Thursday, July 28, 2011

A Starving Artist For Only $19.99 (+ S/H)

Every actor has this fear that they're going to be offered a project that they don't necessarily support, and I feel as if the fear only grows when it comes to commercials.

This could mean being on a Pro Life-commercial when you're staunchly Pro Choice, talking about the wonder that is the medicine that you're on (for Herpes...when you don't really have it, but it now seems as if you do to the entire rest of the world), or just generally promoting a product that you know from personal experience absolutely sucks.

The fear can be pseudo large and pretty legitimate. I mean, is a grand really worth it?  Seventeen grand?

...Three hundred dollars?

What do you do?

And then, beyond that, there are just certain commercial platforms that seem 100% taboo--like "Why in the hell would I ever want to shoot something like that?  Embarrassing."

Most specifically:  the infomercial.

Somewhere, there is a woman who is driving her kid to her first date at a miniature golf course/crock potting dinner/buying a pair of Jimmy Choos/blowing lines, and this woman has the "privilege" of saying that she paraded around in Pajama Jeans on an infomercial.  Saucily. 

Someone somewhere has "Fallen, and they can't get up."

Someone somewhere has enthusiastically chugged a Magic Bullet-smoothie, ShamWowwed the hell out of the hood of their car, donned a Bump-It in their hair before a manufactured night out with an imaginary group of girls, and all with a thumbs-up and a series of nods of approval to the camera.

"This product is genius--and so am I!"

...This happens.  Obviously.  And we all know it, because we see these people constantly, and point and laugh and say "HaHA!  That looks dumb."

Well, imagine my surprise this past Friday when my manager sent out an email saying that they had a last minute infomercial project come up and that the shoot would be on Monday "Would anyone be interested in helping out?"...and that I replied YES!!!!!  before I really got the chance to think about what I was signing on for.

And then all of a sudden...all of a sudden, I'm about to become "that girl".  ...Hmph.

That.  Girl.

Who's on the wrong bus heading towards Jersey at 8am.  Then stranded in the middle of a mall parking lot with 5 (perfectly nice) strangers at 8:30.  Then picked up by a director--tan, floppy blonde hair and shades--in his jeep and escorted to the studio smack in the middle of a quiet unassuming little suburb.

(So far...so far all of this seems exactly precisely right.)

And it's all there:

The super bright ready-to-go "kitchen", complete with dishwasher sink stove oven big fat fridge and the longest countertop on an island you've ever seen.

The super bright ready-to-go "bedroom".

The super bright ready-to-go "laundry space"  (with shelves lined with canisters of OxyClean..."This is where Billy Mays shot, ya know.").

All roped off, but all absolutely poised and on the ready, available at any time...for magic.

And then there--off in a little room all by itself--was the display desk.  The infamous display desk where said presenter presents the product surrounded by a bunch of women who ask silly questions, only to nod with approval to the camera in front of them when they discover that "Yes, grape juice really does lift off of your whites in a snap! when you use blahblahblah!!!"

Crazy crazy business.

But there it was, all right there in front of me.  And I had to shake my head a few times to actually convince myself of what I was about to do--This is so silly!!!--but then kinda stepped back and thought about it for a second, and went Meh.  Or maybe not.  It's still a gig, and maybe...maybe it's actually fine.

...

Surprises are always nice.

I like em.  Specifically when I've walked into a situation not feeling stellar, and I get this little surprise of "pleasant" thrown my way.

So, it was nice to realize that the product I was promoting was actually really kinda cool.  (A bit of a glorified spy-tool to use on your kids...but pretty damn clever just the same.)

Even more nice:  I was going to be acting!  Like for real!  Nothing shmaltzy smile-wink-nod-like, but like actually something character-driven:  a TESTIMONIAL!!!  I GET TO DO A TESTIMONIAL!!!  SWEET!!!!

...As the mother of an 8 year-old boy. ... 8.

"You don't quite look old enough to have a teenager yet,"  (THANKS!!!...) "But...yeah, 8 should work."

(Arrrrrrgh.)

"So, Angela, how many kids do you have?"

...Wait.  Really?

"Yeah!  You do...?"

Nooooo.  No.  I don't.  ...Yet.

 "Oh.   ...You married?"

Nooooo...

"Oh.  ...You're not even thirty yet, are you?"

