Esther McGregor was sure she had blown her audition for Pedro Almodóvar's highly anticipated English-language debut film, “The Room Next Door.”

At the time, shooting a short film (as a favor) and not feeling particularly excited about it, the hyper-creative and delightfully energetic actress, model, musician, and tattoo artist (and unashamed “Nepo Baby” — more on that later) hadn’t really paid attention to the projects she’d been invited to shoot for. So she quickly skimmed the rules that had been sent out — perhaps not with the usual care and attention she normally would have — and emailed the shoot.

“And probably two minutes after I sent the tape in, I went back and checked it again, and I saw Almodovar’s name, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I blew it, I blew my chance!’” she explains, speaking from Nova Scotia on a rare day off from filming Amazon’s upcoming miniseries “You Were Liars.”

Almodovar is clearly the kind of auteur director any actor would love to work with at any stage of their career. But for McGregor, a self-proclaimed “international film nerd,” he was a filmmaker she simply adored, who she had studied passionately in school and whose library she had visited again and again “in awe.” “I was so, so, so disappointed in myself.”