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August 5, 2004 - Acting Challenges

I should elaborate on the above "acting" challenges, i.e. only seeing yourself and thinking you look fat.

My last major motion picture role was in a terrible movie called "Saturday the 14th Strikes Back" (you can look it up on IMDB.com - I'm not giving you a link because it only got one star and some reviewers who didn't understand the whole mise-en-scene and the obvious ironic nature of the intrinsic cheapness of the proceedings, well, these unknowing, unseeing and uncaring people calling themselves critics called it a bomb).

I have to admit the film is not "Gone with the Wind" (and, given my previous entry, might not even count as a "film" as it's really more of a "movie"), but I got to work for the famous Roger Corman at his equally famous "Lumber Yard" (his movie studio in Venice, California, which, not surprisingly, used to be a lumber yard and still retains the old signage to keep away the thronging fans--it sure worked for me--not a single thronging fan got to me the entire shoot).

There are several pivotal moments in an actor's life, or even someone pretending to be an actor who may not actually be able to act but hopefully can do a convincing version of themselves. See, that's the key to what most actors do in movies--convincing versions of themselves. I'm not talking real actors like Meryl Streep, who can do anything, be anyone, and is truly acting, but the kind of acting that most other people do. Remember, there is one Meryl, there are thousands if not millions of "actors."

Hitchcock famously said that "all actors are cattle," but I think he was just Jones-ing for a burger when he said that, though he might have meant that they are all fat, which isn't true, even though they all think they're fat.

Where was I? Oh, let me jump back in time a little bit (since I've already disturbed the fabric of the time-space continuum I don't see how a little flashback/backstory could really hurt, in fact, maybe it help, you never know with this time-travel conundrum stuff which is famously tricky to pull off).

OK--so one pivotal moment for an actor is the audition, where you convince the people with the temporary money and power (or "TMP" for short--see, people in the movie biz rarely have the money and power for very long before someone yanks it away from them for abusing it, or abusing the viewing public, or abusing themselves, but this isn't the time or place to get into that now).

The trick to the audition (write this down, you will need it later), is not to show up and be brilliant. Being brilliant often only confuses those with the temporary money and power. They can confuse this for insanity, which, while common among actors (and even those with temporary money and power), suggests instability that can make producers and directors wonder how much of a pain in the ass you are going to be on the set.

Back to the trick--the trick is to arrive in character and stay in character the whole time. Don't show up as you, auditioning for the part, show up as the character. Period. It's vital that you dress like the character because the people with TMP often have no imagination outside the one they use to imagine that they will always have M&P so they can afford the house they just bought and the car they are leasing.

So for my audition as "Uncle Bert," I arrived dressed in an outfit that was dated and just a tad too small. Polyester ruled the day. My secret weapon--I came armed with a giant-size bag of M&Ms to hand out to anyone and everyone.

I arrived in character, I stayed in character, and when I entered Roger Corman's office, a time-warp to the 1970s with its long white shag carpeting and orange bubble-chairs, I was ready. I went around the room and poured M&Ms into everyone's hands, and proceeded to charm them, or at least creep them out a little bit, since that's what the character would do.

I left, slightly sticky in polyester (though I should add that absolutely nothing melted in my hands), but pretty sure I would have them talking about my after I left. Nice, or not-so, having PWTMP talking about you is always good. A few days later I got a call and got the part, and a few weeks after that I was at the lumberyard, bright and early, ready for my close-up.

I've now completely forgotten where I was going with all this. Let me take a moment to read back to what I wrote a few minutes ago, which I have absolutely no recollection of whatsoever, and no, I'm not drinking, I don't drink. I did just have a big piece of chocolate, but that's supposed to be good for the old noggin.

Ah, yes, Pivotal Moments. Originally I was going to write about two moments, the audition and the dailies, but luckily I wrote "several" because there are more than that, and they include (but are not limited to):

Some actors (not me) would add

For right now, I'll concentrate on "The Dailies" because that relates to the whole "I look fat," thing I'd written about yesterday then basically forgot about until just now.

"The Dailies" are when cast and crew sit down to watch the film they shot the day below. Some directors allow the cast to watch them, the smart ones probably don't. Our director, who was a very sweet man named Howard Cohen, who specialized in low-budget films (don't call them "dreck" even if he might have), let us all watch.

