Archive for May, 2009

Excuse Me Mr. Director WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Published May 18, 2009 Actress , acting , rehearsal , show business Leave a Comment
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Had a first table read of the play the other night. Everybody was very nice. Not a psycho in the bunch. No one vying for all the attention or anything. It’s a theater company so they have a lot of repeats so the nuts probably don’t get asked back.

I kinda hate the first table read. Because even though I shouldn’t, I feel like I am meeting the other actors for the first time and they have never seen my work and they are judging how good an actor I am and there is not much I can do because I am still finding my way and I know I shouldn’t feel this way. My insecurities are showing I know.

Anyway the director has the aura of a former whiz kid or something. I know he got all A’s and probably skipped a grade. And he was friends with all his teachers. And was in every club. You know bright. Talks fast. Thinks fast. That’s good. Smart is good.

So before we start he says, “I know everyone says don’t try to do anything on the first read, just read. But I don’t want that. Try to do something.” OK NOW YOU’VE MADE IT WORSE. So we all become laugh whores and push for the laughs.

When we finish the play he says he has a problem with two scenes. “I noticed people were yawning while you read those last two scenes.” He is talking about tightening up the writing of the scenes, but I know the actors who read the scenes can’t hear him now because the words “ YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ, YAWNING WHILE YOU READ are now reverberating in their minds and they can’t hear anything else. Hence the uncomfortable phony panic smiles on their faces and the glazed expressions in their eyes. And  their attempts to nod at the appropriate times to show they know what he is talking about.

Eh, uh I don’t think he should have mentioned the yawning thing. Actors are so like hard on themselves and sensitive you gotta be careful what you say to us.

Directors need organization, talent, intelligence and sensitivity. I think. I once worked with a film director who seemed to specialize in saying inappropriate things to actors. I was doing a scene in a kitchen where my character was desperate. We did a few takes and it went fine. Then the director said, “Just for the hell of it take it really far. Go all out.” So we do the take and I was shaking and crying. When we finish the DP looked impressed and turned to the director and said, “What do you think? Should we print that one?” And the director turned to him and said, “No, no, that was way too over the top, no!” “Ah, HELLO I AM THREE FEET AWAY FROM YOU. I CAN HEAR YOU!” I thought. Thanks. Nice. What am I a moron? I asked one of the crew about it. “How can he say this stuff? Does he think I’m a retard?” “No,” they said, “he talks like that to all the actors.” Luckily for us he ended up a film editor. In a dark studio. Where he doesn’t have to talk to anybody. Good thing.

Actors Get In Line

Published May 11, 2009 Actress , acting , comedy , film , show business 2 Comments
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I woke up on Thursday morning to find this email in my inbox. It was sent at midnight  on Wednesday:

Hi Cranky,

I’m an undergraduate student shooting a short for my Columbia film
class with Laura Wolfstein. She recommended you to me personally. My
project is about a reclusive former film star and her relationship
with her guilt-ridden son. I’d love for you to be in it. Would you
be interested and available this Friday? It’s such late notice but if
so, I’d be happy to send you the script right away.

Thanks for considering this on short notice. Hope to be in touch soon.

Michelle Kan

So it is Thursday morning at nine am and I am reading this thing. My first instinct is to say no. I mean I am Cranky and it is nine am.

And I’m like wondering why anyone would wait this late to cast something they are shooting TOMORROW. But maybe the actress dropped out. That happens. So I decide to try to be a good egg and all and answer immediately:

So at 9:00 am on Thursday morning I write:

Hi Michelle-

Do you mean tomorrow? How long is the script?

I think I can do it. Send me the script, OK?

Cranky

So I wait for a reply. Nothing at 10. Nothing at 11. Nothing at 12. Nothing at 1.

Now I kinda need to know what I am doing tomorrow. And the window of opportunity for actually studying the script is closing, as I will be busy from three o’clock on. So now I start obsessing about something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

So I go to the computer at 1:45pm and write:

Hi Again -

Could you call me when you get this so I know if we are on for tomorrow?

Thanks so much,

Cranky

So at 2pm I get a called from a wimpy girl saying, “Ah um, oh hi, ah, actually I found someone. But now I need to find a guy to play the son. So I might not be able to film tomorrow. If I don’t find someone to play the son today to shoot tomorrow are you available the day after tomorrow if I have to do that?”

