Actors are always looking for “day jobs” that will feed them, clothe them, and support their artistic addictions. And we have often felt judged by society as irresponsible for refusing to look for secure, stable work.

But the regular working world has caught up with our dilemma, and is now sharing it. Anyone who has been unemployed in the last two years – or for the last two years – knows what I’m talking about. We all should know, if we don’t already, that finding “A Good Job” no longer spells security. The days of the 20-30 year career in one company – those days are gone. And yet, we continue to ride that old train – we continue to send our kids to college – but we do nothing about teaching our young men and women, and ourselves, about how to create something for ourselves that can not be taken away from us; that is ours because it is created by us, and not given to us by an employing parental figure.

We aspiring actors have had to grow entrepreneurial brains, but few of us have done so to the point of making any real money. And the security types with the 8-5 jobs who have toed the line for so long – who might have looked at us askance from time to time - are now being forced out into the uncertain air of constant change that actors have lived in forever. And all of us, actor/artist and non-actor/artist alike, are being pushed to realize that a job is not Daddy and Mommy; a job will not invest itself in protecting us; that the only safe space is ourselves, and our creative solutions and discoveries and approaches to our own lives.

I find this fascinating. That the world has so turned upside down that the actor and the “normie” (or so-called “normal” person) have become the same person. Both looking for work, both needing to find a way to look beyond work, to self-determination, and to being creative enough to build a life that provides its own security, fascination, exploration and flexibility, in a world that has already begun to change in ways so fundamental that we are required not just to be creative in our lives - but to re-create ourselves.

It’s a new day.

I turned all three down. Why? Money as it applies to matching my output with the output of the theatre, and money as it applies to how long and far I would have to travel to the theatre for rehearsals and performances. Argh!!! It’s a tough one, but it’s a solid consideration, and I will tell you why!

I started onto the professional acting path in my early 30′s and it has now been a looooong time that I’ve been working on my craft. I started out in community theatre, for no money. That’s a great training ground, and I recommend it to this day for those who are starting out, and for those who have time on their hands and no financial woes to hold them back from just enjoying the participation in the art of theatre.

However, I am now of the mind that I should be paid for my work. We should be paid for our work, even if it’s just a little bit. I have been paid for my work many times, and I offer this thought for your consideration:

If we work for nothing, no money or other type of return on our investment of our time and talent, what are we saying to ourselves, and to those who “hire” us? That we’re dispensable, and that we are servile, and that we put our worth into the hands of those who hire us.

I wanted to be in Chicago, and it was hell turning them down. But when I learned that for this particular theatre (and yes, I should have found this out ahead of time), they offer one Union contract (translation: money – not scads and scads, but money), and for everyone else…bupkus!…I had to turn them down. For the first time, I felt offended by that discrepancy between the one Union (read: talented?) actor, and the reset of us, all of whom would be working equally hard!

Not acceptable! If a theatre is bringing in money to keep the theatre going, I think we all understand that that does not mean that they are bringing in corporation-style money! However, not to even pay for actors’ gas expenses is just wrong. Theatre is a 6-8 week undertaking at the non-Broadway level, and your time is worth something!

This is not a rant to go up against theatres, but a rant about how we tend not to stand up for ourselves. When we are offered something that is going to only take from, and not return enough “in kind” to you, there is a problem with self-respect. And we need to respect our art, our talent, ourselves and our time.

Theatres and actors can work together, but we actors have got to stop putting our wares out there as though there are millions of other options. There may be millions of other actors, but only one of you. And if you don’t make sure – when you choose whether or not to take a gig – that you are getting something back that makes you feel as though the exchange is even,  you are discounting yourself, and you are taking others down with you. That’s not the way to get to the next level.

So be it gas money, exposure, an important credit for your resume, or money big or small – make sure you are placing yourself at the top of your own pantheon. Nobody else will do it for you. That’s a part of the business of acting that nobody tells you, but I’m telling you. Think about what’s good for you too, because that kind of attitude will extend far beyond your acting world, into all kinds of life choices.

