Pretty and fuckable

"That's what I'm good at," says the wardrobe designer I spoke with today.

"I don't know why the execs are on my back, because HELLO, 'pretty and fuckable' is what I do best. I will make everyone look amazing, and we'll push the envelope but ground it in reality."

Wow.

I have worked with some characters; and certainly in the hair/make-up or wardrobe departments, but this guy takes the cake.

More to come on how 'pretty' and 'fuckable' I end up looking.

Classic.

Let's begin our day with a pep talk

This little girl is on to something. Can you imagine if we started our day like this? Maybe not straddling the bathroom sink in our PJs. But with that deep rooted belief in ourselves, and how awesome we are....? You would feel fantastic (though perhaps mildly silly), and crush your auditions...

Happy Monday!
(Emmy weekend recap coming soon....)

Swag Suites

In this pre-Emmy buzz, the town is inundated with gifting suites -- a Candyland for actors who want to be gifted all sorts of random (and sometimes very luxe) goodies.

I went to one this week and left with clothes, loads of makeup, jewelry, and some gift cards. They pass cocktails and fancy little nibbles. Like the kind of things you see on Top Chef. That are drizzled with truffle oil and money. Everyone is super friendly and eager to take your picture, and they are usually held at swanky hotels or private residences. The one I went to was fantastic, but let me tell you how ridiculous some of them get. Here are some things I've been "gifted" in the past:

-a three night stay at a luxury resort in Hawaii, with dinners and massages (we went for the beau's bday)
-a VIP gift card to Johnny Rockets so that I could eat for free with up to six people, anytime, as much as I wanted... for an entire year (like whoa...)
-massages, facials, spa getaways, hair cuts, manicures, silk bedding, flat irons, bottles of booze, handbags

It seriously runs the gamut. And the only catch is that you have to take pictures with the products. Which, by the way, have also included:

-surge protectors (yes, I took a picture posing with a freaking extension cord and smiling like it was the best product in the world)
-a water purifier
-keychains shaped like little pigs (I'm dead serious...and the kicker -- these companies pay up to $6000 just to be there and give those little piggies away)
-breath mints (um...thank you?)
-energy drinks, razors, baby clothes (for the children I don't have), and rhinestone studded lollipops (yes, still serious)

I have posed with all of these things. A big old Kool-Aid smile on my face, a cookie cutter hand on the hip, and bags of swag. Sometimes happily, sometimes shamefully (and feeling like I'm whoring myself out for a few freebies)....but always gratefully.

But here's the killer. Where were these freaking people when I had $60 in my checking account, and could have seriously used a gift card for free burgers and fries for an entire year? Why didn't these perks exist when I was so stressed out from my lack of auditions, and wondering if I would ever get a break in my career? I could have really used that free massage then. Or that killer blowout from Frederick Fekkai to make me feel better about myself. I would have loved those fancy $600 shoes when I was hostessing and scraping pennies to put gas in my car so I could get to the audition for "Girl #2" or the waitress role on a shitty show who says something generic and small like, "What can I get you?" A part, which by the way, I would have died for at the time.

And that's the painful part of this industry -- that crazy contrast of the haves and the have-nots. When you have it all (or seem like you do), everyone wants to give you more. And when you are just getting by....you have to suck it up, pinch those pennies, and survive on groceries from the 99 Cent store and a prayer.

It's insane, and I am more than aware of that.....so all that I suggest is that when you get there -- to that point of gifting suites, red carpets...and favors, and praise, and residuals (oh my).....you must, you MUST share the success.

....which is precisely why my girlfriends get to go through this bag and take all the "candy" they want. Consider it the working actress version of trick-or-treating.

Money, management, and other musings...

So remember how I parted ways with my manager a few months ago? And then began the search for the new one? And then met the schmuck that was so Hollywood that he told me he'd rep me, and then waffled? Right....the roller coaster of representation.

The silver lining of the manager-less process is saving that glorious ten percent.