Ok, so now this whole thing is giving me a fucking HEADACHE.

Besides the apparent complete retardation of this director there is the question of WHEN she found someone. She emailed me at midnight saying how she would LOVE for me to do it. I answered her at 9am. So what does this mean? Are there actresses poised at their computers between midnight and 9am ready to reply to casting inquiries? The answer would be YES.

And how many actresses got the “I’d love for you to be in it” email? Why would you love us? Because we are breathing?

These situations where the race goes to the swiftest are the suckiest most demoralizing situations for someone in the arts. Because it’s not about art. It’s about who got there first.

The worst example of this was when I went to an EPA for a theater out in the Hamptons. The bus from the train station was full of actors going to the same place. When we disembarked from the bus everyone realized that we were all going to sign in and audition in that order. So they started to run. It was a fucking ACTOR STAMPEDE down the main street of Sag Harbor. I’m not kidding. What did that look like? People dressed up in city clothes. Guys in jackets and women in heels and character shoes full out stampeding down Main Street, and this was before reality TV. It was sooooo embarrassing. My friend and I refused to run. She has since dropped out of acting. Do you blame her? So we had to wait like two and a half hours to go in because we didn’t join in the panic jog.

Actors feel like they are always waiting on lines and sometimes get so used to being ill treated that if you like offer them a glass of water and a place to sit it’s like huge.

I used to get my headshots done at a place on 14th Street, which has since gone out of business. Well deserved if you ask me. It was uncomfortable and not nice. And there was always a huge line that was right there as soon as you got off the elevator.

The guy who worked the counter had a drinking problem and somehow kept his job. Maybe they figured he was good enough to wait on actors. I don’t know. Anyway, he was an evil drunken southern queen.

So one day I am waiting on a line to pick up headshots and the evil queen sees me. He yells out the most offensive thing he could possibly say to me and laughs. I just turned on my heels and left. I was done. He came out from behind the counter and chased after me and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! Come back. I didn’t mean that.”

So I went back in with him. I did need to get the headshots. What else was I gonna do? I turned to him and said, “LOOK, I GET MY BALLS BUSTED ALL OVER TOWN I DON’T MY BALLS BUSTED WHEN I’M PAYING FOR PICTURES!”

And another actor turned to me and said, “Wow! You actually have any balls left?”

Behind Every Great Actress Is A Great Dermatologist

Published May 6, 2009 Actress , acting , comedy , film , show business 2 Comments
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I went to the dermatologist today. I am going to be meeting with a commercial agent soon and I want to stay in the fiber category and not be pushed into the arthritis category.

The guy I go to is a total fucking magician. Walk in feeling decrepit and walk out feeling like a sex bomb. Invisible on the subway on the way there and leered at by the Puerto Ricans on the way home.

It was so weird how I found him. It was serendipity really. I was in Bigelow Pharmacy in the Village one day and I noticed this guy who REALLY seemed to know his products. And he looked soooooo fabulous. He had a powder blue shearling coat with a big shaggy white collar and cuffs and great hair.

So I casually shadowed him to see if I could pick up some free beauty tips. We started a conversation about the pros and cons of various brands of lip plumpers. And I casually threw into the conversation a question about what a girl should do if she wanted to like refresh her look. “Oh sweetie, go to Dr. Colbert,” he said.

His name was Zac. I found out later that he is like an upper crust hair guy with only private clients who made his name doing The Spice Girls. Cranky can pick ‘em.

So I went directly to Dr. Colbert. It was all so serene and nice. And Amy Sedaris is a fan of the docs and if you’ve ever seen her when she is not playing “Strangers With Candy” she is a total cutie. And saw Naomi Campbell there and she looked so happy so he really must be a magician.

And everyone looks like natural.  No Platypus lips go walking out of his office.  Nobody looks like “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”

It’s all about peeling it off and plumping it up, really. It’s so life changing for an actress who knows she is going to be stuck doing a close up at 4:00 am. “Don’t get too close with that camera!” I used to think.

So the fates brought me to him. He is even a theater lover and a friend of Terrance McNally’s. What are the chances of that? And he thinks little theaters are doing good stuff. “The smaller the better” he said to me when I was telling him about my latest minuscule project. He was a gypsy before becoming an MD so he GETS IT. And when he is with you he acts like he has all the time in the world and focuses just on you. That’s nice. And having someone who values what you’re like doing in life when you are a non-famous actress is so refreshing.

