Sweetie darlings

Well overdue for a new post!  This time I'm not at Fabs, but snuggled up at home in my tracky dacks as the sun sets and Milo - the cat - cleans himself.  He likes to do this at the apex of two doorways, for maximum exposure.

There's something undeniably hilarious about a cat cleaning itself.  I think it's the surrender of dignity for the sake of necessity.  There's just nothing elegant about licking your stomach, let alone the dried up nuggets of fur that used to contain your balls.

So, anyway, I scored the Absolutely Fabulous shoot at USC.  This was an exercise for the director - Michelle - in calling the shots in a studio with three cameras, which is the standard set-up for sitcoms.  The whole class participated, taking on various roles from camera operation to vision switching to looking after the props.  I played Patsy - the Joanna Lumley character - and an American actress, Angela, played Edina.  She did an excellent British accent, in fact I forgot she wasn't English.  We had a ball, lots of sweetie darlings and sipping of sparkling cider (standing in for the Bolly, darling) and physical comedy.  This isn't something I'll be able to add to my reel, but it was such fun, totally worth it.

On Monday night I joined my friend Bruna at a rehearsed reading -  a fundraiser for the Red Cross - of a play called 110 Stories.  It's kind of like The Laramie Project, if any of you know that play.  The script is a series of testimonials from survivors of the 9/11 attacks on New York; from office workers in the two towers, to firemen called to the buildings, and people involved in the clean-up such as a woman working with a cadaver dog (a dog trained to find dead bodies, buried in the rubble) and a masseur who helped treat the firemen, iron workers and other physical labourers on site.  It was fascinating - if a little too long in the end - and gave me insight into aspects of the event and its aftermath that I hadn't considered before.  Such as debris falling from the buildings that flattened people on the street, and the high incidence of lung disease and respiratory problems among those who participated in the clean up.  The air was highly toxic with a cocktail of aviation fuel, dust and the fumes of so much melted metal, glass and plastic.

Tuesday night was my regular acting class: The Sport of Acting.  This week we did an on-camera exercise, taking a significant moment from a monologue we've been working on, and delivering it on camera.  The idea is partly to simulate the experience of the disjointed manner in which film and TV is recorded.  Sometimes you do the wideshot of a scene and then the close-up is done the next day.  Or maybe you start with the close-up, the big moment, then you do the rest of the scene.  So Vinny gave us a workout in finding fast and effective ways to get into that moment, the questions to ask yourself to focus you and remind you where you are and where you're coming from, and tips on creating entry and exit points for maximum effect.  We did several takes, with Vinny coaching, and then watched the difference between our first 'undirected' take and the last, learning along the way how much work we must do as actors to hit the best take.  Ideally, you want to be able to do your best in the first one or two takes because on a TV set particularly (especially as a guest player, as opposed to a series regular) that is all you're gonna get.  It was great to watch other people working too, especially one of the more experienced actors in the group, Dedee, who has done a LOT of professional work.  This woman has had guest roles on Seinfeld and Friends, was a regular on Cybill and has appeared in several feature films.  It's humbling to see someone with this level of talent and experience still coming to class and working on her craft.

The fine art of auditioning

A busy, actorly week with rehearsals, three auditions and one callback.  And I got my feedback from the agent showcase last week.  Wow, it was really positive, constructive and flattering.  Again, got a thumbs up for my American accent, but even better were comments on my quirky, comedic talents - my strength - that I will find success in sitcom/comedy, and that while my headshot looks like me and is age appropriate, that I'm much cuter in person!  I'm blown away and trying not to get too excited.  It doesn't mean they will sign me.  But definitely worth following up (tick) and adds to the growing pile of general feedback I'm getting from other actors I meet in workshops that comedy is my strength in this market.  Good, something to focus on.  And another reason to make my own webseries and/or short films.  There's a lot of terrible 'comedy' out there, I know I can do better than at least some of it!

Monday afternoon I auditioned for a USC student film.  These tend to be reliably well-run as USC's film course is professional, highly competitive and well-regarded.  George Lucas is a notable alum.  'Lost Girls', the saucy little film I did in November, was a USC graduate student project.  The audition - thankfully - was held in Hollywood rather than on-campus which from Sherman Oaks is a multi-highway nightmare across town.  CAZT is a casting house without resident casting directors.  Tucked away in a converted warehouse, five casting rooms are available off a spacious waiting room.  When you arrive, you check the noticeboards next to each room to find the project you're auditoning for and sign in.  Apparently the great thing about CAZT for independent casting directors is that it charges minimal rent (possibly none), instead making its money by offering actors the chance to view their auditions online.  For a fee.  No obligation, but it's there if you want it.  Being available online, it is also handy for casting directors to access and show to producers etc.  A neat idea.  Testament to my growing network in Los Angeles, I bumped into another actress I know, who was auditioning for something else.  We met at TVI and have discovered a mutual fondness for Aroma, one of my favourite cafes in Studio City, where we've also bumped into each other, enjoying the sunshine on the terrace.  Always nice to see a familiar face in a waiting room; we're so happy and relaxed and plugged in darling!  Long story short, audition went well and I got a callback.

