Captain America 2: Winter Soldier comes out this week. I can’t wait to finally watch the movie to see Captain America, Bucky the Winter Soldier, Samuel L. and the jerk who stole my part. 

Last summer, Captain America 2 filmed in Cleveland, which was very exciting except for the fact that it closed every single downtown street for three solid months. (But we’re Cleveland and people are paying attention to us, so we’re good! Please don’t leave!)

A couple weeks before filming started, memos began appearing in my office building that small roles for Captain America would be cast on the third floor. Curious, I looked up details online, and my heart stopped when I read this:

THIN GUY
Male Caucasian age range 18-22 yrs.
Height 5’7″-5’9″ 34-38 chest
VERY, VERY lean frame

Male: Check.
Caucasian: Very much so.
Age: Often mistaken for 16.
Height: 5’11” but I slouch.
Frame: VERY, VERY lean!!!!!!

They were looking for Dustin. Timothy. Brady.

I left nothing to chance. I printed my headshot. I procured the tightest T-shirt I could find. I even memorized Captain America audition lines that someone had tweeted on the off chance that the casting people were using the same lines for all parts.

The toughest part was the resume since I don’t have any, ya know, actual experience. I finally settled on prominently featuring a lowwwww-budget commercial that I appeared in (NERD for Wallzaz wall stickers. Watch it here.) and including a section called “Professional Experience,” which was composed of the following two bullet points:

• A brief camera sweep of the David Letterman audience on 12/2/10.
• Four minutes of jumping and waving behind the Today Show set during a Taylor Swift interview (To be fair, the performance got called out by SEVERAL YouTube commenters).

That should probably do it.

The day of the audition, Captain America threw a curveball and changed the location to a library. Nice try, but Dustin Timothy Brady doesn’t give up that easily. I e-mailed my boss for permission to leave work early to audition for Captain America (his one-sentence response: “Wait, is this for real?”) and set out for the library.

Since the specifications were so exact, the audition wasn’t highly publicized and the location changed, I wasn’t expecting much competition for the part. Maybe like 20 or 30 guys.

I underestimated the thin men of Cleveland.

The library was a circus. The lawn had been overrun by news crews and props and costumes and lots of movie studio interns acting VERY important.

Oh yeah, and so many thin men. Well over 100.

In addition to the part of THIN GUY, the movie studio was auditioning for two other roles that day. So there were three lines converging on the library: one with a bunch of pale, malnourished white guys, another with big, burly black men and a third full of Rambos in Army fatigues. I had no trouble finding my people.

The weather that day was very Cleveland, with gray skies, 40-degree temperatures, lots of wind and a fine mist. So I took my place in line with the sickly, shivering gentlemen and waited. And waited. And waited. Casting was supposed to start in 10 minutes, but the turnout was clearly more than the studio had expected, as evidenced by the interns who were getting more frazzled by the minute, shouting louder and louder to STAY IN YOUR LINE OR YOU’RE NOT GETTING IN!

As the minutes ticked by, I started sizing up my competition and feeling better about my chances. Most people had decided to interpret the casting requirements as casual suggestions. Although I exceeded the height requirement by two inches, I was one of the shortest people there. I also looked like one of the youngest – some guys could have passed as Captain America’s dad. There were also a surprising number of bellies in line.

After about a thousand years or maybe an hour, the interns made way for a woman with some actual authority. She stood in front of the line and addressed us with a voice loud enough for even us thin men in the back to hear clearly.

“Who here doesn’t have a headshot and resume?”

A few thin men slowly raised their hands.

“OK, you have to leave.”

After waiting in the cold for an hour and a half, they bowed their heads and took the walk of shame. The rest of us were terrified.

“The rest of you will stand in line facing me, and I’ll get rid of everyone who doesn’t fit our requirements. There are a lot of you, and we can’t waste time auditioning people who won’t fit. OK, get in line.”

The interns arranged us in three lines facing the woman. It looked like roll call for the world’s saddest army.

As we waited to be inspected, the thin guy to my left observed, “I guess it’s good news either way. We either make it or get a compliment.” The rest of us chuckled nervously and prayed we would not get the compliment.

The casting lady finally started inspecting thin guys like cattle, and she was not fooling around.

“No. No. No. Shoulders too wide. Too old. Too much muscle.”

Six guys down in less than 10 seconds.

She stopped at number seven.

“How tall are you?”

“Five-nine.”

He was definitely not 5’9.” She looked at him skeptically.

“OK.”

The six-footer breathed a sigh of relief and started a new line in front of the library door. She moved onto the next guy, who was even taller.

“And how tall are you?”

“Five-nine.”

“No you’re not. Leave.”

And so it went down the line. One out of every seven or eight guys was deemed thin and short and young enough. The rest got the consolation prize of escaping the drizzle.

As she got closer to me, I started implementing my strategy. I spread my legs a little to make myself appear about an inch shorter. I stood up straight. When she came to me, I planned to give her a look that said, “I am confident. I have what it takes to stand alongside Captain America and defend our nation from evil. I am rail thin, but I have moxie. I. AM. YOUR. THIN GUY.”

The woman was now one thin man away. She was sizing up the guy to my right, who looked to be in his thirties, had a long pony tail, was an inch taller than me and had a small, protruding belly. He also had a braided belt, slouched and avoided eye contact.

She barely looked at him. “You’re good.”

That’s when I started to doubt my strategy.

Still I forged ahead. While she inspected me, I smiled and looked her in the eyes with a steady stare that may not have communicated every word of my speech, but at least got the main points across.

She squinted, made an “mmmmm” sound and delivered the verdict.

“No. You have a build.”

You may be surprised to learn that this was the first time in my life that I have ever been told that I have a “build.” In fact, I feel comfortable describing my physique as “the opposite of built.”

I realized a second too late that maybe when a movie’s looking for someone with a small chest and lean frame, they’re probably not looking for a confident hero with moxie. I wanted to call out, “No wait! I usually slouch! Come back!” Instead, I just stood there with my mouth open as she moved down the line.

I tried to approach her after she was done, but it was too little, too late. I walked back to my car wet, dejected and disappointed that I wouldn’t get to hobnob with Samuel L.

But also a little pleased about the compliment.

LIFE LESSON #3

If you want a compliment on your muscles, you could go to the gym every day, eat right and spend a fortune on supplements. Or just stand in line with 100 other thin guys.