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Visit Lori’s new channel, Empowerment Vision TV, at YouTube.com. It is in the early stages of development, and moving forward.

It’s an expression that means you are so far from caring about your role and its emotional demands that you just give it nothing – you don’t even show up. You just “phone it in”.

A friend of mine – Mark Heinrich of LZ Films – emailed me last week to ask if me I would play a role in his film, The Saving of Julia; the role of the mother. He told me that, for once, I could literally phone it in because my character is only heard over the phone. Phone it in? Hilarious!

Mark and I met during Trauma – we spent four days at sea, as it were, in the “M’Aidez” episode. Yes, m’aidez is French for Help Me, and that part of the episode was about Hungarians, but there was so much misfiring with the whole nationality thing on that episode…I guess it didn’t matter!

And now Mark wanted me to do a voice-over for his movie! Last year I studied voice-over for a few months at Voice One, a voice-over training and production studio in San Francisco. It was instructive, interesting, and terribly frustrating. Suddenly, you think you no longer know how to speak! There’s a lot to voice-over work, particularly commercial work – literally, work for advertisements. I formed a new-found respect.

But last night I figured out that I do indeed know how to speak. Last night I was on the phone with Mark and his sound man, whose name, shamefully, I did not find out (sorry, genius sound man!!!!), and they gave me the lines, tested me vocally on regular phone, and on speaker phone (speaker phone had the right quality). I asked the necessary questions about the relationship between mother and daughter – who the mother is (cranky, warm, or pearls-round-the-neck-stiff), how frustrated/loving/cold/pushy/caring/uncaring the woman is – and so on! They gave me the reigns and said, basically, Giddyup! And off we went.

Everyone was happy, grins all around, and I had the best evening of the last three weeks.

A friend of mine who knows how dedicated I am to acting and how diligently I am working toward a full-time successful acting career, gave me a beautiful image. When I told her about phoning it in, she told me she saw an image of a bare tree with a green leaf growing out of it. It’s been a long time of getting my ducks in a row to even make the right kinds of acting efforts to put the tree into place.

Two weeks ago, my first day-player role for NBC. Last night, voice-over work and a resulting invitation to come to the screening.

So…if that’s the result of phoning it in, deal me in. The more leaves, the better, baby!

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www.LoriKirstein.com

So here’s the deal: after you get the job, you get to love the job, and you get to lose the job. Worse, you get to lose the people.

Let’s talk about it in terms of doing a play: it’s going to last at least four weeks, in which you will basically live with and learn to love (usually) those (or most of those, or some of those…) with whom you work. You will be put in an environment of enforced emotional intimacy, and you will respond…as you will respond.

But let’s assume the best. Let’s assume you love these people. That’s wonderful!

And that’s terrible! Because at the end, you all go away, and you don’t see these people again, except maybe a year or two (or never) later, in passing.

These people with whom you shared your truest emotions – if you’re a decent actor, anyway…

One of these people with whom you shared a crush, maybe!

One of these people with whom you shared a love scene!

One of these people who made you want to spit nails, s/he made you so angry.

One of these people with whom you shared the lightning-in-a-bottle moments that make up acting’s drug-addicted quality.

They’re gone. All gone. The magic is gone. The vessel – the play – that held the potential of that magic in a suspended state of potential life, is gone. The set – the external life of the play – is gone.

And the habit inwo which you gratefully fell – the call times and curtain times – the Enter Stage Lefts and Exit Stage Rights and Walk Downstage Centers…all gone.

The feel of the theatre, the wood panelling, the dressing room’s baptismal facets: the smells of makeup and the painted-over wood and the naked light bulbs and the uncomfortable chairs. The sudden and deep familiarity with the stage, with the Stage Manager, with the crew. Gone.

And it feels like a little death. Because it is.

So, to be an actor is also to embrace a truth of life: things end. Lots of things end. And we decide to step right into that flow.

This makes us crazy. Or courageous. Your choice. But it does mean we’re fast-tracking emotionally. So be patient with us.

Or not!

