In Memoriam: Arthur Storch

Arthur Storch was my acting teacher in the second year of my time at the New School for Drama.  He was one of the best I've had.  His approach was always practical, focusing on tangible things that would affect us or our partners in the scene.  I remember one "trick" he taught me, one that I will forever use when needed.

In the scene from Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind" with the two brothers, I was the more passive Frankie.  At one point in the scene my partner Florin had me up against the wall, threatening me.  Afterwards Arthur said I was missing the fear that he thought should be present there, and told me a story.  In a similar situation on stage, he was supposed to be terrified of his partner but he was having trouble making it real.  Arthur said he always had a fear of getting his nose broken, so when it was needed, he just imagined his scene partner punching him square on the nose.  He suggested I try finding something similar.  I have a thing about my teeth, so when we did the scene again and Florin started intimidating me I imagined him punching me in the mouth, splitting my lip and knocking out a tooth or two.  Arthur said that time, I was white as a sheet.  Immediate results from a simple thought; it was excellent advice.

Arthur loved imagination, the "as if" of acting.  He often said "When you're sitting at home in your chair, thinking about your scene..."  He also encouraged us to find inspiration from all corners, especially literature.  I loved this approach.  I've been a lifelong reader, and I don't exactly have a great deal of drama in my own past from which to draw inspiration, so it helps me to use the drama of others (real or imaginary).  I ended up re-reading Lord of the Rings after Arthur had given us this advice, and by the time I finished I found myself so identifying with Frodo's sense of discontent and not-belonging at the end of his journey in the Shire, even though that wasn't something I'd ever experienced myself, that I knew it was something I'd be able to utilize forever, when the need arose.

I've had a lot of great teachers, and the best of the best expanded their approach well beyond the subject we were ostensibly there to learn.  My Latin teacher in high school, Mrs. Warren, knew everything I could ever begin to ask about Latin.  But she also taught us how to learn, how each of our brains functioned and how best to work with that.  Rick Sordelet was just at the New School for six weeks to teach us stage combat, but he had us doing exercises to learn about ourselves as people & actors and how we could best fit into the industry, and how to work off of other people not just in a fight scene but a kitchen-sink drama, or even off-stage.  He helped us take ownership of our careers.  Arthur wanted us to be students of life.  He encouraged us to read anything and everything; literature, non-fiction, the news.  He took us on a field trip, my first visit to the Frick.  He wanted us to be inspired by the greatness that had come before us.  He was delighted to be there, and delighted to introduce us to the museum.

By the time I took his class, Arthur had been in the business for about 50 years.  Needless to say the man was full of stories.  He once rode to a session at the Actors Studio on the back of James Dean's motorcycle.  He had a terrible time on Broadway with Shelley Winters.  He reported to the set of The Exorcist for weeks before William Friedkin finally took a minute to talk to him about his now-famous scene as the psychiatrist.  He wasn't just namedropping though; his stories were always told as an example of some point he was trying to make.  Except perhaps the James Dean thing, but, come on.

He also told us smaller stories, the points of which often became catchphrases for our class.  In one play (I may be paraphrasing a bit here, as this was seven years ago), Arthur was supposed to rush onstage to deliver some news.  He knew his character had run from the bus station, so he spent his time before entering working himself up physically and running out of breath.  He realized the point of his news was being lost because of his physical state, because "it's not a scene about a guy who's out of breath."  He also used the example of whispering "shh, the baby's sleeping" on stage.  In life, of course, you'd say it as quietly as possible.  On stage you have to make sure the whole house can hear you, while also serving the reality of the play.  That was the crux of what I took from Arthur's class: be as real as possible while also serving the story and the audience.

The day after I got home for Christmas break that year, my father died suddenly of a heart attack.  Arthur had given us homework for the break, which involved acting in social situations without telling our friends we were acting to see how it affected us and how they reacted to us.  Great assignment, but I now felt inappropriate pretending to be drunk while carrying out mourning obligations.  I gave Arthur a call to let him know the situation, and why I felt I couldn't do the assignment.  He was wonderfully supportive.  We talked for a while, and he asked me about Dad and generally made me feel better about everything.  He excused me from the assignment.  When we came back to school, everyone took turns telling the class how their homework went over with their friends.  When it came to my turn, he asked if I'd like to talk to the class about what happened, so I briefly told them about Dad and why I couldn't do the assignment.  I believe I may have still connected some of what I had to do to the work.  It's hard to turn that off.  But not everyone in class knew about what happened, so it was a good way to get it all out there.  Arthur was incredibly supportive.  When you met him, you wanted him to be this old Brooklyn warhorse of an acting teacher, and while there were certain aspects of that he defied expectations.  He was incredibly sophisticated, and demanding, and encouraging, and frustrating, and kind, and everything you want your acting teacher to be.  We all worked hard to meet his expectations, not out of fear of being reamed out (though that was a possibility if you really shirked your duties), but because we were excited about meeting the potential he saw for us.

