14 is a cavernous warehouse that's been converted for today's purposes into a generic-looking office set where Galecki's Mark toils at his unfulfilling day job. The set takes up about half the space; the rest houses equipment, an impressive craft services table, and an audience area. Since Peep Show is a single-camera show, the audience area is barren, save for a few napping extras. There is also a small area on the other side of the office walls where director Andy Ackerman and the Filgos sit in directors' chairs watching a monitor--the space commonly referred to on sets as the Video Village.
Easley does her first shot at 9 a.m., in which Erin is introduced coming off the elevator with Lerner's Jerry and dressing down Mark. After Jerry tells Mark to call him by his first name, Erin pulls Mark aside and tells him to never call the boss by his first name, no matter what he says. Easley delivers the lines in rapid-fire monologue over and over again. Each time, the actors manage to find something new, whether its Galecki's befuddled expression or the emphasis on a different line. By the fifth take, Ackerman seems to think he has enough to work with and moves on. The Filgos begin talking about the casting of the show, mentioning how every role was cast with their first choice.
During a break between scenes, Easley talks with Lerner by craft services and tries to stay nearby. "I usually hang out on-set because I don't want to be the girl they have to go looking for," she confesses. "As actors, we have very few things to do. One of them is to be there. I like to help them out with that as much as I can." She adds that she doesn't have much time to get bored; she is usually reading her script or being put to work. "Particularly on this show, Andy is so good about not wasting time," she says.
The cast and crew break for lunch around noon, at which point Easley returns to her dressing room. She is full of kind words for her co-stars: Galecki and Meyers have hired a massage therapist to come to the set today as a gift for the steadicam operator. During lunch, Galecki drops by with a gift for Easley: a bottle of champagne. She is visibly touched. "Everyone here is so amazing," she says. "I wasn't really expecting that. I've worked on sets where people were nice enough. And I've worked on sets where people were ridiculously self-entitled. Most sets are a mix of both. Here, everyone is so incredibly nice, it makes me wonder if I'm the bitch, because I haven't found the weak link yet."
In less than an hour Easley is called back to makeup for touchups and needed back on-set. In the makeup trailer, I ask Easley what her hopes for the show are. "To go to series," she says simply. "Not just because I'm on it--though that's the most obvious reason--but because I think it's so different and unique from the formulaic sitcoms on today. It's edgy and pushes the envelope without being crass. And there's so many places for it to go."
With that, Easley returns to the set, where she works until 5 p.m. that evening. At the end of the day she describes herself as exhausted, happy, and hopeful for the future of the show--a future that is now completely out of her hands.
The Waiting
For the next two months, Easley does her best not to think about the fate of Peep Show. According to Lazarus, this is one of her strengths. "Margaret has a great attitude about things, and she recognizes that this business depends on external forces a lot of the time," he points out. "There are actors out there who are always looking at the glass as half-empty; she's not that way." But Easley admits that her least favorite aspect of acting is the lack of control over her employment. "My ability to work is completely dependent on other people," she says. "A painter can paint alone, a songwriter can compose in the dark, but an actor performing soliloquies to the cat is just sad. Ask my cat."
As the weeks wear on and there's no word, Easley begins to get the impression the show probably won't be picked up. But she holds out hope for the best.
The Final Verdict: May 2005
On May 15, Easley is visiting Shreveport, La., when she gets the unofficial word on the show through an unlikely source: the Internet. "I did a Google search and found a preview list for FOX's shows, and Peep Show wasn't on it," she says. "So I'm prepared for the worst."
Official word comes the following day, May 16, in the form of a voice mail from Jeff and Jackie Filgo. "They left me the most beautiful message, which drove home how sad I was that I wasn't going to get to work with these people," Easley recalls. Still, she was surprised at how well she took the news. "I thought I would be absolutely devastated, but my reaction was more one of melancholy," she notes. "Maybe I've been doing this long enough to know what a crapshoot it can be."
Over the next few weeks, Easley confesses to an unshakable sadness about the results. She runs into Boston at an audition and Meyers at a party and commiserates with both about how much they would have enjoyed working together. She eventually gets back into the swing of things the best way she knows how: by working. She receives the good news that Mrs. Harris will make its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September. She books another commercial, several voiceover jobs, and comes close to joining a new series before the producers go with a name actor. Mostly, she perseveres with her sense of humor--at one point she says the youth-oriented WB is considering picking up the series but they would have to replace her with a 12-year-old--and realizes how fortunate she was to get as far as she did her first time out. "Of course it's a disappointment," Lazarus concedes. "But this whole experience really showed us all that Margaret can do it. She can go out there and get the part, and she will do it again. There's no question in any of our minds." BSW