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The Most Embarrassing Day Ever

Published December 17, 2008 acting , auditions , comedy , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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I just had the most embarrassing day. You’re not gonna believe it. I submitted myself for a spot for Liberty Mutual – they asked for an authentically blind actor.

It said; “Any ethnicity. Male or female. Age 20 – 60. Must be authentically blind.”   It was for a commercial – it said, “National Network TV, Standard Usage.”

Well, I don’t get opportunities to go out for commercials everyday, so I submitted myself. I figured what difference does it make? How many real actors are going to be authentically blind? You’re going to get a bunch of people who are authentically blind but not real actors. So I figured if they could make believe they can act, I can make believe that I can’t see. I did a scene once from “A Patch of Blue”.

Anyway it went perfectly well. I got off the elevator – I had borrowed a cane from my 90-year old neighbor. He’s fabulous, you have to meet him, his whole house is antiques.

So, I’m tapping my stylish cane with the sterling silver handle, acting totally blind, and the monitor was like so nice to me. AND YOU KNOW THAT NEVER HAPPENS. They show me where the bench is and all, and I’m the only one who can see that I’m the best looking blind person there, I swear.

I’m already thinking residuals, and they hand me the script and it’s in FUCKING BRAILLE. Oh my god! Why didn’t I think of that? Shit.   So I ask the air if someone can “show me where the ladies room is?” And thank god it is out near the elevator. So I stayed in there until the coast was clear and I got on the elevator and got out of there. I was nervous that someone was going to come out looking for me so I kept up the act. I figured I could act mixed up or something if they saw me getting on the elevator. Then this guy who got on the elevator with me walked in the same direction as me, and asked if I needed help, so I had to keep the whole thing going all the way to Sixth Avenue. Hell.

Ok. Ok. I didn’t actually do this. But I saw the ad and I THOUGHT ABOUT IT.

A Christmas Miracle For the Chickens

Published December 16, 2008 acting , comedy , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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I’m thinking about the chickens. The ones I almost had to share my dressing room with. I got cast in an experimental theater piece in the East Village. Now, as an audience member, I hear the word Experimental and I am running in the other direction, but as an actress sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. LaMaMa anyone?

The show was written by an Italian playwright who has been writing about mental institutions for 30 years (that should have been my first tip off).

It was the worst rehearsal process I have ever experienced. He sent his assistant from Rome with notes from the Italian production to work with us before he arrived himself. The assistant was a guy who had been following the director around for five years writing his thesis on him. Sounds like a rich kid who has found an alternative to work, you think? So the director turned him into a free lackey and the lackey seemed honored to do his bidding.

The director wanted us to replicate EXACTLY the movements and blocking of the Italian production. I think the method hasn’t reached Italy yet or something. You know, developing a character, having your movements be motivated by SOMETHING. So the thesis student puts a stop to ANYTHING I want to try as we work on the play. I decided my character (nurse in the nuthouse) should have a little pad and pencil to make notes on the patients. He fucking CALLED ITALY to tell the director! He came back after lunch and said, “The director says, No pad.” I said, “Tell the director I’m not listening to him because he has made the choice of directing via telephone.”

It all came to a head one day in the midst of the graduate student giving line readings and saying, “Pleasa you mova the heada lika this.” I lost it and screamed, “I’M NOT A FUCKING MONKEY!! BLOCKING IS NOT DIRECTING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” I figured I was gonna get fired, but he was Italian, and they scream like this if the pasta isn’t al dente. He nodded his head and we continued.

It went on like this until four days before the show when the director flies in from Italy and wheels his suitcase into the theater his dramatis personae scarf around neck flying in the breeze. He watches a run through and hates everything. As a former soccer player, his approach to directing is to scream at the top of his lungs in between talking about his semi-recent role in a film directed by a movie star. I never saw it, but sounds like he was a spear-carrier to me. ITSA MESSA.

 

They need a hospital bed for the show. Director and lackey get some nurse they know to “donate” one at the back door of a hospital. Being the insanity obsessed, and the terminal graduate student, they have no plan on how they are going to GET THE BED FROM MIDTOWN TO THE EAST VILLAGE. So they actually roll the bed through the streets of New York City. Waiting at traffic lights. Probably using hand signals when they turn at intersections. Dio Mio!