One last story: Spring Break of that year I drove with my then-girlfriend now-wife from Texas to Tennessee and back (or vice versa; again, seven years), a 15-hour drive.  Arthur asked us all what we were planning, and when he found out I was doing that he basically told me our relationship wouldn't survive being stuck in a car together for 30 hours.  He said it in that great Arthur way, though, that said more about him than me.  The man's eye could twinkle brighter than Santa Claus.  Amy and I still joke about that comment.  And we're still surviving the trip, Arthur.

I'm not a believer in the afterlife, but if I were, I'd imagine Arthur in his chair somewhere, script in his lap, imagining the life of his character to the fullest, and avoiding Shelley Winters at all costs.  Rest in peace Arthur.  We miss you and we thank you.

My SAG Awards Ballot

Thursday evening, I submitted my first SAG Awards ballot.  Exciting times!  Here are my votes and thought processes.  I should disclose that ultimately I find it absurd to turn acting into a competition and in most cases I don't care who wins.  There are some spoilers below but if you're reading this and you haven't seen the movies, shame on you.

Film

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis.  I vacillated for a moment between him and John Hawkes, who was excellent and unrecognizable in The Sessions.  The thing that pushed me in Day-Lewis' direction was the language he commanded in Lincoln, so in a way this is also a vote for Kushner's script.  If Joaquin Phoenix had been nominated for his work in The Master (boggled that he wasn't), I'm not sure who I would have voted for.  He drew from some weird, deep well of primal substance for that film.  I probably still would have voted for Day-Lewis thanks to the script, again.  Day-Lewis will surely take this home.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Jessica Chastain.  I guess the other leader here is Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook.  It's a shame the Golden Globes separate by drama and comedy/musical, because a)Silver Linings Playbook is not a comedy, b)if there's ever a true musical nominee they win it.  Jessica Chastain has quickly become one of my favorite actresses.  Her range and characterization in The Help blew me away, and her journey and personalization in Zero Dark Thirty deserves all the attention it can get.  She's a badass.  I loved how she handled the restaurant bombing scene and the scene where she laid some smack down on Kyle Chandler.  Most films would handle this story in a stereotypical manner, probably; a lot of "can this woman in a man's world hack it" cliches and bullshit.  Leave it to Chastain and Bigelow to avoid cliches.  I imagine Chastain will win, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Lawrence did.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert De Niro.  I didn't see Skyfall, though I'm looking forward to it.  I mainly considered De Niro, Hoffman, and Jones for this one.  It was a tough call, but it was just such a relief to see De Niro in a role that actually seemed to matter to him again.  I love his last speech to Bradley Cooper about seizing opportunities.  He finally had some urgency again.  I'm not sure who'll take this one.  The anomaly of Django getting completely ignored means we can't use the Golden Globes as a predictor; I'd say probably either Tommy Lee Jones or Philip Seymour Hoffman.  So, between those two, probably Tommy Lee Jones.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Anne Hathaway.  I have a theory that "I Dreamed a Dream" has the same power as "I am Telling You," in that whoever performs it in a public venue will win whatever awards are related to that venue.  I've mainly formed this theory based on the fact that Jennifer Hudson has proven she is a terrible actress, but managed to win everything that year.  Anne Hathaway is a lock.  I can't fault anyone who would vote for Sally Field though.

Best Stunt Ensemble

The Dark Knight Rises.  Because c'mon.

Best Cast

Lincoln.  I was very close to voting for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, actually.  I don't view this award as "best film," but really in terms of the best group of actors who worked together, and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel had the most ensemble feel of the nominated casts.  There are a lot of talented people in that film.  But the amount of fantastic actors doing some of the best work of their careers in Lincoln won out.  This will win.

TV

Best Actor, Drama

Bryan Cranston.  My other choice was Jon Hamm, but Walter White's journey this past season trumps what Don Draper is going through and of course Cranston delivers in spades.  I wouldn't be surprised if Damien Lewis won.  Unfortunately we don't have Showtime, so we haven't jumped on the Homeland boat.  We will once it's all on DVD.  I'm guessing Cranston will actually win.

Best Actress, Drama

Julianna Margulies.  Fun fact: I have not seen any of these shows, but instead of abstaining I voted for the show that I make money from.  I've done a lot of background work on Good Wife.  I plan on watching all of these shows at some point, except maybe for American Horror Story.  Claire Danes will get this one.

Best Actor, Comedy

Alec Baldwin.  I considered Louis CK, because I love his show, but I feel like Alec Baldwin is acting more than CK and I also very much love 30 Rock.  I regret not having the chance to be on it.  Hopefully Fey and Carlock's new show they're developing will be picked up, and they'll shoot in NYC.  We'll see.  Alec Baldwin will win this for the 7th time.

Best Actress, Comedy

Tina Fey.  Toughest call of all my votes, because Amy Poehler is so fantastic in Parks and Recreation and that show does not get enough recognition, but I just have a soft spot for 30 Rock and this is probably the last time they'll be up for awards.  I'm not sure who will actually win.  I could see it going to anyone except Betty White, basically.

