I work long hours. I come home. I eat dinner, watch TV, check my e-mail, then go to sleep. In between all of these activities, I'll surf the internet, chat with Tom, IM with friends, play Scrabulous on Facebook, and keep up on the news.
And this, my friends, consists of my decadent Hollywood lifestyle. According to many people outside of this inside 'burg, as an actor who (shock! horror!) works behind the scenes in reality television, I should be snorting coke off of the taut and tawny buttocks of some hot 22-year-old Panamanian hustler as I engage in unprotected sex with many, many partners as I alternately piss on the Bible while lecturing commoners about how green they should live. Well, sorry to disappoint you all, but I don't do any of these things.
Boring, huh?
See, here's the hidden secret about how Hollywood really operates. No, I'm not talking about the crap you see on "Entourage" or whatever fucked up trouble La Spears has gotten into today. What really makes the entertainment industry function out here is... well, it's work. It's people getting up very early in the morning to take a shower, slurp down some coffee and drive to work, just like everyone else. Except in this case, their office is a commercial set in some run down section of North Hollywood, making sure all the equipment is put into its right place. Or they go off to their cramped little casting office, looking through headshots on their computer for 12 hours a day, trying to cast a bunch of 2 line roles for a soap opera. Or, in my case most of the time, driving all the way across town every morning to sit at an IKEA desk, watching footage on my computer, trying to make sense out of random footage and form it into a cohesive story for your amusement. Or, in my case some of the time, it's me driving across town in order to read a couple of lines for a commercial audition and make them believable and spontaneous and funny... or to read for that aforementioned casting associate for a 5 line role on a quirky dramatic series.
This is what my life is like... as it is for everyone else here in Los Angeles in the industry. We work. It's not glamorous. It's not pretty. It's not all together clean. And yet... it's awesome. It's amazing. It's everything I've ever wanted and more. Yes, I'm not a big celebrity with millions of dollars, but every day, I go to my day job, knowing that I'm working on a TV show that will put smiles on millions of people's faces. Even though I am pulling at least 55 hours at work this week, I know I'd rather be doing this as my day job than anything else. With the writers' strike showing no foreseeable end in sight, working in a day job in reality TV seems like one of the safest bets in town.
So, in the meantime, what do I do with my time? I work. I watch movies with Tom and friends. I have the occasional brunch. I work. I go to auditions. I get stuck in traffic. I work. I surf the web. And I work. Oh, and sleep.
That is my decadent Hollywood lifestyle.
Recent Comments