But whatever one thinks of actors, I choose to see it this way: we’re on a spiritually speeded-up journey.  This is not ego talking; this is factual. Think about it! Every religion and spiritual philosophy on the planet talks about the quickening of growth through suffering. Well, if that has anything to do with anything – and from my personal experience, you bet your ass it does – in the airport of life, we’re on the mechanized walkways.

It’s not comfy.

Maybe we are crazy! But we are also courageous. And because of it, deserving of respect.

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www.LoriKirstein.com

It wasn't this shiny and clean, but does this give you an idea of the flavor of the place? We were told it's haunted.

This is big, y’all! 

It’s – what? – my fifth or sixth time going to the Trauma set to work an Extra gig, which, shhhhh, you’re never to tell anyone if you want to be taken seriously as an actor, right? But today I got lines! This is BIG!

Today I got “bumped”, which sounds bad until someone tells you that what it means is that you were just handed some actual lines. You get to act. What a concept! And you get more money! Snap! And you move up the food chain for that day! Rock on! 

I didn’t expect this. My day started with my car battery dying, so that I figured it was a sign for me not to go. Let’s see…kick my own butt finding some way to get there, maybe be late and not make it on set because I’ll miss the transport van, or just stay home and try to find some work? A day of being paid furniture, or stay at home and work on something else? Giving in to my responsible nature, I borrowed my friend’s truck, sat through not one, not two, but three traffic jams to make it across town to some unmarked place behind a mall – a place that all of us had trouble finding because it wasn’t marked by Trauma signs – and made it into a shuttle van by the skin of my teeth. 

I had brought a thermos full of decaf coffee, a crossword book, my iPhone, and my surrender to a day of likely sitting-around, or standing for long periods of time in order to walk from one side of a room to the other, and back. The life of an Extra! I was loaded for bear!

But I never even opened my thermos!

The first thing we did was go to wardrobe. I was slated to be a “volunteer”. So I was given a little vest to wear. Okay, I’m a volunteer; works for me! Then Ted, the Assistant Director, arrived, and had a conversation with the wardrobe ladies, and – *ping* – I’m a nurse! Don’t you wish life worked this way??? Ted then took a picture of me. Wait a minute – what? “Yeah, I need a picture of you.” Okay. I smiled and that was that. Right? No. “Nnnooo, no I need a smirk.” One smirk, coming up.

I am a graduate of Michael Kostloff’s Audition class – and someone who has learned that you don’t assume much, if anything, of some events until you know for sure that you should do! – so I just took it all at face value. This makes me either brilliant and balanced, or a flippin’ idiot! Your choice!

We were bused from the base camp – a small, gorgeous church – to Laguna Honda Hospital, and taken to the fifth floor (I think it was?) and told to grab a chair and hang out. Cool. Time to find food! Ahhh…the perennial peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich breakfast! I don’t know why Craft Services on Trauma always supplies this – and for all I know it’s some kind of industry thing…what do I know? – but it’s always there, and thank God for it!

Not long after we had settled in, Ted called out my name and took me aside, into one of the hospital rooms, and asked me, “Can you help us out with a rehearsal?” I could have sworn he asked if I would read some lines during rehearsal. I thought I was going to do some kind of stand-in assistance until the “real” actor showed up. 

So: “Can you help us out?” asked Ted. 

“Sure!” I said. 

“Are you AFTRA?” [American Federation of TV and Radio Artists - one of the two main film unions] 

“Yep!” 

And I read the lines out loud like you’d read an instruction to someone. But no! Ted wanted me to really do the lines! He modeled how he wanted it to sound, and I said, “Oh! You really want me to act!” How hilarious. I swear I heard him say he wanted me to “help out at rehearsal”! (And as I’m typing this, it occurrs to me: this was my audition! If I sounded like hell, he could easily and kindly move on to someone else. Hmmm. Nice tactic!)

We were filming in San Francisco in the Laguna Honda Hospital, built in 1866, and an absolutely perfect place to film a new version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fantastic, moody place; and, we were told, haunted! And patients and staff were there because it’s a working hospital! The patients on our floor were to a large extent in wheelchairs, 60′s and up, and either doing art therapy, or rolling themselves into the Extras Holding area and finding a sunny spot to bask in, or an Extra to stare at, wordlessly.  (Now that’s entertainment!)