Best Actor, TV Movie or Miniseries

Woody Harrelson.  I've only seen Game Change in this category.  By all accounts Harrelson is a fantastic human being and he's playing someone way, way on the other side of the political spectrum from him (who, not surprisingly, still has misgivings about his candidate).  This will probably go to Kevin Costner.

Best Actress, TV Movie or Miniseries

Julianne Moore.  Again, only saw Game Change.  As my friend Paul wisely put it, Julianne Moore pretty much bought 20 awards when she got cast in this.  I imagine she'll win?

Best Stunt Ensemble

The Walking Dead.  Zombies getting killed left and right, in a variety of ways.  No idea who will actually win.

Best Ensemble, Drama

Breaking Bad.  They raise their own bar every season, and everyone fits together like a jigsaw.  They play together wonderfully.  I wouldn't be surprised if Homeland took this one.  Or hell, even Downton Abbey.

Best Ensemble, Comedy

30 Rock.  It is criminal that Parks and Recreation wasn't nominated, but The Office was.  Talk about an ensemble; Parks and Rec is one of the tightest most talented teams on TV.  I would have voted for them in a heartbeat, but I don't feel bad having to choose 30 Rock either.  A few years ago I resented whenever someone said The Office should have been cancelled after whatever major event the person chose, but I have to add my voice to that chorus now.  It's limping to the finish line.  I still watch it, and I still enjoy it, but it's woefully below the standard it set a few years ago.  They're the only show that would surprise me with a win.

Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.

Writing, mailing, but no acting

Would that I could say my two auditions in the first week of 2013 panned out, but of course it's all quiet on the callback front.  And the new audition front.  And the agent front.  All fronts are generally mute, really.

I'm going to do a commercial mailing, I think.  I know it's not the best time to reach out to legit agents, due to pilot season, but I figure it never hurts to work the commercial angle.  Though I'm not sure exactly how busy the agents I'd be targeting for film and TV in NYC actually are right now, since pilot season tends to involve more established actors and I don't even know how much of an impact it makes in NYC, vs. LA.

Anyway, the mailing: I'm getting so close to Morgan Freeman's last parole speech in Shawshank with stuff like this.  It rarely gets me much traction, and I'm pretty sure they're not even looking at my cover letters, so I'm having a harder and harder time bullshitting through that part of it.  But it is the bare minimum one can do for oneself.  I'm pretty sure, and I'm not kidding about this, that I'm just going to do a quick "Hi, let's talk about commercial representation" intro and then give them these bullet points:

• I'm relatively decent-looking
• I'm fairly forgettable
• I am hilarious

I honestly don't know what other traits people want in their commercial actors.  I mean yeah, I can improv and I have an approachable look and good voice and yada yada whatever.  But in my cover letters in previous mailings I've laid all that out, and where I've booked and where I've been called back and it's gotten me nothing, so I'm trying not to care in a fun, anything-goes way this time around.  We'll see if that energy shift makes a difference.

Actors and athletes are highly superstitious groups because despite all our preparation and talent we have almost no control over the outcome of our efforts.

I've written the first two episodes of the new season of The Agoraphobes, and I have solid ideas for at least two more.  It's going to be good.

Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.

Performance of the Week: Leslie Mann

This week the performance that has been sticking with me is Leslie Mann in This is 40.  We finally caught it last weekend.  I really enjoyed the movie, and I think Apatow did a great job of blending personal stories with the sort of comedy you expect from his stuff.  He made a great showcase for his wife.  This is Mann's movie (though of course Paul Rudd is as excellent as ever).

I can't imagine too many actresses who'd be able to balance the sort of character comedy Apatow is known for with the familial turmoil and drama present in this script.  Obviously she's playing with a stacked deck, since she's performing her husband's script under her husband's direction alongside their own children.  But talent is talent, no matter who you're working with.  That connection could be a hindrance for some as well.  It can be easier to go to personal places in front of strangers, rather than those who have a good idea of what exactly you're working with.

There were a lot of laughing-through-tears moments in the film, where Mann had the task of juggling the timing and tone of comedy with the emotional content of the dramatic element.  It's not like they're completely alien to one another; both are rooted in honesty and commitment.  But she pulls it off extremely well every time (see also: the great doorman scene with Craig Robinson in Knocked Up).  Mann also physically bares herself in this movie, which always impresses me from both women and men.  Though, thanks to double-standards I think it's usually a lot more loaded for women.  Anyway, she gets a mammogram on camera and I have to assume that would be pretty hard to go through with.  And good lord does it look painful.  I also caught a great real-mom moment: Mann, Rudd, and the youngest daughter are in the kitchen watching the older daughter have a total meltdown.  At one point the younger daughter is fiddling with her plate, and Mann put her hand on her daughter's shoulder in a total "stop doing that and pay attention to your sister in this scene" gesture.  I'm really glad that got caught on camera.