Tuesday I found myself in the nightmare, trekking across town to another USC audition on campus.  USC is vast and feels like a combination of Melbourne Uni and Monash with its mix of old stone buildings and more modern structures.  There were some major roadworks going on along one side of the campus and I got a bit bamboozled.  Found my way to the right place just on time but wondered what the hell I was doing there.  I was about to audition for the role of the mother of an 18 year old.  Either I didn't read the breakdown (description of the role) properly or they left out the detail of the son's age.  Whatever, there I was.  The director seemed impressed - "you're a great actress," he said - but also acknowledged that I looked too young to be an 18 year old's mother.  Technically, I'm not (don't tell anyone), but Thank You!  Didn't get that one.  Which I'll take as a compliment.

Number three audition this week - not for USC - was for a role described as a high-class call girl/Sarah Palin type (I didn't know there was such a 'type', but you live and learn) who is CRAZY.  Okay, sounds like fun.  It's basically a stoner comedy about two guys trying to light their bong and being visited by an array of kooky characters/hallucinations.  Not the height of comedy if you ask me, but what do I know?  The audition turned out to be a cattle call.  Everyone more or less turned up at once, some even before the director.  His assistant was late so there was no sign-in sheet until one of the actors decided to create one for the sake of everyone's sanity.  At one point the director emerged to address the growing throng and ask who among us had time constraints so he could see them first.  Are you kidding?  Nobody wanted to see someone who arrrived 30 minutes after them get in earlier.  We informed the dude that a sign-in sheet had been established and we were happy to stick with that order.  It's not a good sign when the "cattle" are more organised than the "caller".  Once again, I bumped into someone I know, a fellow actor from my regular class.  Then it was my turn to spin some magic in an impersonal concrete room in front of a couple of people who have yet to show me they know what they're doing.  It's a short scene - couple of pages - and there's a natural point at which the character goes from being quirky to outright nuts.  The director stopped three lines in, just before that point.  "Can you be more crazy, like bi-polar, like really extreme?", or words to that effect.  Sure.  Wait two more lines.  That was yesterday.  I haven't heard back yet which probably means I don't have a callback, which is fine.  I'm not sure I want to do it anyway.  When you're not being paid, you at least want to feel like it's worth your while.

Just got a call from another USC student who is casting for an exercise in working with three cameras (standard sitcom set-up).  She's using an Absolutely Fabulous script, so hell yeah, I'm interested!  What fun! Audition tomorrow.

Raising eyebrows

Beaten Hearts is really up and running now.  On Monday the cast assembled - with new member Max, another recruit from The Sport of Acting, my Tuesday night class - and read through the plays, switching roles around as Cindy figured out the final casting of each one.  It's great to see it starting to take shape as I envisage these talented actors making these familiar roles their own.  As the only non-American in the ensemble, I will be adopting an American accent for all but one of my characters.  The line-up of plays differs slightly to the original Beaten Hearts, but remains a mix of comic and dramatic explorations of love found and lost, unrequited and avenged.  It's a bittersweet show, just how I like it.

On Wednesday I had a personal trainer session, one of those freebies one gets when first joining a gym, a sampler to encourage you to pay for more.  PT is where the gym really makes its money, considering how cheap membership is.  Amber certainly put me through my paces, but the most startling discovery was my percentage body fat.  I'm not going to reveal it in a public forum, but suffice to say it is just above what is considered 'average'.  I have a fairly small frame so I guess that disguises it, but my goodness!  I knew I had lost condition over the last few months - yoga is great but as a cardio, fat-burning workout it can't compete with Step and Pump classes - but this was still a shock.  Not to worry, since joining the gym three weeks ago, I have committed to working out 6 days a week (including yoga class). 

Thursday night was part two of the agent showcase.  The two representatives present seemed less exhausted than those last week.  Once again, I arrived early to claim one of the first few audition times, and elected not to go first this time, but third.  This gave me more time to get jittery before entering the room, but as sometimes happens in these situations, once I started performing I felt calm and in control.  I really enjoyed playing the scene and felt like I hit all the right beats.  This time I also brought in my spectacles to use like reading glasses (I was playing a lawyer).  It gave me an extra bit of 'business' (physical activity) and the chance to show the agents a different 'look'; glasses on, glasses off.  Specs are a novelty in actor-land, and very much stereotyped.  I'm happy to exploit that stereotype; intellectual/scientist/psychiatrist/the smart chick.   Bring it on! 

