No photos allowed on set, so nothing to show other than the bruises lol! Getting to this point was a pretty length process! First was the initial casting call where all they did was have us pretend to kick a soccer ball while they took a photo – so obviously it was all about the look. The call was for high school soccer players, so I was pretty surprise I got past this part.

The after that, I got put on hold for the shoot date and had to fill out a questionnaire about my playing experience and if I was in college or playing in college as apparently, if you were to do this commercial, you would basically be being paid to play, meaning that you would no longer be able to play NCAA sports. After the questions I got a call for the callbacks. Here is where I actually had to show that I knew how to play.

I’ve played soccer for almost all my life, but I’ve never been particularly good at “tricks”. I never use them in a game, so never thought it would be useful to learn them. Once of the girls who did her callback before me was AMAZING at tricks – specifically juggling. She could do hacky-sack tricks, but with a soccer ball. I was so impressed, I felt like I might as well just go home right then and there. But since they were looking for 10-15 girls, decided to stay – even if she had 1 spot, there were still others available for the rest of us So I did the call back – did the hardest move I know (the Maradona) and that was it. I left again certain that I wasn’t going to get it.

Then I got a call once again putting me on hold for the commercial. And a few days after, while at the film festival in San Francisco, got the official confirmation that I was booked.

The whole shoot went really smoothly. They broke all 10 girls into two teams – the hero team and the defending team – and I got places on the defending team whose job it was to make the hero team look good. And with 3 semi-pro players on the hero team, that wasn’t hard! Then they had us go through a whole bunch of drills and soccer scenarios to make it look like we were playing. For the most part the hero team was featured, but I think there were two shots that I might have gotten heavily featured in – slide tackling and one-on-one competing for the ball.

Regardless, it was a fun experience and my first “big” commercial, so lots to learn from going through it!