There's something else I'd like to briefly touch on: why can't awards shows get comedy right?  This is a huge topic, but it feels funny to write about something like Leslie Mann in This is 40 during awards season, of which she has no part of course.  Why is comedy so much more subjective than drama?  Why do dramatic actors look at comedy as some sort of advanced, strange math intelligible only to those born with a rubber chicken in their hand and a fake arrow through their head?  There's an apocryphal quote, attributed to whichever dead dramatic actor the storyteller chooses: "Dying is easy; comedy is hard."  I first heard that in grad school, where my teachers (mostly Actors Studio members, and experts at the craft) couldn't begin to address how to perform a comedy.

Why are the Academy, the HFPA, and critics afraid to honor actual funny people doing actual funny things?  As it stands, the comedy categories generally include the funniest dramas or dramtic performances.  We just saw Silver Linings Playbook last night, and while it certainly has humor I'd hardly call it a comedy, or Cooper & Lawrence comedians, or their performances funny.  Yet there they are dominating nominations for comedy in film.  This seems particularly strained in a year when Apatow made his most personal comedy in which Leslie Mann gave one of the most dramatic funny performances I've seen.

Colin Fisher is many things to many people, but mostly he's an actor and writer.

Review of 2012

Remember when this was a thing I did?  It is once again.  I'd quit posting to my own site since I was ostensibly a blogger for Backstage's "Unscripted" column, but first my acting career more or less fell by the wayside, then the column did as well after Backstage's redesign.  So here we are.

Every article I've read lately is a reflection on 2012, so here's my two cents.  I thought it might be interesting to look at my acting year through some cold, hard numbers:

24 auditions
2 callbacks (within five days of each other, in October)
0 Bookings
9 were for paying gigs
14 pre-merger

And for what it's worth, I had 35 auditions in 2011 with three callbacks and one booking.  The last time I auditioned for something and got cast was 10/18/11 (the webseries Shadow Free).

The merger only affected me in that I no longer audition for commercials, since the commercial agent with whom I freelanced for several years only does non-union gigs.  I'm not sure why that would be the case.  To my knowledge an agency being SAG-franchised means little to nothing, so if it's not that, why wouldn't you want your actors to pursue union work?  The money is much higher, especially in commercials.  Anyway, the film and TV agent with whom I freelance (read: hear from every six months) has always only sent me out for union gigs, so the merger didn't affect that.  I feel I should note that I was and am very pro-merger; I knew it would mean a decrease in opportunities.  It's worth the benefits.

Those numbers don't reflect all my activity last year.  I did some things.  I co-directed & had a small role in a short film for the AV Club's Parameters film contest.  I participated in National Sketch Writing Month for the second time, this time managing to write all 30 sketches.  The sketch I submitted to the showcase was selected, and I performed in it with Joel Repman.  That was probably the highlight of the year.  I was also in a reading of my old classmate Jennie Berman Eng's ten minute play for a series based on the election, and it was a great script.  I've always enjoyed working on her stuff.  Then based on that reading, I did another one for a New School playwright, Aurin Squire.  Pretty much everything in this paragraph happened in the last three months.  Needless to say it was a looong year from that perspective.  This is of course not to say that good things didn't happen in 2012, but this is about acting.

Now, for 2013!  My amazing wife got me a great camera for Christmas so I'm looking forward to shooting more of my own work.  I have some ideas for a second season of Agoraphobes, and I'm starting to get excited about that.  Now I just need about $350 of audio equipment and a computer that can process and edit full HD video :)  And I'll be writing more.  I'm already here doing this, and I have an idea for a new comedy blog that I'm finally committing to.  I had two auditions this week, so at least I'm starting from somewhere.  Here's to making it an interesting year.

New entries at Backstage's Unscripted blog

I've just started writing at Backstage's Unscripted blog, where actors in various stages of the career talk about their experiences. As such, my posts here will probably come to a stop, unless there's something really juicy that isn't appropriate for my blog over there. That probably won't happen though.

But thank you for reading these, and by all means come over to my new site and start reading those!

Why I Love Acting #371

At a film audition today, the director had me read a second scene. He handed me the side and said “you’re floating in space and a big happy moon appears and starts talking to you.” Like you do.

Ridiculous Things Overheard While Being an Extra

You meet many...interesting people doing extra work in TV and film. I just did two long days, so I had a lot of time to eavesdrop. Choice gems:

1. We are currently at war both underground and in outer space with alien beings. This was said with no hint of irony or self-consciousness by a man playing a court officer. He said he has video of UFOs in Brooklyn.

2. "They say you use 10% of your brain but I think I use more because I'm a Christian and I have less to worry about."

3. One woman literally spent the entire two days complaining about our union and our treatment on set. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the absolute most important thing on any production is whether the extras get 15 minutes to eat free breakfast, and whether anyone cuts in front of you to eat the free dinner of which there is plenty, and which we will all have ample time to eat. But her most impressive maneuver came at the end of the second day, as we were being driven to Manhattan by a Teamster. She praised his union for sticking together like glue. "That's a union. I wish ours was like that, but it's all backstabbing and climbing over each other." Then, in a move that would give fatal whiplash to any sense of logic, she bragged about the time she and three other extras got golden time after calling to complain, and the rest of the suckers missed out because they didn't look out for themselves. Golden time is when you hit 16 hours and get your day's rate every hour after. I bit my tongue so hard it still hurts.

