Put Me In, Coach

The life of a backup quarterback in the NFL is a lonely one. He must practice just as long and hard during the week, as the rest of the team, yet his chances of playing in the upcoming game are slim to none. And, if by some chance he does play, his notification time is usually nonexistent, as he is suddenly thrust into the game. Here's a question. What is worse than practicing, being ready to play, and then not playing? To me the answer is simple. What's worse is getting to play and not being ready.

Last year was not a very good year for me as an actor. Call it bad economy, fate, whatever, or all three, but it was not a good year. I felt like the backup quarterback sitting on the bench.

Feeling that being ready is the first prerequisite for an actor, I will be making my first trip of the year back to LA and Hollywood in early February. I hope to make four or five such trips this year. I have scheduled two long private lessons with Glenn Haines, my acting coach in Hollywood, and will also be in at least one, and possibly two (one already scheduled and one pending) casting director workshops. The workshops are a wonderful way to do scenes with working LA actors under the sharp eye of a known LA casting director. I have worked with this casting director before, and his workshops are great fun, as well as being a good learning experience.

Working with Glenn is always a joy and a chore at the same time, as he demands nothing but the best from a student, and is quick to point out to you when you don't give it. He tells you why it wasn't up to par and you do it again until it is. He is a tough and talented acting coach, and that's why I continue to study with him.

I guess, like the backup quarterback, my worst fear is getting to play and not being ready. I have always thought that when you audition for a casting director, you are there with a twofold purpose. One, of course, is to land the role for which you are auditioning, and the other is to do a job which is good enough to earn the right to come back before that same casting director to audition for another role.

When I auditioned for "The Office" it was not my first time before that casting director. Five months earlier, I had auditioned for a small role in "Parks And Recreation" on NBC. I wasn't cast in that show, but was called back by that same casting director to audition for "The Office", in which I was cast. Every audition can serve as a building block to the next audition.

So it's off to LA I go in a few weeks to study and to see some welcome familiar faces. After that...."Put me in, coach."

Later.............

Easy Come....Easy Go.

A few days ago I wrote a rather cryptic blog entry. In it I said "There is indeed work for actors in Seattle after all, and if the actor doesn't go to Hollywood....sometimes Hollywood comes to the actor"

Here now is the story behind that.

Last Monday I auditioned for a role in a vignette. The vignette was four short sketches for an un-named company, charity, organization, whatever (more about that later). The role was choice, the writing was excellent, the audition went well, and two and a half hours after the audition, I received a call from the production company for the project telling me I had been cast in the role. The pay for the role, by Seattle standards, was quite generous

The final script approval had not yet been received and had to come from China, London, and Seattle. To what degree each location had in the script approval, I have no idea. We were not told the name of the organization at the audition.

The production company (which has a lot of good work under its belt) seemed very professional, and very friendly towards actors, and I was looking forward to working with them on the project, which was to have a half day of rehearsal and a full day of shooting next week. "Was looking forward to" is the key phrase, as I received a call this afternoon from the production company telling me that sadly, the shoot had either been postponed or cancelled. The client wasn't sure at this point which it would be. The production company has a long successful history with this client and perhaps the production will live again some day....perhaps not. We'll see.

I have been in this business for awhile and know that things like this happen. It fact it happened to me once before when I was cast in a role and then the plug was pulled on the project before it could start, and another time when the plug was pulled on a film after we had already completed two days of shooting.

As an actor, how do you deal with something like this.? You simply roll with it and move on. In The Office episode I was in, my character had eight lines, all of which were cut (along with the lines of other actors) in post production. Fortunately I still had a good deal of screen time in the episode, just no lines. Again, roll with it and move on. Regardless of the missing lines, I thought my short stint on "The Office" was great fun.

My Point? Actors must be flexible and ready for anything, because in an acting career, "everything" will eventually happen. Best to just enjoy the ride and all the things that ride will bring you. A seasoned actor once told me not to get too high emotionally when things go well, and not too low when they don't. That's good advice.

Auditions in the Seattle area have picked up noticeably in the last six weeks or so, and that is good for everyone in the business in the Northwest.

OK, that takes care of the first half of my cryptic blog entry, but what about the last half about Hollywood coming to the actor.

Before moving to LA, and even more so after moving there, I have been quite fortunate to be a student of acting coach Glenn Haines. Glenn does most of his coaching from his studio in Hollywood, but on rare occasions, still comes to Seattle. He is doing so this weekend and I have a long private lesson scheduled with him. Of course I still make periodic pilgrimages to LA to study with Glenn, and to attend various casting director workshops. Even though I will be seeing Glenn this weekend, I also plan to take my next trip to LA in a few weeks. So, with Glenn, a little bit of Hollywood is coming here. It will be good to work with him again.

Be good to one another and I'll talk with you again as soon as I have something I think is worth saying...........

A Quickie.

Just a short entry to let all know that I will again be appearing on an episode of The Office. It Will be the episode entitled "The Banker" which airs on Thursday, January 21st.

Did I get a call from casting, rush over to wardrobe, sit in the makeup chair, before moving in front of the cameras? No, nothing like that. In "The Banker" will be clips from previous episodes including "Niagara" in which Pam and Jim were married and I played the minister. I signed all the paperwork for "The Banker" yesterday.

Will some of my eight deleted lines be restored in this new episode? I seriously doubt it. Still. it's nice to be seen again.

As a side light I remembered, as I was doing the paperwork for the new episode, something that happened during the shooting of Niagara. As all actors know, there is a lot of waiting when filming any film or TV show. I was standing outside talking with a couple of the background people (The term extra is no longer used). One said to me, "Are you a real minister?" "No," I replied, "I'm an actor." "well, you really look like a minister," they said. Intended or not, that's always a nice thing for an actor to hear, when someone asks if they really are the character they're playing.

Gotta run.

Until next time...........