There is a well-known psychotherapist who sends her clients to Dr. Colbert. She believes that a visit with him will increase their dopamine levels. According to Wikipedia “dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as FOOD, SEX, DRUGS” and now apparently by DERMATOLOGY. I might be on a dermatological high as I write this. I don’t know.

So basically dermatology is better than anti-depressants.

He is coming out with a book now. “The High School Reunion Diet” (Your Youth Recovered in 30 Days). Cranky is way too neurotic to ever attend a reunion of any kind. I cannot sustain looking happy and smiling incessantly for an event like that.

But the “Youth Recovered in 30 Days” part will have me following the program. There was an advance copy in the office and I wanted to steal it, but decided I will wait a month like every one else until it comes out. He told me it will have a website in a month or something when I wouldn’t let go of the book.

So any poor suffering artist actress will tell you it is worth eating ramen and hot dogs for a couple of months for a visit to David Colbert.

In case you want to see the lovely office here is the link: http://www.nydermatologygroup.com

PS – Got one of the parts I auditioned for, so the”positive reinforcement with restaurants therapy” really actually worked.

To Show Or Not To Show That Is The Question

Published May 1, 2009 Actress , acting , auditions , comedy , rehearsal , show business 1 Comment
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Cranky had to ask herself a hard question yesterday. I got a call for an audition and had to ask myself,” Do I really want to be in another show”?

Film you’re in and you’re out. Theater is a bigger time commitment. And I’ve shied away from theater because I was traumatized by the last psycho director I worked with at LaMaMa.

So the group asking me to audition sends me the script. I don’t like it. The character I was auditioning for has another character put his hand on her breast – TWICE. Yuck. And the ending was completely stupid I thought. This is where the English Major and the actress in my mind go to battle. Because you can be a SNOB or you can WORK. But you can’t be BOTH. Unless you are famous. And we all know I’m not famous, so I’m fucked.

So I forced myself to work on it. They were very professional. Love that. They sent me the whole play to read and the exact sides I would be reading. And an appointment time. THANK YOU.

And by working on it I realized the dialogue was really good. Maybe the play wasn’t so bad and my phobia was tricking me into not liking it because I’ve become gun shy about doing theater. My neuroses was making me hyper critical.

So when I got off the subway and I was walking through Hell’s Kitchen to the theater, I made a deal with myself. “See that restaurant over there?” I asked myself. “Well if you do a good job and get the part you can go out after the show there,” I told myself. Good, bad or mediocre, every show has the upside of going out after with friends. Cranky loves that.

Also, I told myself, “Just think of the bumper crop of new stories sure to pop up during the many days and days and hours and hours of a theater rehearsal process.”

So I was in a positive head when I went into the waiting area. I sat down to work some more on the script. I had given myself an extra fifteen minutes so I could sit quietly and get into character.

And as per usual another actress who was also auditioning came in and started talking really loud to some guy involved with the theater. “Oh wow! Hi! Great to see you!! I know this is gonna be a great project, but I’m not sure if I will have time because I’m really involved with SoHo Rep. They are such nice people there. But, I mean I want to stay out there. I really need to be out there acting. It would be cool to be involved here too, you know?” she said.

I refused to be an audience for these antics and I got up and went and sat on the other side of the room. Especially since the actress had her ass in my face. Was she sending me a message? When the guy left, she turned around and gave me the phony “I hate you” smile. “I hate you too,” my blank stare back said.

A child actor went in to read before me. His Dad tiptoed over and put his ear on the door so he could listen. This is some sad shit. If Dad keeps this up his kid has NO CHANCE. Oh, and the mother called on the cell phone to wish the kid LUCK before he went in. Nooooooo. Gag me. Leave the kid the hell alone. Grown up actors have to sometimes spend years working their way back to that openness, that sense of play. Except for the feral ones like Russell Crowe. And these parents are squashing it out of a ten-year-old.

Cranky opened her mouth and told the Dad, “You gotta let him go. Let him go…..” Dad chuckled and said, “ I get so nervous for him.” HOPELESS.

So I went in and read my two scenes and did a good job and everything. I overcame my theaterophobia inflicted by the insane Italian director. I allowed myself to be inspired. I utilized Cranky therapy. The promise of fun nights in restaurants AFTER the show did the trick.

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