Rollercoaster of "Huh?": How to Say No

I went on quite the little acting rollercoaster last night. I got home from work around 6 and checked my sites. I had an email on Actor's Access in response to a submission I'd made for a short film. Turned out they had scheduling issues and wondered if I could make it to an 8 PM audition. Good thing we moved back into the city.

I confirmed and they sent me the sides. They were weird, and wordy, and gave little to no information about the piece as a whole. So I did what I do best: a facile surface read. That's no exaggeration, it really is what's gotten me this far. You'd be surprised.

Anyway, my slot was 8-8:05. I show up at 7:55 and there are three guys waiting outside the room, with no sign-in or anything. More people start showing up, and finally someone comes out and puts a sheet out, telling us that they'll go by sheet order (why oh why did you bother giving us time slots then?). For all I know there are still people waiting in line to read for that film.

At this point I'm a little concerned. I have zero information about these people. There was nothing on the breakdown, other than the title of the film and the name of the casting director (who was a woman, and obviously not one of the two guys in the room). Is it associated with a school? Is it a production company that has other work? What the heck is it about? When is it shooting?

Well, I had clues to the latter on the information sheet, where they asked if I was available the next three weekends (including today, Friday). I guess?

I go in and do my thing and the person who I assume is the director makes it sort of evident that he's going to cast me and tells me to look for an email tonight. When I get one, it's from the casting director to "undisclosed recipients" telling us congratulations, and what to wear for the party scene Saturday, and to look for a second email telling each of us who we'll play. At this point I start to see what's going on, but I want to wait for that second email.

When it comes I finally have a script and production company. I do some research. I figure out what the movie's actually about. It's pretty strange. And I have one line. There are a couple of things that are preventing me from wanting to continue on this project. First, based on the hastily put-together breakdown and initial side, I'm led to believe that maybe Saturday wouldn't be the most organized day. Second, I had a really bad experience with something similar a few years ago. And finally, I've done this before. I don't need to do one line in some short film for free again. I have enough of that for my reel, and the experience doesn't have a lot more to teach me. So after much angsty deliberation I wrote back and said thank you, but no.

A word on that experience a few years ago: I auditioned for a group who wanted to do something in the 48-hour Asian American Film Festival. You get a cast together, get the idea from the organization at the same time everyone else does, then have 48 hours to shoot and edit a film. I had a good, lengthy audition in front of an Asian director and his white friend who seemed to actually be the director. It felt pretty good. Then we rehearsed as a group on Saturday morning, trying to build an ensemble and seeing where everyone fit in. Then we all sat in front of a store for six hours while that white guy filmed his vanity project with his buddy, and turned us into glorified extras. Never again.

So here are the points I'm trying to get across. My saying no is not a statement on the quality of this piece or what I think the finished product might look like. I don't think those guys are beneath me. What I saw on their site was very professional, and they're shooting with a nice camera. But people in my position are forced to be beggars for far too long, and it's degrading. How often have you gotten cast in something only to find out later the thing you're doing is batshit crazy? Why does it feel so presumptuous for an unknown actor to say something like "hey, before we get into all this, can I see a script and decide if this is right for me?" How long do I need to catch table scraps from other people's tables? I've done the one-line thing. I have a reel. If I'm going to do it any more, I'm going to do it for money. Sorry. I have to protect myself.

And future filmmakers, please realize how important your breakdown is. It's the first contact you have with the people who will eventually be in your movie. You literally cannot put too much information in it. It will help you get the actors who are right for your project.

So there it is. From pre-audition to cast to no-thank-you in four short hours. Now I'm going to go audition for this 13-year old. This should be good.

Amazing breakdowns today

I've been getting the itch lately to be more active, acting-wise. It's been a while since I was in someone else's project and I'm getting rusty. So, after coming out from under the rock that was my move into Hell's Kitchen, I hit the breakdowns online today to see what I could do.

My god.

How about this? An improv-heavy feature film (read: write our movie for us!) that will shoot in Cape Town, South Africa. Yes, I'd love to travel to another continent to shoot something with no planned dialogue. Ironically, it's about someone who falls for a South African internet scam. Interesting.

Or this: a non-union feature film with a pretty small flat pay (but travel and per diem!) that's going to shoot in Prague and the Ukraine. "The project will be hard work, in often basic living conditions. It will also be fun, interesting and involve a lot of road tripping." At least they have a script. Honestly, this one sounds somewhat interesting, but I'm too old for this shit. I can't backpack across Europe making a movie with half my closet on my shoulders. What, you didn't think they were going to dress their actors, did you?