In the spirit of putting my best foot forward for the showcase - and the biz in general - I took Katherine's advice and gave my eyebrows the Hollywood treatment.  Nothing too drastic, but they look neater, more groomed, than before.  Shaping means plucking of course.  There are three main methods of executing this: tweezers, wax and thread.  Threading is considered the most gentle and is an intriguing art whereby a loop of cotton thread is rolled and twisted across the skin, capturing errant hairs in its path.  It's difficult to describe, but the sensation of the thread passing over ostensibly hairless areas (such as the forehead) where it picks up the very finest hairs, virtually invisible to the naked eye, is like a very mild electric shock.  It's a kind of massage, quite pleasant.  Tackling the tougher, visible hairs of the brow is another matter of course, and being a novice I found it a little painful.  But I'm sure I'll get used to it, like leg and bikini waxing.  Guys, are you still reading?  Unfortunately, tweezers were, inevitably, necessary to address certain recalcitrant hairs and for the precision end of the shaping.  I must say, when I viewed the result in a mirror, I was surprised (and somewhat relieved) to discover that less brow had been removed than I thought.

Good grooming

It's Superbowl Sunday.  Like the AFL Grand Final, there is much hullaballoo, party planning, beer consumption and team-theme-decorated junk food produced for this event.  It's all Greek to me, but this year the New Orleans Saints won and everyone seems pretty pleased about it.  My day, however, consisted of a sleep-in, a workout and a late lunch with my roommate Gina and her sister, who also lives in the building.

Backtrack to Tuesday and I met with Katherine, an Australian actress who moved to Los Angeles with her TV-director husband four years ago.  Through a Facebook group for Aussie actors in L.A., she offered her services as an adviser to newly arrived Aussies, helping us plug into the industry here.  She was a delightful font of information and practical advice, who thoroughly checked me out before our meeting - finding the Baggage website and via that to my resume and reel.  With which she was impressed.  Confident of my credentials and experience, she offered to refer me to her Commercial agent (unlike Oz, where we have one agent for every type of gig, in L.A. the industry is so large and the quantity of - well, everything - so great that most actors have separate agents representing them for Commercials and TV/film (confusingly called Theatrical).  A referral is a BIG help in separating one from the hundreds of other unrepresented hopefuls flooding an agency's mailbox.  Aside from directly acting-related advice - such as headshots, recommended classes and casting websites - Katherine also gave me tips on health insurance and the name of her eyebrow technician. 

Grooming - from hair and make-up to eyebrow shaping and manicures - is very important here; even non-actors tend to place a higher priority on nail maintenance than the average Aussie woman.  Of course, these services tend to be cheaper here, too, which helps.  I'm going to take the plunge and have my eyebrows shaped - nothing drastic, but a little sleeker.  Photos will be posted in due course.

On Thursday I did part one of an agent showcase.  This was a paid opportunity to meet two agents and perform a prepared scene for them, show 'em what I'm made of.  I chose a lawyer/client scene (me playing the lawyer) which has some nice comic moments in it.  Basic dramedy (comedy/drama) material and well-written.  In preparation, I had my hair cut and blow-waved in the afternoon, feeling all swishy and gorgeous. One of the agents said right off the bat that she is not looking to sign any non-union actors (which eliminates me right now), but the other said he's open to it.  So I did my scene, it went well, I enjoyed it and the brief feedback the agents gave me was positive.  I got thumbs up for my choice of scene (suited to my type), my headshot (looks like me) and my authentic-sounding American accent (if they hadn't seen my resume, they'd have assumed I was American).  Cool.  Two more agents, same time next week.

On Friday, I rehearsed with Alex and Suzanne, the two other actresses in Beaten Hearts L.A.  Cindy, our director, put us through our paces; she is taking my favourite Bridgette Burton monologue and weaving it between the three of us.  Sometimes it feels like the three witches from Macbeth; Double, double, toil and trouble!  I think it's going to be pretty fabulous.

During the week I went to see Crazy Heart, the film about a burned out, alcoholic country singer for which Jeff Bridges won the Golden Globe for Best Actor and is nominated for an Oscar.  Well deserved.  It's a really good film (lovely performance from Maggie Gyllenhall too) and Bridges is superb.  He's my tip for the golden bald guy.

This week I also got online and applied for a few writing/editing/proofreading jobs.  Fingers crossed.  I check every day.  Sometimes there's a few suitable things, sometimes none.  I'm still hopeful of finding something that utilises my specialised skills; they are the jobs that pay better and that I will derive some pleasure and satisfaction from, be it acting, writing, editing or proofreading.  I'm good at that stuff!