Then the assistant tells us at a cast meeting that the director wants REAL CHICKENS for the coop scene. Believe me, LIVE CHICKENS AREN’T GOING TO HELP THIS SHOW. He’s investigating the chickens. “Where are the chickens going to stay?” I ask. “Backstage” he says. “Where backstage?” I ask. “The dressing rooms.” he says. OH NO, “I WILL NOT SHARE MY DRESSING ROOM WITH CHICKENS!” I yell. “I’m drawing the line there!” They may think I’m a prima donna, but I am actually motivated by sympathy for the chickens. Backstage at the theater is freezing most of the time, it’s December, and they only turn on the heat during the show and we also use space heaters in the dressing rooms. I know on dark days they are gonna leave the chickens alone in some horrible little cage or something, and as an animal lover, I will feel sorry for the chickens, and start obsessing about what is happening to them, and I will end up bringing the chicken home and then my husband will have a fit and divorce me or we will get evicted for harboring farm animals in Brooklyn Heights. Stray dogs are one thing, but I know the chickens will put him over the edge. So my entire future is now dependent on the chickens. I can see where this is going. The lackey is non-committal in his answer about the chickens for days. I am mentally walking on eggs (pardon the pun) until I am saved when later in the week he tells us the City of New York has health regulations that prevent chickens backstage. Grazie.

The show opens, and for some bizarre reason The New York Times writes a nice article about it. Like it’s the perfect alternative Christmas show to go and see. Who’s insane now?

The Other Kind of Disaster Film

Published December 15, 2008 acting , show business , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Working on student films is really good practice. The more you’re on a film set, the more you learn to live and breathe in front of the camera. To know that when they “ACTION!” you don’t have to DO ANYTHING. I try to stick to graduate school films, final senior projects, and thesis films. But it’s a crapshoot. I’ve been in films that went to a ton of festivals all over the world. And then I’ve also been in um, ah, the opposite.

Recently, a student director in graduate school called me. Another director who I think is great, recommended me to her. So I said sure, I’d do her project. She emailed the script to me. I took the script to the hairdressers. I took the script on the subway. I studied it while lying on the couch. It was only 5 pages, but I like to fill it in emotionally, so when I get on set I have a lot to draw from. I studied, studied studied. I was ready, because the lower the budget, the fewer takes you get.

 

I was scheduled to film on Saturday at 12:30p.m. Saturday comes, and I call the director at 11:00a.m. to ask a question before I leave for the train to the Upper West Side. She says something about the script, and mentions a character, Chad. “THERE IS NO CHAD IN MY SCRIPT,” I say. “There has to be,” she says, ”He’s the boyfriend,” she says. “Well there isn’t,” I say, “There’s a Steve.” “Huh?” she says, “Oh my god. I sent you the wrong script!” SHE SENT ME THE WRONG SCRIPT. THE WRONG SCRIPT! The ah….WRONG SCRIPT! This is definitely one for the books.

She gets hysterical, “I can’t believe I did that.” I tell her, “Just email it to me. I’ll learn it.” So I have like 10 minutes with the script plus subway time. I learn it. Superficially.

When I get there, I am introduced to the other actress I’ll be working with, or should I say PERSON, as she has never studied acting and is a political science major. OH OH. DISASTER. She can’t handle props. Can’t walk and talk. I have to basically corral her by grabbing her by the waist and moving her to the marks while we’re doing takes. With all the actresses in New York City, who would love to get another piece of film for their reels, WHY IS THE DIRECTOR USING SOMEONE WITH NO EXPERIENCE? Unless all the other actresses in New York City know something I don’t know.

We are filming in the park. Planes keep going by every few minutes and we have to cut. The director and the DP have carefully choreographed exactly where we say what. There is a beautiful bridge and water in the background. They want us to move to certain positions to take advantage of the scenery. We do a lot of takes. It’s truly hard to believe how fakey phony poor person parading as an actress is.

At the end of the day I am exhausted, feeling like a film cowboy who has been rounding up cattle all day. Weeks later, when the final product arrives, it is a film of two bobbing heads talking to each other. I swear. It’s just heads. When the heads aren’t bobbing the camera is. You can’t see the background. You can’t see the outfit I was wearing. They filmed the whole thing so close, half the time you can’t see my hair. THEY SHOT IT SO CLOSE WE COULD HAVE BEEN ANYWHERE.   We could have been in the Laundromat. The sound goes in and out. It is hands down the worst attempt at a film I have ever seen. A future PA in the making? Maybe all the other actresses in New York did know something I didn’t know.