Finally, a guy's looking for people to be in his online comedy show. That sounds like it's up my alley. After a little research, I found that he does not own the domain name of the show (which is also the actual name of the show--it's like ten bucks man, stay on that shit) and what few videos I found on YouTube are things I could easily just do on my own, with better results. Also, HE REALLY LIKES ALL CAPS.

Well that was depressing. Better get writing.

The Kindness of Strangers

It struck me the other day just how dependent I am on people I've never met, or am trying to meet, or have met but don't really know. It's not up to me to get an actual line on a TV show. It's up to an agent to submit me, the casting director to decide to see me, and the producers and director to decide to hire me.

Yikes.

I've somewhat developed the talent of auditioning and then letting it go, and I'm also casually into Zen, which focuses a great deal on letting go in general. Despite that, it's incredibly difficult to keep from tying my own happiness to whether or not my phone's ringing. So there I am, down in the dumps because I'm not working or auditioning. One phone call later I'm skipping through midtown totally prepared to knock out an audition.

Which didn't go anywhere.

But I'm not sure I wanted to spend a month in Florida anyway.

Right?

I practically willed said call into existence. I spent most of an afternoon staring blankly at my computer, trying to figure out what I could do to remind these people I exist. I couldn't come up with much beyond a simple check-in email, which I think can eventually be overdone. Luckily the guy who called me must be psychic, because I didn't email him. So it looks like I have another exciting afternoon of obsessive thought in front of me.

What are you working on?

Getting ready yesterday to meet an actor friend I hadn't seen in a while, I found myself running through the list of things I've accomplished or am trying to accomplish, so that I could answer that inevitable question: what are you working on? Like I was going to a job interview or something.

Do any other professions do this? When two accountants run into each other on the street, do they ask what the other has done recently at work? Probably not, because the answer is probably the same every time.

I think actors do this almost as a self-defense mechanism. First, you must understand that you ask the question simply so that you can answer it yourself when the other person is done. In a profession where work falls into your lap by byzantine Rube Goldberg methods, every little thing you do is a huge accomplishment. So we're happy to share these things with other actors.

There's also a predatorial starving-cheetah-on-the-savannah aspect to it. "You got what show? Who casts that? How did you find it? What are they looking for?" It stands to reason that if one of your peers landed something, you probably could too. In an industry with such heavily fortified walls around the good stuff, we're always looking for weak spots.

Wow, that all sounds pretty negative.

There are positives to this as well. In the very least, having to come up with an answer to "what are you working on" keeps you busy, on your toes. I don't want the only answer to that question to be "well I'm about 20 hours into Mass Effect 2, getting ready to go through the Omega 4 relay." While true, and awesome, it neither pays the bills nor satisfies me creatively.

And I guess, maybe, somewhere deep down, we enjoy it when our friends do well. We need a good support system behind us to get anywhere in this business. We're all pulling for each other, right?

Well, as long as we're not the same type.

Waiting

Honestly, that could be the title of any post ever related to acting. But in this case it applies to the period of time after a great audition for something you're really hoping to get. This time it was a sort of industrial/commercial hybrid (for those not in the business, industrial refers to internal-use stuff; at the lowest end of the spectrum, think training videos). The pay would have been pretty decent, but it would also have entailed a several-day trip to LA to film it.

At times like this, Amy is under orders not to call me. I've gotten pretty good at letting go after an audition and not dwelling on it, for good or bad, but sometimes I'm just too optimistic. I hate the feeling of my heart jumping when the phone rings and it's just my wife. I mean, I love talking to her, but, uh...

Love you Amy!

Anyway, after a couple days you can be pretty sure the call will never come. You can always be pleasantly surprised, but the reality of it is commercial casting moves pretty fast.

I had a couple of reasons to feel pretty good about this one, and not getting cast actually doesn't affect those reasons too much. I actually got the audition copy the night before, so I had time to get ready. Rare. So I actually knew what I was doing when I got in the room. When I got there, they were just finishing up the morning session before a quick lunch break. The guy before me came out in a full suit, way overdressed for the character and he didn't look like a suit guy in the first place. Then he started talking to the audition monitor. "Does she tell everyone 'nice job?' I mean, she said 'nice job,' but does she just say that, or does it mean I did a good job?" Whoa dude. Stop talking. "I don't know what happened. I mean I'm a naturally confident guy and I just didn't know how to get rid of that for the audition [the character is not confident]." Holy crap man, stop talking. I don't care if you threw down some Daniel Day Lewis stuff in there, you are talking yourself right out of this part now. Ah well. Everyone has to start getting out there some time. It just made me feel better that I've been doing it for a while.

And so, a few days out, I think it's safe for Amy to call my phone again. No worries. I have a beer commercial audition tomorrow, wherein I will once again have to pretend to like sports.

Obligatory Oscar Post

'Twas the season, and thank god it's over. That really might have been my last live Oscar viewing, at least until they invite me. You can shoot for young and hip all you want, you can even get Chloe Moretz and Elle Fanning to co-host, but until you hire an actual team of actually funny comedy writers, you will never succeed, Oscar producers.

