My first acting role was the one of the monsters in "Where The Wild Things Are" when I was in first grade. I had a puppet made from a brown paper bag and some construction paper. It was a lot of fun. I then performed it again on my front porch for the neighbor kids later on that day. That was my first taste.
During grade school, I would read aloud in class, do readings at church, and act in skits during Indian Guide outings. In the summer between the 6th & 7th grades, I took a French class. Our final involved performing a poem for a live audience about kids who had green beans growing out of their ears because they refused to bathe. I was nervous performing in front of a rather large group of people. I confessed as much to my dad afterwards.
"Really?" he asked. "You seemed so calm... like you were talking to the U.N. or something."
It was not something I was expected my dad to say. "Huh", I thought, "Maybe I can do this." I auditioned for my first play in the 7th grade. I didn't get the part. I auditioned for another play in the 8th grade. I didn't get that part either.
High school was a completely different matter. My school did 11 plays a year. Let that sink in for a second. 11 plays, every year. And four of them were directed by students. Looking back on it now, I am absolutely stunned that we had such an amazing opportunities. In my high school career, I did acted in 11 plays -- playing bit parts to some meaty supporting roles. But never the lead. I also participated in Speech Team, winning some awards along the way.
Through theater, I learned the basics for acting, storytelling, improv, creating characters, comedic timing and working in an ensemble. By competing for roles early on (and also competing on Speech Team), I learned you aren't going to get every part. Not everything goes your way all the time, and that's okay. Play the long game, not the short one.
My first two years of college, I was a film major. But during that time, I did community theater. Some of it was decent, some of it was amazing. I was also taking acting classes and performing in an improv troupe at school. After a while, I had "Mission Creep": I was taking less and less film classes and more and more theater classes. It was getting pretty obvious that I was no longer interested in being a filmmaker; I wanted to act, damn it. So I switched my major to theater, thinking "That's it; I found my calling. I am an actor."
This was 21 years ago.
I had a pretty stellar acting career in college, scoring some great roles, doing some amazing work, and making solid friendships that I hold dearly to this very day. I graduated college knowing that I was going to have to bust my ass and prove myself. For the next 3 1/2 years, I did a lot of theater in Chicago. I took acting classes. I studied and graduated from the Training Center of Second City. I got my first agent. I did some good theater, some shitty theater and some wonderful theater. I did a couple non-union commercials, a couple short films and a lead role in an indie film.
I was also quite unhappy.
I was getting enough stuff to keep me interested but nothing that would pay the bills strictly from acting. And the auditions for me in Chicago were rare. At the time, the market was very conservative; most of the roles being offered were for bland corporate types. I walk in as the goofy guy with curly hair, and no one knew what to do with me. So, in 1999, Tom and I moved to Los Angeles. A former agent of mine in Chicago became my manager in LA, and he set me up with some interviews at a couple agencies. Two were interested, I picked one, and I was off auditioning for commercials -- two weeks after I'd arrived. [Those were the only two weeks that I didn't have an agent in the past 16 years.] I was flush with commercial auditions but I really wanted was to be on a TV show. After a year in LA, I landed my first union gig which helped open the doors for TV auditions.
You know how some celebrities say that they got their big break because they had good timing? Well, I had horrible timing. See, I'm built for sitcoms. Multi-camera sitcoms. And by 2000, comedies were on the wane, and procedural cops shows and serious shows were on the rise. I'd walk in for an audition or I'd meet a casting director at a workshop and I could tell they had no idea what to do with me. "You're really funny", "You have such an interesting look", "You really bring something different to the table." I'd hear all of these and I knew that meant it was a "No." For years, I would book a commercial or two, maybe a 2 line role on a TV show here or there, but that's it. Fortunately, the commercials were quite lucrative and that helped keep me interested in sticking it out. They would be enough of a carrot to keep me interested.
During this time, I was taking a variety of acting classes: commercial technique, Meisner technique, Viewpoints. And workshops; I took so many casting director workshops.
Fortunately during all of this, I worked in reality television. [How I got into that can be found here.] I was able to pay my bills and supplement my income by working in television. To be honest, I have always LOVED television. So, the fact that I get to make TV while trying to acting in TV did make me smile.
A couple years ago, the commercial auditions started drying up. My commercial agent at the time suggested I get new headshots. I complied; went to the photographer they wanted, they picked out the pics... and I got nothing. I started taking voiceover classes as well, and really fell in love with it. I plopped about $1200 down to get a VO demo done. Last year I got a new manager after being without one for over a decade. He's a great guy and super gung ho. He was getting some auditions for me that my representation seemed unable or unwilling to get. And he also firmly believed that my future was in doing voiceover, specifically animation. He was trying to get me into a better voiceover agency from where I was at. It's all about access in this town, and if your representation doesn't have proper access then you are going to fester. And I was festering; I was getting some stray auditions, but nothing was landing. I hadn't booked a paying acting gig in about 2 years.
During this period, another mission creep happened. I started taking less and less acting classes. I was also doing some really fun and involving reality television producing work, but I was still calling myself an actor... mostly because that's how I defined myself. I'd been doing it so long, why would I define myself as anything else?
This past June, on the same day that DOMA and Prop 8 were overturned, my manager sent me an email, asking if we could talk. My heart sank; I knew this couldn't be good news. We talked during lunch, and he said that since he wasn't making any money off of me, it's time to maybe "rethink the relationship." When I asked him about other voiceover agencies, he said that they claimed my demo didn't show enough range... so I'd have to redo my demo. With the thought that I'd have to plop down another $1200-1600 for a new demo, this thought came crystal clear from my gut:
I. CAN'T. DO. THIS. ANYMORE.
It was simple, direct. And I felt it. I can't do this anymore. I can't bring myself to try to be a full-time actor guy anymore. It's not worth it to me. I can't put myself through the bullshit of fighting for a 3-line role on some random TV show anymore. I can't put myself through sitting through another casting director workshop to have some bitter casting associate say I'm like Fozzie Bear (which happened, by the way, and fuck her very much). I'm over it, I'm done. It's all behind me.
My manager asked for me to sit on this for a week to make sure I wasn't doing anything rash. I did. He called me a week later and then told him that I need to step away from all this. When I did that, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I felt free. I was producing TV full time for several years now, and it was fun! [ETA - it still is!] I was working a creative job in a field I loved and I was making good money doing it. And what's wrong with that? Nothing. Not a damn thing. I wasn't an actor anymore; I'm a TV producer.
About two months later, I got a call out of the blue from my manager. He said that a very respectable voiceover agency heard my demo and wanted to meet with me. At first I rolled my eyes and thought "No. I'm not putting myself through this again." But I then thought, well... it couldn't hurt. I'll meet with them. If I do like what they're saying, I'll say no. I already had before, I can do it again.
I took the meeting with a warmth and confidence I hadn't felt in ages. "Oh, you're going to ask me to something I don't want? Fuck you, I make TV for a living, I don't need this BS..." I took the meeting, and the folks I met had a very different approach. Instead of looking at me at a commodity to help beef up their portfolio, they saw me as an asset they were missing. They liked my quality, they liked my talent, they liked I what I bring to the table. Based on that approach, I said yes to them.
I'm still working in reality TV but now a couple times a week I pop into their office and record some voiceover auditions. I don't know if I'll end up with a career in voiceover or not. Instead of being an actor who works in TV to pay the bills, I'm a TV producer who does some acting on the side. And I couldn't be happier.
<3
Posted by: Scribblegurl | May 29, 2015 at 09:04 PM