So, in an environment like this, I had to ask Ted, “Do you want Nurse Ratched?” “No,” he said, “I just want a teacher scolding a student.” 

After two more rehearsals, he told me to say it without the script. Quick memorization??? Not my forte, I thought. I was wrong. Thank goodness. I repeated it, and he said, “Okay. Good. You can go back to Holding. [the Extras' Holding area] Just don’t tell anyone about this yet, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

Still numb. This didn’t seem like I was “helping” with a rehearsal. Was I being bumped? Upgraded? Ohmigod! I certainly was. 

My first time being upgraded! My first lines on National TV! A big step! A credit of my own! A mention on imdb.com. A now partially-opened door to someday becoming a SAG actor.

Remember my Oscar Night “Epiphany” blog? Luck, not talent, I said, gives us opened doors. 

Well, today, luck dropped by my house!

Trauma. Episode 19. “Crossed Wires” is the name of the episode.  If the scene isn’t cut for some reason, I’ll be on National TV! A-maz-ing! (I did do that National Comcast xfinity commercial months ago, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of that! And so it goes.)

So, you ask, what did I get to do? Speak three lines, hit the gorgeous young lead, Wes, upside the head, and jettison him out of a wheelchair! This is big fun! (Yes, I did say “hit him”. Yes, I did say I threw him out of a wheelchair.) 

After we rehearsed a few times, everyone went to lunch. Someone came up to me and asked me if I customarily tipped people out of wheelchairs. Of course! I said. The same person gave me some beautifully veiled advice about how to play the scene: “Do you have kids? You seem like someone who could boss her kid around. That’s what that scene seems like to me.” 

Back on set, we were all wired for sound, Extras were brought in, and we were off to the races. 

“Action!“ 

Down the long, dark hall toward Wes (and me) walks Aimee, the female lead in this scene, and spots Wes in a wheelchair. Feeling tremendous guilt for his state – she feels responsible for putting him in harm’s way – she begins to apologize, choking up, when I suddenly burst on the scene, yelling, “Landers! Get out of the chair, dammit!” At this point I hit this gorgeous man upside the head. And then I take a firm grip on the handles of the wheelchair and throw him out of it.  “Save it for someone who needs it!” and off I go, leaving Aimee’s character to verbally kick his butt for trying to play her. 

The first time I pitched him out of the chair, he came over to me and said, “Hey, just really throw me out hard! It’s perfect! Makes me laugh, which is exactly what I need to be doing just then!” Hey, all in a day’s work!

Well, the 8th or 9th time that I hit him upside the head, I went over to him and asked if his head was still okay. He’s young; he’s a committed actor; he was fine; and I wasn’t really hitting him all that hard … I hope. 

So he was fine. Even I seemed to be okay – seemed to be doing what they wanted. People were telling me, unasked, that I was doing well. Nice! And my faith in my abilities suddenly stood me in good stead. I knew that I was doing exactly what was right for the scene: I was giving a natural, character performance without chewing the scenery, and I was aiding the scene rather than scene-stealing or posturing. There in service to the scene? Check! Doing it well? Check! What more is there?

Between takes I took a moment to sit down, and I saw a sign on the wall for veterans, offering them the opportunity to apply for $11,000 grants for schooling. I was tickled by the sign, because the first line read, “You Have Sacrified”. No, that’s not a typo. No, I didn’t forget the “c”. “You Have Sacrified“. I showed that to two other actors, and we giggled. It brought out the Southern Preacher side of all of us! “I. have. sacrified! Amen!“

Maybe you had to be there. 

Well, after a three-and-a-half or 4 hours or so, we wrapped. And finally, after the whole day, I got to share my good fortune with one of my friends on set, Diana. She grabbed me in her arms and shouted, “CONGRATULATIONS!!!” She was so generous in her praise! I was very moved and relieved. As exciting as today was, until I could share it, it was missing something. That’s just me; joy, to be really experienced, is to be shared. And I had made a new friend, Dustin, who had just graduated from law school, but is feeling the call to acting. He gave me high fives and a new friendship. Life is good!