Stomach Ruins Performance

Published December 14, 2008 acting , comedy , show business , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Some days even Ms. Cranky can’t be cranky. Like yesterday, working with a gifted young filmmaker, who I love, love. Love. Everything flows. There’s no tension. It’s all good vibes and very efficient, but done in a gentle way. A female director. Love that.

I’ve worked with her a few times. Sometimes I’ve read a script she’s given me and thought, “How the hell is she gonna do that?” And she does. Easy. Like pulling a star out of the sky and walking down the street with it. I swear. With no budget. Yea! Love this kid.   She’s all imagination.

But I will admit, since this is anonymous, that I broke method for vanity yesterday. When I got zapped with the laser beams coming out of the male leads eyes, (STOP LAUGHING!) I was supposed to fall dead on the floor. Falls are no problem. I took classes at Martha Graham. Everybody was always falling all over the place. So I fall. Dead. I broke method when it came to the close up of me lying on the floor. I held my stomach in. I mean I was wearing a Lycra top, lying on my side, and I could feel the remnants of Thanksgiving spilling out and creating a little pouf. I KNOW DEAD PEOPLE DON’T HOLD IN THEIR STOMACHS. I decided to risk it and do it anyway, and not have the poufy stomach on film for everlasting eternity. I really hope you can’t tell, because if you can, I will look like a real retard, you know? People will be watching thinking, “Oh, the dead body still wants to look good. That’s weird. Vanity after death.” Or maybe vanity before reality? Don’t tell Mr. Inscrutable. He won’t talk to me for another eight years.

Audience Turns Into Snoring Contest

Published December 13, 2008 acting , comedy , show business , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Matinees always suck. The energy is weird. The audience is weird. You have to comp old age homes to get people in the seats. One matinee, there was an elderly couple asleep in the front row throughout the whole show. Front and center, you couldn’t miss them. The man let out an occasional snore. Really made you feel good about what you were doing. One of the actors in the show kept pacing backstage and saying, “ What I want to know is…if they are BOTH sleeping, whose idea was it to GO OUT? Huh? Whose idea was it to GO OUT?”

At another matinee, I was working on an experimental theater piece where the main character dragged herself around the stage and drooled the entire show. I remember watching spit strings the were lit up by the stage lights slowly coming out of her mouth and stringing themselves down to the floor. I heard shuffling in the audience and a bunch of EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE MES, as some people left while the show was in progress. While other audience members were shushing them for making a commotion as they left. They were once again front and center. WHY WHY WHY? Inspiring, huh? Can you imagine doing that? I recently sat through a musical written by a non-musical playwright that was scary bad and my friend and I wouldn’t leave DURING INTERMISSION because we were in the first row center and we wouldn’t do that to the actors. We would never leave those two seats front row empty for the world, and especially the actors to see.

So, anyway, after the show, I met a couple of friends for a bite to eat down the block. When I walked in, two elderly women looked at me and said. “OH. YOU WERE IN THAT SHOW!” I answered, “Ah, yea.” “OH HONEY,” THEY SAID, “WE HAD TO LEAVE. WE’RE SQUEAMISH. BUT YOU WERE GOOD. YEA, WE LIKED YOU. BUT WE COULDN’T STAY. WE CAN’T WATCH SOMETHING LIKE THAT.”

Now my question is, why did they even tell me? Wouldn’t it have been better not to bring it up?   Did they have to bring it up? I wouldn’t have recognized THEM.

Famous Actor Follows Breast Around All Day

Published December 12, 2008 acting , comedy , show business , Uncategorized 3 Comments
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There is a pecking order on large films. There are people who count and people who don’t. This was never more apparent then when I did stand-in and extra work for a period film. I had to be dressed by a wardrobe woman in an authentic turn of the century outfit. It was very very very hot. Only the craft services room had air conditioning. We were in an old school building in Jersey,

One morning, the wardrobe woman was dressing me. We were in a stifling, small; closet sized, dressing room that was created by curtains. I had on tights, a black satin skirt and she had just finished tying up the corset, when she heard the lead actor’s voice outside. He was the latest himbo. She heard him and just flew out of the dressing room and left me there. All the wardrobe women were standing around admiring the new bloomers they had made for him. I’m not kidding. Bloomers.