When you're not working, ten percent of zero is not a big deal, but when you start making a little cash, that ten percent of the gross is painful. Especially when they're not earning their keep. Then it especially sucks.

Regardless of my joy for this extra chunk of change in my pocket, I do like having a team. Maybe it's the only child in me that didn't like playing with her barbies alone -- the part of me that wanted more people to share the fun with...who knows? But what I do know is that I crave it. That core group that hustles with me, and shares the success, frustration, excitement of it all.

Which brings me to who I am leaning towards. My agent had a stellar assistant. He functioned as a second agent for me, because he was just so ridiculously on top of things. But beyond the practicality of it all, I just adore him. He was the person I would call after my appointments. For everything. To vent, to chat, to ask absurd questions about everything from wine bars to scuba diving. He was so much of my go-to that the absence of a manager was not really felt....because there he was -- Super Assistant, always happy to entertain my spastic actress post-audition musings.

Well, a couple weeks ago, he called me to say that he had taken a job as a full manager. At one of the companies that I met with that still want to sign me. Badly, it seems.

So doesn't it seem like a no-brainer? To sign with him as my manager and have a team that I have a short hand with.....who incidentally also have a shorthand with each other....? Doesn't that just seem like the obvious choice?

This is going to require a lot more thought....

The things that keep me up at night

It used to be auditions. Plain old ordinary auditions. Pre-reads, even. That was at the beginning of my career, when the opportunity to go in for a couple lines on a show like "Ghost Whisperer," would have blown my mind. It would have elicited calls from my parents asking if I felt ready, and cups of chamomile tea just to help me calm my excitement, and try to sleep before the "big day." The big day that would probably require hours of prep, and outfit changes, only to be in the room for a casting associate for about five minutes. Nonetheless, at the time, I lost of plenty of sleep over those.

Then it was callbacks. Oh my God, the pressure I felt with callbacks. "They like me!" ringing through my head like triumphant victory bells were chiming through Hollywood saying, "It's official ladies and gentlemen. This girl is really an actress." And then the reality sinking in...."They like me....and now I have to do it all over again. For the producers. Holy shit." Chamomile tea wasn't cutting it for that. My dreams would be littered with the dialogue, I'd wake up, my brain spinning with lines from whatever procedural or episodic it happened to be, and literally get down on my knees and pray to go to sleep.

As my career progressed, what kept me up at night were the nights before my first day on set. And they still do sometimes -- not as much because of nerves, but excitement. I know what I'm doing now, so I feel less riddled with worry in the wee hours of the morning, but rest assured -- if my calltime happens to be an obscene hour of 4:45am, my body will propel me out of bed well before 3:30am when my alarm starts chiming.

Nowadays, without fail, the thing that keeps me up at night is testing. Which I'm doing this week. It's a project that I'm so excited about. As a matter of fact, it was the only project in a sea of auditions from the past couple weeks that I emailed my agent about afterwards. I wanted another shot at it, and as luck would have it, my "other shot" has come in the form of a test.

Testing is one of the oddities of our industry that makes acting as inorganic and awkward as possible. It's like performing for dinner theater. Where you can see your blank faced audience, who seem to be more engrossed with their swedish meatballs than the performance you have put your heart into. Actually, it's probably worse than dinner theater. Because at least the people there are eating. The worst way to test is when you get a room full of executives who are starving, and have to watch you and some other girl do three tearful scenes before they can finally have the chicken cordon bleu that the commissary only serves on Friday. Any lull in the dialogue, and all you hear are stomachs growling.

But what keeps me up at night with testing is more than that. It's the head to head of it all, and the reality of it all. It feels more real than anything else you will have done up to that point. And more than anything, it is the tease of what your future could look like.

