We’ve all wondered what people say about us when we’re not in the room — Tiffany Haddish just went one step further and actually found out. During The Hollywood Reporter‘s comedy actress roundtable, the actor detailed her post-audition trick, and it’s absolutely wild. Haddish would leave her phone in the audition room, set to record — then come back a few minutes later and listen to what they’d said about her. The downside? A lot of the comments weren’t feedback about her performance, but racist remarks about Haddish herself.
"It was my like M.O." #TheLastOG star @TiffanyHaddish reveals her "sneaky" way of getting true feedback after an audition https://t.co/hDhyXVcPTYpic.twitter.com/XcL2jSg7dT
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 29, 2019
Haddish was joined at the roundtable by fellow comedy actors Maya Rudolph, Jane Fonda, Regina Hall, Phoebe Waller Bridge, Natasha Lyonne and Alex Borstein, who listened with delight as the Girl’s Trip star outlined her trick. “You know what I would do? I would put my phone on voice memo, put it in my bag, do my audition, walk out the room, leave my bag, come back and be like, ‘Oh I forgot my purse,’ get my purse, get in the car and listen.”
As for what Haddish then heard? She rattles off a few stand-out quotes: “She’s not as urban as I thought she’d be,” and “she’s so ghetto, I just can’t. Her boobs aren’t big enough. I really think we should just go with a white girl.” If you think this dampened Haddish’s desire to hear more feedback, think again. She says the secret recording plan was her “M.O.” for auditions, and that she used the recording to “write jokes,” and “use it to [her] advantage,” maintaining that the practice has helped her “in the long run.”
Still, some of these comments are truly vile — and Haddish does admit that “sometimes it hurt [her] feelings.” Other times, though, it just gave her a good sense of who not to work with (we imagine some of the quoted people above made that list!). “Sometimes, I was like, ‘Damn, what a bitch, I’m never going back in there again,'” the actress quips. Clearly, the professional choices she’s made have paid off — whatever it took to get there.
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