Nope, not quite.

"Hmph."
 (What the hell does that mean?! ...These are just not the kind of complexes I was expecting to have on the set of an infomercial.)

And yet there I am, requestioning my life choices, as per.

Am I going to have to bounce an 8 year-old on my knee throughout said testimonial?

Do I have to give the camera a thumbs-up and a wink?

Do I have to fake cry?

Will I be the one offering this product up to the American infomercial-watching audience with the utmost enthusiasm screaming "And if you act now, you'll get a complimentary green tea moisturizer from Proactiv!  Six month's worth, yours for only an additional $14.95!" ?!

Where's Richard Simmons?  Suzanne Sommers?!  WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE?!

I wait a series of hours before they film my testimonial--the last segment of the day.  And I'm walking away from the make-up chair towards the ready-to-go "bedroom" in my Mommy-appropriate T-shirt and jeans, but with a mug that looked like a cross between a drag queen and a Bratz-doll (I really don't think I'd trust any testimonial from any mother of an 8 year-old who looks like this.  I wouldn't.)  and I pause.

You DID sign-up for this--voluntarily.

There ARE moms who look like you, with this...face on--just not in Park Slope.

These people are NICE, they gave you COFFEE...and it's a GIG, ANGELA!!!

Get over yourself and do the damn thing, and act the part--without judgement.  No. Judgement.

...

And honestly?  It really wasn't bad.  It wasn't.  At the end of the day, it was a pretty mellow shoot (and yes, that in itself was a huge surprise) promoting a pretty decent product, and it was a pretty good time.

It was work.  Work I could, at the end of the day, legitimately find a way to get behind. And I did.

I have to believe that that will always be the most important thing to this business, for me anyway:  Can I actually find a way to get behind this?

If I can, then where's the problem?  There simply isn't one.

If I can't...

...Well then how far will I go?  How much will I just suck it up?

When would it just not be worth it anymore?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

A Starving Artist Is a Hot Mess.

Here's one of the zillions of reasons why this city is so great:
Whereas New York is an absolute mecca for fashion and beauty and all things "Lookin gooooooood!"-related, there are just a few times of year when all of that absolutely goes out the window.  Because it has to.

A)  The Stupid Rainy Season.
      I'm walking everywhere--I need galoshes, I need an obnoxiously large umbrella, and, at some point, I know that I am going to be caught off-guard without these things and looking like a drowned rat.  ...Why even try to look cute?  I'm not.  I won't.

B)  The Snowy/Hell Freezeth Over Season.
      I am woolen, I am layered, I am Jack's Brooklynite Yetti--and it's fine.  I'm not freezing.  ...I may look frumpy and glo-worm-like, but I'm not freezing.

-AND (lastly)-

C)  ...The Season of the Infamous Oppressive HeatWave.
      ...
 
      Now:
      This one is arguably the funniest to me.  The best and the funniest.  Why?  Because absolutely everyone gives up.  EVERYone.  It matters not who you are, where you're going, what you did--this almost became a Backstreet Boys-song, I'm sorry--you have stopped trying.  (...Too much, anyway.)  And why?

To do otherwise takes too much effort--effort which may, in fact, be futile.

Why put on a cute dress if you're just gonna sweat your way through in it minutes?

Why bother to do your hair if it's just gonna end up frizzing itself out into a three-foot-wide monstrosity the moment you leave your apartment?

Why wear heels or jewelry or glasses or underwear or life if...if...it just sucks and it's too hot to bother to strap it all on?!

Answer:  don't.  Don't do any of it.

I have no idea exactly what it is about being in a city that's typically so caught up in its own "image" and just seeing it kind of let go of itself and get lazy that's so hilarious and kind of (very) liberating to me--but it is.  It totally is.
  
Examples (...of the week...from personal experience...):
*My gym became a ghost town overnight.  My little typically flooded gym smack in the middle of NoHo--absolutely no one is there, all week--except for me (which might mean that I'm crazy...)...

*In one day--four-and-a-half hours, actually--I pass by three different drag queens at random in entirely different spots of the city.  Not a one of them was wearing an ounce of make-up.


*Audition #1:  Equity-audition, and everyone is dressed down and in billowy loose things and flip flops.  Girls are casting sideways "Ew"-glances at my heels.  My heels. (...Fuck em.)