Every year, in the months leading up to the Oscars the producers are all over the entertainment magazines talking about how they've figured out how to trim the fat and make the show relevant. And every year it looks almost exactly the same. You really think you can't cut this down to two hours? Cut out every bit that didn't work and you have a runtime of about 80 minutes, guys.

The only award that surprised me was Tom Hooper winning Best Director over David Fincher, but as I commented on Facebook, Christopher Nolan's absence in the category invalidates the whole thing. As if we need more evidence that these awards don't mean much other than a higher rate for the winner's next project.

Anyway. Spent pretty much the whole broadcast obsessively checking my email to see if I got cast in an NYU film I was called back for this past week. Interesting idea, well-written from the sides I had the chance to read, nice director/writer. He said he would let people know by the end of the weekend. Since I haven't gotten that email as of this writing, looks like I missed it. Which is especially interesting in light of an NYU director winning Best Live Short last night. At least that makes the NYU credits already on my resume a little shinier.

It's easy to fall into a downward spiral every time you don't get cast. It's like everything you've done before is gone, and the trajectory of your career depends on this one casting. Of course that's silly. I've gotten paid to do this, and I've been on TV as an actual real actor (and will be again soon, if Golden Corral will get off their butts and air that commercial). But in lieu of dropping $350 on a class, I like to just work to stay sharp. That's the reasoning behind my latest round of student film submissions; if I haven't done anything in a little while I get restless.

And I'm getting very restless.

This Melissa Leo Thing

Deadline Hollywood has a good writeup of these Melissa Leo self-funded "for your consideration" ads. I'm trying to figure out what I think about this. There's more of a history to this sort of thing than I initially thought, with varying degrees of success and/or ridicule (for the latter, check out the link and read about Chill Wills' and Margaret Avery's insane campaigns--Leo could have done much worse).

Her studio isn't doing its own ad campaign for her, and she claims she's not getting the media attention a younger, more attractive woman might get, so she wanted to take matters into her own hands. I find this strange, since she and co-star Christian Bale are two of the surest bets at the Academy Awards this year. I imagine it's hard to think that when you're one of the bets, but that's what "your people" are there for.

If it wasn't for her melodramatic acceptance speeches I'd have an easier time brushing this off, but I can't. Something about her has been striking me as false. This is to say nothing ill of her fantastic performance in The Fighter, which stands on its own excellent legs and as such, should require no campaign. But, that's the nature of the industry these days. She's also claiming the ageism rampant in Hollywood is a major factor in taking out these ads for herself, because she can't get on the cover of a magazine. What, so you can stand next to the likes of Snooki and Kim Kardashian in the checkout lane?

I agree that ageism is a problem in Hollywood and our society in general, but I question the degree to which an actor can complain about it. Do your best to overcome it and change people's opinions, of course, but it's not like you didn't know this was a problem when you got into acting. That's like me trying to be a rapper and complaining it's a tough black guy's game. How do I overcome that? Be so good they don't care I'm white & nerdy. What has Melissa Leo done? Put out a performance so good she's sweeping the awards season. That translates to work. She could easily land a cable-series lead in the current TV environment, if not network (I say cable first because come on, their shows are way better).

So what exactly is the problem? And why is this rubbing me the wrong way? I think it's all ringing false because if she truly wanted to overcome the ageism/sexism barrier, why would she play the publicity game in the first place? And in playing it, why would she try to glam herself up and look so much like the thing she's fighting? Does she want to be known for an Elle cover or for her performance? Why is she so scared she won't get work after a solid round of nominations for Frozen River and a round of wins for The Fighter? Why would any sane person choose this career path?

The Awesome Audition I Just Had; Or...

...how not to audition and why non-union commercials are sometimes the devil.

This audition was for a corporate web video with a fairly amusing premise, as far as these things go. And my agent actually sent me the copy beforehand! Which never happens. They're looking for actors who can improvise. Great, got it.

Snag 1: By "improvise," they mean "come up with the rest of the video based on the one premise we set up." The scene had two people. The script said

#1: Do you know about (anonymous thing I probably shouldn't say here)?

And then literally

#2 [Improvisation]
#1 [Improvisation]

SAG has rules against making actors improvise during auditions (which are skirted sometimes by never using the word "improvise;" a casting director might instead say "if you think of something else you'd like to say, feel free"). This is so actors aren't burdened/ripped off by making your spot great by basically writing it for you for free, without credit. Paul F. Tompkins told a story on the Nerdist podcast about auditioning for a commercial, in which they had him come up with a lot of funny stuff (which he's kinda good at). He didn't get the spot, but when he saw it they used the things he came up with at the audition. So. Boo. Non-union: we pay a fraction of the SAG rate for three times the effort!

Having done a few improv auditions like this before, I knew better than to rely on coming up with brilliance on the spot. I thought of some different reactions to the initial question, but kept it all loose enough to be able to work with the other actor and not steamroll them.