If paying audiences responded the way the cast and crew did, then every movie would be a blockbuster. Everyone sits there laughing their asses off, as if this was the funniest thing ever captured on film. Except if it's a drama, in which case they cry their eyes off. Should you be filming a comedy and everyone cries, you know you have a problem. Likewise with a drama that's a laughing stock.

But that doesn't happen at dailies, because everyone is working so hard and so involved they naturally want this to be the greatest thing ever put on film, so they respond as if it is. Everyone and everything is brilliant, no matter what.

That's publicly. Privately, everybody hates everything. The director wonders why he chose that angle. The camera man sees everything he did wrong. The lighting guy is seeing nothing but shadows. And the actors, as I said, are seeing nothing but themselves, and their wrinkles and asses.

This is just how it works for most actors. Maybe Meryl is different, maybe she can see the subtly of the way her lips twitched, or a certain something in her eyes that spoke volumes. But I'll bet every actor around her is looking at their ass.

Acting is hard. It looks easy but it's hard. Not hard like ditch-digging or school-teaching, but hard in that you are forced to look at yourself in an unavoidable way that most people are able to avoid. Maybe "hard" was the wrong word, maybe "painful" is the right word. Not painful like putting your back out, but painful in a emotional way, like putting your ego out.

Come on and think about it for a moment--do you really want a lot of people to be looking too closely at you? Sure, you may work in a job where people see you, but they probably don't look at you. Or do I mean it the other way around, they look at your but they don't see you. I think that's it.

In case I've made no sense, which, with me, is always a distinct possibility, I mean that in service-related jobs where you're around other people, the people who are paying rarely really notice you. You are arms and legs, doing and bringing. You might even have a face they look at briefly to make sure you understood you wanted your salad dressing on the side (a nod will suffice).

But unless you have gone out of your way to do something to make people see you (tattoo and piercings seem to the most popular way to do it now), most people don't.

Remember, most people are the stars of their own films. Everyone else around them, including you, are just extras, filling space, carrying plates. You are the same way with your life/film--you are the star, everyone else is just there.

OK, so maybe not you, the third one on the right, in the Birkenstock sandals (trim your nails, please), maybe you are selfless to a fault (which is why you're a vegan and look a little pasty). Maybe you think of others first (though if you did, you'd trim those nails and pop a tic-tac), but even the best of us only manage to be selfless for short periods of time, and at considerable effort.

So as an actor, people are not just looking at you, they're seeing you. More than that, they're inspecting you. They're comparing themselves to you, trying to figure out all the ways they are better. They're younger, have fewer wrinkles, and, of course, a smaller ass. Or so they like to tell themselves.

Or, if you are lucky, they're wondering if they could possibly ever sleep with you if they ran into you by chance at the Piggly Wiggly (which for those of you not in the southern part of the US, is a grocery story with a very funny name, which is why I used it rather than "Safeway").

As an actor, it's not good to think about the fact that people will eventually be looking at you. If you do that, you start to obsess about your ass, and make faces that look like you smelled something bad. I don't know the science behind this phenomenon, but I know it's true.

So back to the dailies--imagine you're an actor, you're watching yourself, and you are confronted with the fact that you're fat and can't act. I've heard Meryl talk and even she has times when she doesn't think she can act (she didn't say she thought she looked fat, but this is probably because she's so classy). Despite her brilliance, Meryl is, after all, an actress which means she's is inherently unstable, otherwise she would have become a school teacher or nun.

And then it hits you that other people will see what you've just unwittingly put on film and it won't be long before the general public realizes the truth about you and you will never work again. And now you have to go back on the set today to have your fat, no-talent ass captured forever on film.

And that, my friend, is hard.

Even so-called actors such as Steven Segal (who around my house is known as "Little Stevie Seagal" because that's what his cousin used to call him) who are so egomaniacal that they think their asses look great and their acting rivals Streep's have these same feelings, deep down, only they'd never be so foolish or honest as to come right and out tell anyone, much less in a blog that 12 or 13 wonderful people like you read.

Well, it's naptime. I know this because I'm yawning and my train of thought has derailed (there were no casualties, except perhaps for coherence). More soon...

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