My worst moment: Patricia Arquette, the temporary hair dye and a sweaty audition

In the Apple TV+ series “High Desert,” Patricia Arquette plays a walking disaster of a person who nevertheless has enough self-confidence to propel her life forward. That’s how she ends up working for a private investigator somewhere out in the California desert and putting whatever skills she has to use.

“She’s such a big hot mess and all the people around her are such wild, colorful characters,” said Arquette. “I really wanted to laugh and these writers have an off-kilter, slightly sardonic tone to their comedy that I really resonate with.”

This is Arquette’s second series for Apple, coming on the heels of “Severance,” in which she plays the spiritual opposite of her character in “High Desert”: A menacing corporate honcho. Both an Oscar and Emmy winner, Arquette’s career began with “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3″ and has gone on to include classics such as “True Romance,” the TV drama “Medium” and more recently “Boyhood” and the limited series “Escape at Dannemora.”

When asked about a worst moment in her career, she recalled a decision to dye her blonde hair brown for an audition.

My worst moment …

“Many, many years ago, I was auditioning for something. It was about a teen girl band and there was an Italian character who was the drummer. That’s who I was auditioning for, this kind of toughie toenails, tough-stuff character who played the drums. I don’t play the drums, by the way. And P.S. I’m not Italian.

“So somehow I got this brilliant idea in my young mind that I would put a wash-out rinse in my hair. I’d started acting with blonde hair, but I’d had black hair when I was younger. And I thought for this character, I’d like to have dark hair. So I put in this rinse.

“I go to the audition and I’m wearing this white tank top. I do the reading, it goes fine. And then they said, ‘Great. Now let’s do the dancing part.’ And I said, ‘The dancing part? What are you talking about?’

“Now, I’m dyslexic. I can dance OK to music I like, but I am not a trained dancer. And dyslexia for me does affect my ability to learn choreography. Someone will say “Go right” and I’ll go left, things like that. So all of a sudden, I’m in this room with all these professional dancers and all these people auditioning and it’s like: ‘One-two-kick, pivot, blah-blah-blah.’

“This audition is taking place in the valley somewhere. It’s boiling hot. I’m sweating my ass off.

“And this brown hair dye starts bleeding all over my face. And all over my shirt. Dripping all over me.

“I looked like someone just poured dirty water — mud water — all over me, all over my face. And people are looking at me like: What the hell is going on?

“It was just very humiliating (laughs) and embarrassing and strange.”

Often in dance auditions, the room has mirrors across one wall. Could Arquette see this as it was happening?

“Yeah, and I couldn’t stop it. So I was trying to play it off, I was trying to continue. And I have dyslexia. So I was doing terrible dancing, plus I was sweating and this hair dye was going all over me.

“I don’t know if I was 18 or 19 or 20, somewhere in there. I was very young, where you’re really very easily shamed. And I just felt so mortified and humiliated and embarrassed. Like I was such a weirdo.

“I was trying to get into character and I didn’t use a permanent dye because this was just an audition, so I used a wash-out hair dye instead. Well, my sweat was washing it out — in front of everyone.

“It was pouring down my face and pouring down my white tank top. I was becoming an art object (laughs). It was like ‘Carrie’ but it was hair dye instead of pig’s blood (laughs). It was really bad. It was not a good look (laughs) and it was memorable, but not in a good way.

“Nobody said anything to me about it, but I’m sure my face was bright red. People were just looking at me like: What is going on? Oh, how embarrassing for her. They didn’t know it was a rinse, so who knows what they thought was happening.

“In my memory, I finished the audition and pretended everything was fine. And then I left and once I was outside I was like, (dramatic gasp), ‘Oh my god!’ I was so mortified and I went home and washed the rest of it out.

“I didn’t get the role. I didn’t even get a callback and, fair enough. I couldn’t dance my way out of a paper bag. But here’s the thing, no one told me there was dancing (laughs). I had no idea I’d be dancing!

“That audition stuck with me for a while, as kind of a shameful embarrassment. I was glad I didn’t have to show up and see those people again. I was scared I would run into that director, but I don’t think I ever did.”

The takeaway …

“Don’t put temporary dye in your hair! That was a big no-no.

“There have been times where I’ll do projects and they’ll say, ‘We can put in a temporary dye in your hair for this,’ and I’ll say, ‘You know, if there’s any rain or sweating or running, I’ve had a problem with this before. This could be a disaster.’

“But I do empathize with anyone who goes through a humiliation publicly. Because we all have really embarrassing moments in life. You just can’t let it shut you down. Don’t think that you’re alone. No one’s perfect. You’re human. And in reality, we’re all a mess.”