Snag 2: The other actor. At this point, I just prefer a completely flat reading from the casting director's assistant than to have to work with another actor in an audition. Am I this bad? I'm no Daniel Day Lewis but I think I at least have the basics of listening and responding truthfully, but also keeping it interesting. My scene partner, a lovely lady who had sketch and improv experience and thereby (I assumed) would know how to listen and escalate a scene with me, decided her reaction to my initial question should be to brush me off and keep going. Because...what? Things are always interesting when someone gets ignored? She had zero interest in getting cast? She hated my face?

They had paired us up beforehand and told us to work on it, making it 30 seconds with a definite ending. Ours was currently ten seconds with no ending, since endings require beginnings. I told her "maybe it should be a little longer," meaning "hey, maybe you should stop and have a scene with me." This isn't an acting exercise. I know in real life you'd brush me off and keep going, but you don't need to make me stop you. Listen. See what happens. So we fleshed it out a little bit. I came up with a couple of decent lines. We did it twice for the guy. Meh.

So the moral of the story? Listen to your partner. Work together. Join SAG. Get into commercial copywriting, because apparently any drunk idiot can crap out a one-line script and get paid for it.

Auditions!

My god, three auditions over four days! What will I do with myself? Probably the usual.

Had the first one today, for a student film at NYU. I submitted for it on Actor's Access and they got back to me on there pretty quickly. I told them what time I'd like to be there, and that was the end of it. A couple days ago I commented to Amy that I thought it was strange I didn't have any sides or anything. Granted, the role is called Technician 2, but still. I get there today, and my name wasn't on the list. NYU desk guards are hardcore, so I had to call the casting guy to let him know I was downstairs. Turns out I fell through the cracks, and they didn't even know if I was coming in, but could "probably squeeze me in." Which made me feel just awesome about myself. The guy was nice but very awkward which didn't help me in an already awkward situation. Someone else auditioning told me in the green room that they'd sent out sides via email already, so I had to get a copy from someone. The director was nice, also awkward though less so than casting man. I felt pretty good about my reading. It was a super-short side, so there was only so much I could do. I feel like they'll go with someone nerdier. If someone nerdier showed up, anyway.

The audition tomorrow is actually through the agent that I thought I was done freelancing with, but she's called me twice in like three weeks now, after a break of a few months. It's for a non-union ESPN commercial. I expect it to be improvised and awkward. Probably cheering for a team I'm watching or something.

Then I have another student film audition I got through Actor's Access (which by the way is a website that shows breakdowns, and you fill in a profile and resume and upload a picture so you can submit for the parts electronically), this time at Columbia. So I have to head way up to the Upper West Side Sunday. I got the side for this one, and it's actually pretty good. Very dry absurd humor, very wordy, intellectual. I'm reading for a graduate TA. This is good, because I feel like my type has matured from college student to college TA (and in five years or so college professor). I'm mostly off-book already, and am working on what exactly is going on emotionally. I've actually auditioned for this same director before. Wonder if he remembers.

Anyway, I'll post breakdowns of the two auditions early next week. Here's hoping.

PS I'm focusing on these student films because I want more material for a reel. The question arises: when I have all the material I want, what next? I cut together a reel, then what? Audition for Spielberg? Not sure what the next step would be.

An Opportunity

I'm actually getting a little money back from the government in 8-15 days, which most importantly puts a little cushion between me and the street, but also provides me with a chance to invest a little money in myself.

I'm on the fence here.

I could stand to get new headshots. I don't desperately need them, but the time is soon approaching. I think it would probably be ridiculous to use the current shot, say, next year. Of course, new headshots don't necessarily open any doors, but I'd love to have a shot with a more neutral expression and more of my torso, so you can see my body type in my headshot.

I could also use the money to take classes with agents/casting directors. Which is essentially paying money to make sure these people know who you are. I would love it if there was an easy way to see industry folk without paying any money, but I'm at the end of my rope trying to figure one out.

I could also use it to take another improv class, or a stand-up bootcamp.

All of this has made me realize how actors always seem to be chasing that one thing they think is keeping them from getting auditions/callbacks/bookings/agents. "If I had a new headshot..." "If I had a better resume..." "If I wore glasses..." You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure this out, and completely empty your checkbook. Checkbook? Who the hell uses a checkbook any more?

You get the point. Acting's hard.

Shameless Plug Time!

This is the first episode of a new web comedy I'm in, Citizen's Arrest:



We also have a dedicated website that's pretty cool. And if I may toot my own horn, I wrote a lot of the content there, such as the character info, trivia, and citizen's arrest guide.

There is Hope for Us All

The following is a video collecting Paul Rudd's scenes in a Hong Kong movie called Tejing xinrinlei 2, or Gen-Y Cops, made in 2000. Best line: "Roseanne Barr Arnold will be president before that happens."



This shows me a couple things. One, Chinese people will watch anything. Two, as awesome as I know Paul Rudd to be, he had to make a movie like this. Five years after Clueless. So just because you're in a terrible movie/play, doesn't mean you always will be. Of course, I can't even get a lead in a terrible movie, but that's a different story.