Another Nick in the Wall

John Papsidera and Wendy O'Brien's casting office is singularly inviting -- original art on the walls, unassuming Ikea lighting fixtures. Is it maybe too inviting? Exhibit A: The wall of the room where they do readings, which has chunks and nicks taken out of it.

They were casting for a role in the HBO pilot "5.15," about stressed-out minimum-wage workers, when one "experienced, established actor" who shall remain nameless made what O'Brien diplomatically calls "an interesting choice." To be precise, for a scene in which one character's new truck has been dinged by an inopportunely placed dumpster, this actor came into his reading and got physical with the wall. He didn't just limit the damage to his own body blows -- he picked up a chair and started banging it on the wall.

O'Brien said he was immediately ashamed when the reading was over, but that he'd been "in the moment and just kept it going." She was all right with his outburst -- she understood it as nothing more than an acting choice that went too far, and though he didn't get the part, she said she would call him in again. She even joked with him about signing his "work" on the wall.