I’m dying. It’s stifling. I can’t get the blouse on by myself. I’m waiting. I’m waiting. I can’t go out there. I’m in a corset. I can’t breathe. I’m dying. The corset is synched so tight I couldn’t slouch and I didn’t know if laughing was a possibility. Unfortunately, I am well endowed, and a corset makes large girls look gargantuan. They are pushed up to my chin. I finally can’t stand it anymore, and quietly walk out of the dressing room.   Wardrobe woman glances at me and says’ “Oh, sorry.” Like she forgot I was in there. She was mesmerized by the bloomers. She goes back to admiring the bloomers and their contents.

I try to act casual and not attract attention. Unfortunately, the corset makes unobtrusiveness impossibility. Himbo is staring. He says, “Hello.” I say hey and look annoyed and turn away. Stupid men love you when you ignore them; I learned that in high school when the most popular guy in tow towns was dating me. I used to say, “Go away” a lot. He became obsessed.

So that did it. Himbo makes eye contact with me the rest of the morning. Introduces himself. He actually sits with me at lunch! I kid you not. Himbos don’t sit with extras. He carries a Leica with him, and he takes my picture as I’m sitting across from him and we chat. One of the supporting actresses comes over and sits next to me because she wants to be near him. She actually tells him what a great body he has. “You do, you really do”, she says. I find this kind of embarrassing and repulsive all rolled into one. The minute I finish my lunch I jump up and toss my tray and head out of there. Himbo looks confused that I would walk away. But as impressive as all this sounds, I saw him the week before trailing another extra he took a liking to. He never noticed me that day. Oh no, not until the girls came marching out.

Callback Disrupted By Hat

Published December 11, 2008 acting , auditions , comedy , show business , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Had a callback yesterday for a film. The director was having me read with an actress who is already cast. You could tell she was already cast, as she felt no need to impress anyone and was 20 minutes late.

We go into the room where we’re going to film the audition and she sits down and she is wearing a kinda huge, loud plaid hat pulled down over her eyebrows. I’m going to be reading an emotional scene where my son is in a coma and I’m not feeling the hat.   Who wears a hat at an audition? The hat had nothing to do with her character or the scene. THE HAT WAS TAKING OVER. I ask; “Ah, um, would you possibly, ah, would it be ok if you took off the hat?” “NO”, she says and looks uncomfortable. Ok, so I’ll do the scene with the hat. “I’d just like to see your face.” I say. “Oh” she says and pushes it up above her eyebrows. Then she says; “I’m not emotionally prepared or anything. I mean I’m not ready to really do the scene. I don’t think I’m going to be able to give you anything.”

Did she just fall in here unsuspecting off the sidewalk? Did she not know she was coming? I tell her, “Just relax and be natural and don’t push, it’s OK.” Even when people are obnoxious you have to help them because otherwise it will screw you up.

After we read, we are and walking out together I ask her if she is having a bad hair day.   For the first time she becomes animated and says; “YES! I got up today and just decided fuck it, and I didn’t wash my hair. THAT’S WHY I’M WEARING THE HAT!” I tell her I did the same thing because it’s raining. Washing your hair on a rainy day and going to a film audition is artistic suicide. Guaranteed big frizzy hair – bad on camera. “I flat ironed dirty hair before I came here” I say. “YOU DID?” She says with an amazed AH-HAH look on her face like that is the most ingenious thing she’s ever heard. I think I just saved the next person she will audition with from THE HAT.

Acting Teacher Comments Fat Ass or No Fat Ass?

Published December 10, 2008 acting , comedy , Uncategorized 2 Comments
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I continue to go to acting class. Keep going because if I don’t I will become a hack due to the level of directors I generally work with who love, love love blocking. Have a great but extremely inscrutable teacher. Like he didn’t say hello to me for the first like eight years. Chose him because I no longer wanted a teacher who wanted to get inside my head. I know a teacher who announced the first day of class; “I’m going to mind fuck every one of you.” They ask you what sad experience you are thinking about in a scene. They can get really personal. I had had it with that, and Mr. Inscrutable is perfect for me. And like every other young actress, I fell in love with my first acting teacher and felt like a complete idiot for doing so. So a man who won’t even say hello to me is a really good thing. If your work isn’t what it should be he actually gets angry. Which seems horrible. But it’s really a great thing. Because what most of the world views as silly, in his class becomes IMPORTANT.