Up to this point you've learned the material, toiled over an outfit, had a work session with the director and producers (to refine your choices before you read for studio and network), and let your team negotiate the deal. Great. Still feels pretty normal and abstract. But then, when you get the to test you have to sign your paperwork. And by paperwork I mean your pages of contract, drawing out exactly what you will make if you get this job, what they will pay you per episode if it's a TV show, and if it gets picked up. How much cash they will put in your pocket to relocate you. How many first class tickets you'll get to go to and fro your real home to your temporary one on location, what your per diem will be, how big your trailer is, what your billing will be, how long your wardrobe sessions will last, what the press will be like, what approval you'll get for promotional shoots, what your salary would be for a second season, and third, and, and, and, and.....

So what started as an audition. A simple reading of a few pages that you really wanted...has actualized into so much more than just a job. It becomes a life changer, a game changer. A three year layout of what your life could look like if you nail this read.....and all the other ifs go in your favor as well. Up until this point, it's all hypothetical. Drunken babble with friends about how fancy you'll be one day, and your parents telling you they've always known you'll be a star.

But on this day, there it is. In writing. Not a guarantee, but a big old stack of contracts telling you they think so too, and if all goes according to plan that this may get you one step closer.

So while I may lose a bit of sleep over it....when I book it, I may have the best night's rest of my entire life.

The Actor/Director relationship

I've had relationships with directors that run the gamut. Here's a sampling:

-An Oscar winning director who pretends to slap me back and forth across the face on set a la "Chinatown," saying "sister...daughter....sister...daughter."

-An Emmy and BAFTA award winning director, who is as notorious for his three piece suits and quiet demeanor, as he is for pilots that always get picked up; he asked me to join him for tea...at Chateau Marmont. I called my manager..."It's a hotel! There are certainly other places to have tea. Is he trying to sleep with me?" I ended up going and meeting him in the lounge. It was fine. Fun, actually. Until we said we'd walk out together, and I was so short walking behind his tall frame that I followed him directly into the men's bathroom. Yeah. That was smooth.

-An indie director who wrote such awful dialogue that he finally asked me if I could go through the script and type out the things I've been improv'ing because it had been so much better. "But just so you know, you won't be getting a writing credit."

-A very well regarded TV director with a penchant for asshole-ry, who throughout four days of working with me, could never remember my name and kept cue-ing me by saying "yellow dress girl."

-Another Emmy award winning director who asked me if I wouldn't mind pouring a cup of water all over myself as I sauntered out of a pool in a bikini....even though the day we were shooting, it had started hailing. I said no.

-A director who pulled my test deal the night before the test.

-A director who sat me down and gave me tips on marriage, and life, and love.

They're all crazy. But I love em.

Hustle bustle

Since the week before I left for vacation to this week that I've been back in the mix, it has been non-stop auditioning. At least one a day for all the major series reg/recurring/film lead kind of roles...the things I used to dream about. The things I still dream about.

But in the throws of those long dreamt of auditions, what you realize is that it is haaaaaard work.

Your brain is muddled with lines. You go to one audition, you laugh. You go to the second, you have to cry. And absent-mindedly I blurt shit out as I leave the casting when they compliment me. Perhaps a mix of insanity, exhaustion, or just plain God knows what.

Examples:

At an audition two weeks ago, with the director and producers for a fancy sequel to an action film (MI4)...

CD: "Great work. That's tough to go from one scene that's fear based, to the next that's playful, to the last one [where she has a knife to her throat]"

Me: "Yeah, it is. Don't worry, I'm not schizophrenic."

(Awkward chuckle....)

Or the classic moment that happened this week, (also for a lead in a film)....

CD: "Wow. You have such amazing access to your emotions. You can tap into them so quickly."

Me: "What can I say...I'm a product of divorce."

I mean.....really? Why can't I just say thank you, and walk to my car having accepted the compliment, VS saying some bizarre quip that makes me question if I am the world's largest weirdo.

::::sigh::::::

"It is what it is," says the little weirdo.

Always ask, always ask, always ask

I'm saying it incessantly because I'm trying to drill it into my head too. Always ask.

In the room, it is your time. It is your audition. If you didn't feel good about your take -- always ask to do it again.