*Audition #2:  On-camera audition, and everyone is dressed even more down...and taking turns sticking paper towels up their shirts in the lobby.
              "Does this shirt look wet to you?"
                    "...Um...you know, kinda..."
              "You know what, I don't even care.  I don't even care."


*There are lines outside of Tasti-Dee...for breakfast.


*"What'd you do last night?"
              "Nothing."
                      "I didn't leave my bedroom.  I couldn't."
              "Me neither.  It's the only room with an AC-unit."
                      "Same."
                                "I spent the night at my friend's house."
              "Fun!"
                      "Because he has central air."
              "....Ohhh.  ...Have fun?"
                      "We just sat.  And drank...water."
              "Hmph."


*My motor skills leave me entirely and I develop the astonishing skill of dropping things directly into my non-existent cleavage...and finding that they stick there...and I don't find myself rushing to do too much about it.


*Everyone.  And everyTHING.  Is late.  The trains, audition times, reservations...delivery guys...my realization that I haven't been drinking any water...which is why I can't sit up straight and feel like yacking...


*"Want a fudgsicle?"
              "It's just too far away."  (...It's in the next room...).


*Hey.
              "Hey.  ...Roomie."
How was your...day?
              "Um.... I think...good...".
Good.
              "...Yours?"
...Ohmygodidontthinki even remember.  Really."
               "Mmhmm."
...
...Are you just really stupid tired?  I am like.  So tired."
                "Yeaaaaaah, I think I might like.  Go to bed."
Me too.
                "...Dude, we're the lamest.  It's 8:30."
I can't--I mean...I know...


*The number of bra-less and bathing-suit-top-as-bra-women in the city have increased...dramatically.


*"The freezer and the low-boy are both broken.  We have no ice cream, we have no unspoiled milk and the juice smells like death."
                  Oh no.
  "Nothing for anyone.  Like, maybe just...alcohol?"
                  Hmph.
  "Yeah.  ...Should we, like, fix it?"
  ...
 "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"


*... ...  ....."Dude.  It's been 15 minutes.  We have not moved or spoken."
 I know.
                "We seriously should just go to bed.  This is heinous."
I just--it's so far...


Slugs.
We become a society of slugs.  All worker bees and show ponies alike.

It's as if we're handed this entirely different kind of universal struggle--and goddammit, I find it glorious and hilarious and so entirely unglamorous...that that only makes it greater.

I LOVE this shit!

And, ahmunna say this:
       We're allowed to say that it's hot.  We are.  Because it is.  Maybe don't look at it as if we're saying "I'm so much hotter than YOU are."  (dear folks on Facebook who have had such a problem with anyone publicly complaining about the heat...I mean really...).   Maybe, for once, we can accept that everyone's just trying to say:
        "Holy fuckballs.  It's hot.  I am so hot--AREN'T YOU?!"

        "ISN'T EVERYONE?!"

        "...Want a blotting paper?  You can have mine, because I...I don't even care.  I just don't care anymore."

Friday, July 8, 2011

A Starving Artist Meets a Lull.

So, I signed.

It felt great.  It felt really really stupid great.  And right.  And I walked out of that office, and it was ninety-seven ridiculous degrees outside and I had sweat and iced coffee seeping out of my pores and felt gross and sticky and like I was melting into a puddle of pasty white girl around my flip flops.

And clearly--clearly--I just didn't even sort of care.

I was so OFFICIAL.  Like ALL of a sudden.  The world kicked ass and I was suddenly kicking so much ass in it--kick ass!!!!!

And then, over the next seven days, I had like six auditions and a big fat meeting with a big fat agency that went so so super well--well enough that they said "Freelance with me?"  and I of course went GREAT!!!  and then there I was AGAIN!  Ninety-seven degrees outside, parading around in blissful disgustingly sweaty Anthropologie-clad post-sex-like oblivion as if I owned the freaking city.

Because I felt like it!!!!!  I felt like I did!!!!

THIS, I thought, THIS is what my life is about to become and it's AMAZING!!!  THINGS ARE SOOOOOO HAPPENINGGGGGGG!!!!!

...

In two weeks, I have had three auditions.

Three.

Two weeks.