The last moment of the day: an Extra said to me as we walked away, “Wow! You really scared me! I was sitting there [on set], and every time you came roaring out, you made me jump! Really scared me! I love that!” It’s the only career I’ve been involved in where scaring the s*** out of someone is a good thing! 

*sigh* How marvelous.

Well, 15 minutes (or 3-4 hours) of fame. And when episode 18 airs sometime in April, I’ll watch with my hands over my eyes, hoping to God that I end up on the screen instead of the cutting room floor; that I don’t look hideous (yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to care); and that the acting works. 

I have to admit something. I feel educated by this experience in a way I couldn’t have foreseen. I know how to act, so it’s not that. What it is is a personal understanding, an awareness of how much responsibility rests on us as actors when we work on film, and how precarious is that perch! In theatre, you rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, you have an opening night, and then the director goes away, leaving the show in the hands of the Stage Manager and the actors, and the show opens every night, applauded or not by the people who come to see it. It’s in your actor hands, and no one but the occasional critic and the Stage Manager can tell you that you’re not doing well enough. And unless you’re in a Broadway show where understudies are actually provided, you are probably not going to be fired for doing a less-than-good job because there’s no one there to replace you!

It’s different with film. I suddenly knew, standing there to do the first take, that if I stunk up the place and were summarily fired, there would be something like 30 or more people there to watch my humiliation. 

Ulp. 

Anyway, the day was now over. I bought – and drank some of – the champagne, to celebrate my step up. As for tomorrow, no return to 3-line stardom – at least, not that I know of (but phone lines are open!). 

Tomorrow, I’ll be transcribing. Back to the grindstone. 

But it’s all good. I’m happy now that I know that luck at least has my address in its vast Rolodex. 

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www.LoriKirstein.com

Jeff Bridges - The Lucky Winner!

What a show tonight! And how wonderful – as ever – to see all the faces that I’ve come to know and love and feel close to, while still never having met them.

And it’s so moving to listen to and watch the mini-tributes to the Best Actor and Best Actress Nominees. I watched with tears in my eyes, laughter bursting out of me, feeling like a part of the evening, even though my Oscar gown is a bathrobe.

And I’m watching these people, these lucky people, on the very same day that I did the best audition of my entire life. Really. So I’m looking at these people who sit at the top of the Hollywood biz – who work steadily, who know one another and therefore have more access, I imagine, to collaborative possibilities than the average bear. These people who breathe air that is so rarefied as to be nearly unimaginable. And I had an epiphany, followed by another.

My epiphany was a sudden awareness that they truly are simply lucky. That that’s the only difference between them and all of the other actors and actresses who have the chops but no door marked “Success Entrance” on it. Or those who have life challenges that stand in the way of a concerted effort to “make it” (whatever that means to each one of them). Or those whose time has not come and has not come, and has not come yet. Or those who momentarily, or for months or years, put life as a whole in front of their still-burning desire to express their acting-soul in a big way.

The Hollywood people, are lucky. Not more special, not more gifted, not more deserving. Just lucky. And I believe that most of them would tell you the same thing, because most of them have either ridden the roller coaster of work-unemployment-work-unemployment, or understand that the nature of the business is ephemeral, and therefore uncontrollable by mere actors.

Now, before you jump on me and say, “Wait just a minute! These people are freaking talented! What are you talking about??? What about Meryl Streep? Stanley Tucci? Kate Winslet? Sandra Bullock? Helen Mirren?”" and on and on – the list of super-mega-talented Hollywood-celebrated actors and actresses is impressive – here is where the second epiphany meets the first!

While their luck was in finding the open door, the talent helps keep them there! It’s not the other way around, as I thought! It’s not “the most talented wins” the career! And it’s not “the most talented keeps the career.” It’s far more mysterious than that.

This is a huge change in my understanding.