I drove out to West LA today to read for a series reg on a new cable network show. Driving up was like deja vu, because just a couple weeks ago, I went to this obscure casting building and got a $50 ticket for an expired meter (producers were running 40 minutes late). I avoided the cursed meter of weeks past, and opted for a spot blocks away that didn't have a 30 minute limit.

I'll be honest --I was a little disheveled this morning. Hair not quite right, still a little jetlagged and definitely (and shamefully) not off book for these 9 pages. My brain just couldn't do it, try as it might.

The producers were running late for this read, and maintenance men were layering a dark wood stain on the outside patio -- a breeding ground for us actresses to become extremely loopy in the half hour it took to begin the session. It was a giggly bunch (perhaps because of the huffy fumes), with the exception of one girl from Talentworks who seemed like it was her first big session. The ICM and WME girls were just shooting the shit, while this girl stared blankly at all of us, shaking her foot a mile a minute. I told her she had beautiful eyes. Because she did. And because I would have wanted to have someone be nice when I was starting out and intimidated by the room.

Finally it's my turn. I get in front of the producers, and joke about feeling high from the fumes. They laughed...."we totally get it," they said.

I do the scenes as best as I can, and seemed to charm the producers. They gave me a small adjustment for the second scene -- two notes -- one of which I felt like I nailed, the other not so much. And even though I knew it was off felt it was off, and even though they all went "yeah, great, fantastic, awesome," I knew I should have just asked to do it again. Even if not for them, for me. So that my mind would not replay that read for the rest of the day, and so that I would have known that I did what I considered my best.

Six years of doing this, and I still wuss out of asking sometimes -- not out of nerves, but mostly out of thinking "Well...if they say it's good, it probably is..."

And that's dumb. Because they don't know what you can do unless you show them. So if you know you can do better, then ask to do it again. And knock them out of the park.

Casting directors are dicks

...some of them, at least.

Power tripping, egomaniacal dicks. Like the one I saw today. Now don't get me wrong -- ther are certain CDs I live for. Ones that are cool and easy, that I grab drinks with, that I get evites from, and Facebook messages (that have special notes about a character before I go in for the audition). These are the same ones that I have no problem going in for on a Sunday at 10am the day after I return from a two week vacation and fifteen hours of travel. Those ones are awesome.

However, today I encountered a dick. I've read for this man twice in my career. Once at the very very beginning, when I was as green as can be and had a (singular) credit on my resume. I was petrified. It was for a huge studio film, on a big studio lot, and there I was with a little jean skirt on and too much lipgloss. Kat Dennings was there too. And I remember asking her if the CD was nice. A random question, yes, but I was nervous and making small talk, and she was the only person there. She just looked at me and put her earphones in, without saying a freaking word. I remember it like yesterday, because that entire audition was the first time I remember thinking, "wow, these other actresses are not your friends." And what I would soon realize was..."neither are these casting directors."

He was obnoxious, spastic, critical, and laughed and said things like "oh my god, you've only done a showcase," (which at the time was my only source of pride and career highlight), and told me in the room that I just didn't get it. The character that is.

Fast forward to today, where he was just as categorically awful. "Ack! We're gonna stop there because you're leaning forward and that makes you look weak, and you just actually hopped during one line, which looks terrible on camera, so definitely don't do that again."

"Wait, I just hopped?"
"Yes, you just hopped. Don't do it. It looks bad."

I still swear to god I didn't fucking hop in my audition, but whatever....

He went on to criticize and correct, give me acting lessons, and have me say on camera for the director all the things I've booked recently; which, now five years since I last saw him, was not so laughable.

Then at the end, when I delivered my last line, he burst into joy and actually (you guessed it) hopped and said, "Finally!!! Finally someone delivered that line correctly! That, my dear, is well worth your cost of admission."

Thankfully it's laughable, but I must say, that's one hell of a welcome back to the grind.

Vacation

Be back in a week...until then, take a moment to vacate for yourself. Even if that means a little homemade pina colada, or the longest bubble bath of your life.

We work hard, we deserve a little R & R...

And I tell you this....the longer you work, the better these vacations get.

Cheers!