I have only been signed for four weeks, and suddenly, I'm like No.  No.  What have I done wrong?!  (Somehow, having any number of auditions can be "wrong" all of a sudden...fine...).  This can't be right at all.  This is not what it was looking like.  Originally.

I signed.

And I cut my hair.  (Two inches...)

But...we promised.  Like, we're contracted now, and that means that we're supposed to be doing lots of stuff and lots of auditioning like all of the time!  Right?  Doesn't it?... 

...So...

And we as actors do that stupid thing.  That stupid thing that's only meant to be nice and just, like, conversation, but always turns into making someone ultimately feel...dumb:

"So, what have you been up to?  Have you been working on anything lately?"

Always.  Whenever you see someone out, at an audition, at a bar, wherever, when it's clearly been awhile:  "So, got anything cool lined up?  Staying busy?"

And you're not doing it to be a dick (...I'm not anyway...), but you're doing it just to chat.  And to give them the opportunity to say "Actually, YEAH, I have been!"  Which is great.

It is.

...

It's great when they've been staying busy--and aren't represented by the same person that you are, and aren't going on four times the auditions as you are per week, and haven't booked like five things in the past month and a half. 

When they are and have been...ok no.  No.  Still great--just, kinda, maddening.  A little.

(...A lot.)

BUT!  Different paths, different people. 

OK.  You are 5'10" and gorgeous and a buck-three.  I'm...not.  And that's fine!  Our markets are just...different.  That's all.  That's why.  ...Right?  Right.

And youuuuu arrrrrrrrre forty.  And ethnic-looking and gorgeous.  Again, I'm not.  So...there's that.

But...


But.  Goddammit please tell me that I'm still doing ok.  Please tell me that in this two weeks of quiet that there hasn't suddenly been some kind of "What the shit are we doing kidding ourselves with this girl?!" that's come over my manager.  Or this new agency.  Or this OTHER agency.  That's just impossible, right?

RIGHT?!

...

And in my brain, wayyyy in the back, I know that it's just my neuroses that's been doing all of the talking.  That stupid panic and neuroticism that comes over you when you want something so badly to just fucking work in your favor.  I know this.

I know that I had plenty of weeks of quiet before I was signed.  And it was never a problem then.  I never questioned then whether it was the breakdowns or my lack of talent that was making for a quiet week.  For real--for REAL:  WHY should it be a problem now?!

(Fact:  ...Goddamn I use a lot of caps and underlininess when I'm feeling emphatic.  Hmph...).


So, yes.  I've been feeling Yikes-like.

I finally finally finally got together with a sweet lovely dear friend today who I've been playing tag with for weeks, and immediately following a guessing game as to the name of his soon-to-be-born daughter (Cordelia?..."Awww, cute name.  Nope." ... Ivy? ..."Cute.  Two syllables, yeah. ...Nope."  ... ...Moses? ... "Ooooooh...."), we launched into this whole discussion.  And:

"No."
What?
"No.  It's fine, Angela, you're totally fine."
No!  But...no.  I don't know.
"Yessss you do."
Guhhhhhhhhhhhh.
"Angela, I've lived here for seven years and I never've gone out on like six auditions a week.  That's crazy!  If I got two, that was good."
...OK...
"Aaaaaaaand you're still a baby."
...
WHAT?!  NO!
"Girl!  Have you even been here for two years yet?"
...Next month.
"And you've done anything already?!  You're fine."  

And that is a very very very nice thing to say, and I honestly forget that I'm almost still kinda new-ish, and I do forget that Oh yeah, I totally have done stuff because I am 100% impatient with myself and an embarrassing gross kind of perfectionist where I feel like I need to be able to do absolutely everything absolutely all of the time and all at once.  And well.

...I don't cut myself any slack all that often.  I potentially should.

And I swear to you, I was so so thoroughly aware a freaking month ago of that whole concept that everything is just supposed to happen in its Time.  In due Time.  When it's ready, when it's yours, it'll happen.  In Time, I knew that.

But.  Goddammit.

You sign this piece of paper--and that's really all it is, paper--and it's all of a sudden as if Time is not the thing that matters anymore.

But Results sure do.  A lot.

...Which is just crazy, right?
 
Because Results for who?  Who exactly is it that I think that I have to prove myself to anymore, anyway?  If I've freelanced, if I've booked, if I've signed...

...

.