Last night an actress in class who is on network TV right now started babbling before she would even start her scene. She was eating a lot and she couldn’t figure out why. “I can’t believe it. I was over a friend’s house and I ate popcorn and candy and I would never do that. Then when I’m on set, I take big plates of cookies back to my dressing room and I eat them all. I had a fitting with wardrobe, and a pair of pants that fit me two weeks ago, don’t fit anymore. I can’t figure out what is going on with me, I stopped my scene partner in the middle of Union Square and made him look at my butt and tell me if it’s big or not. I don’t even know what I really look like. And I haven’t been exercising either. I don’t know what is going on. What do you think? Is it Ok?” Mr. Inscrutable is looking confused and uncomfortable with this line of questioning. All he says is, “AS LONG AS YOU DON’T BLOW UP.”

I get him talking about a famous actor who was in that week’s New York Times Magazine. He seems nutty. Mr. Inscrutable says; “He was a fabulous actor, really had something and then he decided he was a STAR. He was working on a movie and wouldn’t come out of his trailer for two days. Well the financing for the movie came from someone “connected”, so two very large men came and knocked on his trailer door and explained to him why he needed to go back to work. They were huge.” Can you believe that? It doesn’t just happen in Woody Allen movies.

Audition for “30 Rock”?!!

Published December 6, 2008 acting , auditions , comedy , show business 1 Comment
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Another actor blog? I promise not to do the usual “Wow, I got a CALLBACK CALLBACK CALLBACK!!” type of actor blog.  ‘Cause that would make me NAUSEOUS NAUSEOUS NAUSEOUS!!  No, there will be no headshot included, or link to my online videos.  My name will be fictionalized so I can actually tell the truth and not try to sound LIKE I’M DOING REALLY WELL.  No, there will be true unglossified stories of auditions and weirdness that is a part of my life.

I got from a casting director on a Saturday asking me if I was interested in a doing a bit on a major prime time hit television show. Ah yea, the answer would be yes! Opposite a major “Mad Men” star. OMG!! Could I meet the director on Monday morning at 10am at Silvercup Studios? Ah ah ah the D D D D D Director?

Now, I don’t get to meet directors of hit sitcoms. No no no, I’m the queen of student films. I planned my outfit, went to Hop Stop to figure out how to get there. Skipped that. Took a car. Stressed about the fact that I had a paying job in Manhattan that started at 11am. Hmmm. The money gig versus the audition is a very clear case of bird in hand.

The first sign that this wasn’t going to be the appointment I expected, was when I was sent to sit in a big barren “holding room” that is used for holding extras and was also a sad-looking cafeteria with that horrid cafeteria smell. Two other women up for the same role were already there, reading their newspapers. An uncommunicative PA came in the room and had us fill out papers. When I told him I had to leave by 10:30 because I had work, his response was; “What you’d do that for?” Then one of the actresses tells me she once waited 10 hours to see Robert DeNiro. Eh? I’m starting to vibrate with anxiety about being late for my freelance gig. Freelance means they are always free to hire someone else. The PA ignores me until my stares finally elicit a response and he talks on his walkie-talkie and tells me to follow him. We go down to the offices. When we get off the elevator he points to a couch and says very firmly; “Sit there.” What does he think I’m gonna do? Run around and ransack the offices? Try and do monologues for any living moving person I can find? Shove headshots at people? After a few minutes, a woman, I think she is the 2nd A.D., sticks her head out of her office door and says; “They changed the script over the weekend. She’s a shriveled old woman now. You can go.” You can go!! YOU CAN GO? No sorry you had to come all the way here?” No consideration of the fact that Silvercup Studios is NOT CONVENIENTLY LOCATED!! Oh no. Just: “YOU CAN GO”. Nice. I ran to the train and luckily one pulled in right away. Ran from the subway to the job and made it. In what universe are people this rude? The acting universe. In ten seconds, the excitement of prime time, director, working opposite star are out the window with one sentence from a nameless woman.

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