I told you that I did my very best audition today. I left that audition crying, because I had an epiphany then too (the Moon must be in Epiphany today) that doing my best audition didn’t matter. At all. My abilities alone have nothing at all to do with whether I get a job or not. Nothing. So it’s luck. It’s about when it’s my time, and when it’s not. What I get out of auditioning is this: (1) the opportunity to act for those three minutes; an opportunity that most don’t take or get, (2) more experience with auditioning, which is always good and (3) the possibility that I could get cast, because I at least showed up.

Luck alone did not, and does not, make the Hollywood greats more talented than other as-yet-unknown actors and actresses. And talent alone did not get them through the Big Hollywood Door. But what put them in that rarefied air is a crazy-magic combination of elements, of which the most visible to us is talent.

When we’re talking about working as an actor, there is a magic about it that we can never parse out (which is something that makes us actors completely insane, because we’re always looking for the magic switch that will make “it” happen for us, and it can’t be found…but that doesn’t stop us). But while no one can tell you what or where the success light switch is, nor how long it takes any one person to find it, I can tell you some of the various elements that live in that mysterious darkened room:

• Acting classes (in some cases, NONE! in some cases, YEARS!)
• Audition classes
• Hundreds of auditions, a small percentage of which result in work, and an even smaller percentage of which are paid.
• Lots and lots of experience you may or may not get to use.
• The “right” audition.
• Influential people who can help you.
• Influential people who can’t help you.
• Hours, weeks, months and years of determination, effort, disappointment, rejection and occasional highs
• People who believe in you, who tell you that you have what it takes – some of whom actually have the experience and standing to be seen as harbingers of success, and some of whom are your friends and loved ones whose support is invaluable, but not bankable.
• A heart and soul made of creativity – and a corresponding drive to create that so engulfs us that it makes some of us unserviceable to the “normal” world.
• Endless streams of money spent on headshots (the photography sessions, and then the following printings and reprintings), travel to and from auditions in and out of town, haircuts and colorings on a regular basis in case that big audition comes out of the blue, and clothing for those headshots and auditions.
• Feeling like a lunatic as your desire to be stable and “normal” wars ever unsuccessfully with your artistic lifeblood.
• Day jobs that you hate, and undertake as your best role: that of a normal person.
• Auditions where you are the best in the room, and do not get the role.
• Auditions where you know you were godawful, and you get the role anyway.
• Bad experiences – misbehaving directors, difficult co-actors, inhumane treatment – that make you give up the business at least twice a year…and return to it as to an unfaithful on-again/off-again lover.
• Learning how to work the business, and continuing to work it.
• Dreams realized, and dreams shattered – and more of the latter than the former…

…and then that Magic Door opens. And you fall through, or walk through, or are led through, and suddenly you are in that high, thin, pure air of working. And you may get to stay. And you may not.

People tend to think that “getting there” is the goal, and they think that they know what “there” is! “There” is working on a steady basis; supporting one’s self doing what one loves to do; being an ongoing part of the acting community. That’s the true “there”. On the other hand, the I’m-a-Hollywood-star thing is really the top of the top, the true heights and it is a one-in-a-million shot! Now that I think of it, it’s exactly like winning the lottery. And many of us, layman and lunatic actor alike, believe that when we “get there”, and win the Big Award, an Oscar, and finally truly do bring it home, that your life as an actor is then set. You’re in! You will never be unemployed again!!!

Think again.

Bette Midler won the Best Actress Oscar for The Rose, and then didn’t work in a big way for another ten years! And in a recent Audition class, Michael Kostloff (of The Wire, among many other things) told a group of us the name of a man who won an Oscar and asked if we had heard of him. No one had, which was his point. Try it yourself! Look at a list of Oscar winners over the years and you will find at least a few names of people who worked, won an Oscar, and whose names will ring no bells of recognition in your mind.

What happened to them? Nothing. They were actors. They lived. They had full lives or they had difficult lives. They acted for the rest of their lives in one way or another, or they gave it up.

Kostloff is right: Acting is not a job, it’s a calling. Which means that if you answer that call, you are going to acknowledge and live in what Martha Graham called that “divine dissatisfaction” that impacts all artists. It also means that when you say to someone, “I’m an actor,” and they ask you, “Really? What are you doing right now?”, the question itself is misguided. It’s like saying to a gay man, “Really? You’re gay? Who are you sleeping with?” Whether or not the gay man is having sex to begin with is irrelevant. He’s still gay. And so it is for actors. It’s the same. thing.

And as to that divine dissatisfaction thing:

“There is a vitality, a life-force, a energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever anytime. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others. If I add something to my time, then that is my prize.

~Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

“There is no satisfaction whatever anytime.” Except when the phone rings and the voice on the other end says, “We would like to offer you the role of …”

And you know that this time, it was you who got lucky.

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www.LoriKirstein.com

Ohmigod, this is so bad it’s good. This is so frickin’ ridiculous and out-to-lunch it’s fabulous!!!

Auditions. The best of them…are a rarity. Sad but true. Then there are the ubiquitous horrid auditions. The one I went to today was one of those, and it was HILARIOUSLY BAD!!!!

Starting with “everyone should meet at Starbucks”, and giving an address, and then changing the location and telling…no one!

Moving on to, “Come over to this other Starbucks and sign up for your audition”…and wait…and wait…and wait, while we collect even more people from Starbucks locations that we erroneously gave to one portion of you.

Moving on to instructions to talk about EDD (the good ol’ unemployment agency that saves my bacon every few weeks with a serviceable check) during our audition. What? One person thought we were supposed to be reading a script of someone else’s experience with EDD. Me, I didn’t know what was going on. I was just there to audition, whatever they wanted! But really, what do we think of EDD? Wouldn’t that have been a good thing to tell us ahead of time?

Here comes the really, really good part:

We’re sitting in front of a Starbucks, about 10 or 12 of us. The music is playing outside, as it always does at any outdoor Starbucks establishment. Down the little walkway in front of Starbucks, about 20-30 feet away at the corner of the cement building, is a woman sitting in a folding chair, with a tripod and camera, filming the auditions. Each audition is taking 5-10 minutes. Too long for some, who have come from as far away as Sacramento (we’re talking over an hour each way) and need to get back to their lives. More people are showing up. It’s a cluster-f***! The young women in charge are overwhelmed and don’t know what to say to us. We’re ticked and too stupid to leave. Some of us. Some do trickle away over the next hour and 15. Smart people!

So, we’re all sitting there, some of us chatting in conversational tones, some of us just sitting and waiting, when we hear a voice call out words that no one in their right minds would ever, ever utter in front of a freakin’ Starbucks! That are only ever uttered when one is working. Employed. Hired as an actor in some capacity for film work. But never anywhere else! And especially not in front of a freakin’ Starbucks!!!!!

“Quiet on the set!”

Ohmigod! “Quiet on the set!”???? Did I hear that right? “Quiet on the set????” This is Starbucks you silly cow!

Every single actor there looked up and locked eyes. Every expression was identical.

W T F?????

First there was annoyance, even anger! But the second time she called out, “Quiet on the set!” and one of the young women actually shushed us – in front of Starbucks (sorry, but it’s just so NUTS, I can’t get over it!) – I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it, and frankly, didn’t even want to! I started laughing. And every time she called it, I had to laugh.

One young guy there had to get back to San Jose – a 30-40 minute drive each way, depending on traffic – and I looked at him and drily said, “Ahhh, the glamorous lives we lead.” And he smiled at me, the gorgeous young thing, and said, “Game on!“

Exactly.

The audition itself? The next bit of nonsense came when there were people trying to get in sooner so they could leave. It was a mess. For every kind person that said they’d let someone in front of them, everyone behind them was held up that much longer. Lunacy. I finally fought my way to the front – they had skipped over me, those well-organized little darlings – and went to “film” with Miss “DeMille” (Quiet on the set!!!!!).

“Say your name, where you’re from, and tell us what you think of EDD.”

They are, it turns out, going to use these snippets in some TV show. No wonder we were supposedly “on set” in some drug-induced ideology of theirs.

“Hi,” I say to the camera, “My name is Lori Kirstein and I’m from Hayward.” I take a moment – a “beat”, it’s called, to give a little space to separate out the slate (my name and city) from the information – and I said, “EDD -” and Miss I’m-The-Directeur called, “CUT!” I stuttered to a stop. “What?” I said. And she looked up at me and said, “I need a little less space between your name … and … y’know…” She’s suddenly distracted by the fascination of having her cell phone in her hand.

“No.” This was ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. “I don’t know. Between my name and what?” (The city? My thoughts about EDD? How much of a @#@#$%^ I think you and your whole ridiculous posse are?)

“Between your name and what you think of EDD! Just a liiiittle less space. Okay?” twinkle, twinkle. ”Okay,” and she shoots an “Action!” index finger in my direction, and I say to the camera, “Hi my name is Lori Kirstein and I’m from Hayward EDD saves my butt with checks every now and again I’ve never been unemployed before and EDD saves my butt that’s all i can think of to say about EDD.”

She looks at me, all shiny-faced and shiny-eyed. “Ooh!” she trills, “I love one-takes!”

Oh. My. God.

Once upon a time, showing up, and getting up on stage and saying my lines without feeling my legs shaking uncontrollably would have been a “successful audition”…not to mention remembering my lines!

Then I got a little more seasoned, and showing up with the resume and headshot looking great, and learning how to dress along the lines of the character without actually being costume-y, and having my nerves there but no longer crippling, those were my signs of success!

A few more years in, some negligible graduate “training” under my belt and an understanding that I was on my own, success was when I auditioned without the nightmare voices of my detracting would-be “teachers” in my head, and just used the gift God gave me.

When I had fun – that was my mark of success.

Years passed, and nerves became – depending on the audition – nonexistent, negligible, or useful for feeding into the monologue.

I floundered, suddenly, feeling that I had reached the end of my abilities. Then I heard Dustin Hoffman say that “method acting” is whatever method you use to do your acting.

I was complimented by two professionals – one extraordinarily big, and the other at least waay bigger than me – and I did some learning under the latter. I took his advice, tried to put it together with what I know to do, and I killed the next big theatre audition.

But it left me with a really really cool philosophical question. If I do a “good audition” or a “good interview”, but no one around me likes what I did, did I actually do a “good audition” or interview?

But here’s the cool-as-hell answer, the one that comes from a place of knowing that I have the talent/ability, and that I prepared/interviewed my butt off,  so I killed it! It’s everyone else’s fault if they’re too stupid to notice.

Good approach to life! Work, prepare, find out if you’re as good as you think you are, and strut your stuff, knowing that the only reason it couldn’t happen for you is … not your fault.

Suh-weet!

Shining!

You’ve got a choice. About who to believe about you. You can believe the voices in your head (never a good idea). Or you can believe the people around you who dissuade you from following your dreams (also not a good idea). Or you can believe those people who believe in you and who think the world exists for, waits for, yearns for your abilities, your possibilities, your unique qualities.

“But what is their proof? These people who believe in me.”

This is what your head wants to know.

Wrong question. Wrong focus. The thing you need to focus on and believe in is the fact that when they tell you how much they admire you, love you, see you, you feel it. And it feels good. Beyond good. It feels right, true, and like your deepest self.

That’s the proof. That’s your proof.

It’s all you need so that you can make that choice. The choice to believe those voices that love you, accept you, applaud you, see you.

Make that choice. Make it with ferocity, if you have to – if you’re up against your internal monsters or you’re up against the external bullsh** of people who want to hold you down, hold you back, make you less than you are and will be.

Make that choice. Because without it, nothing changes, and instead of growing in the sunlight you struggle in the shadows, and you take your reward from the efforting rather than the being and that is no reward.

Make that choice because others need to see you make it so that they can gather up their courage to do the same thing.

Make it because you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

It is a choice. And you can make it. And make it again. And keep making it until you know that who you are is that highest, best, most beautiful thing that you have always suspected was who you are, but never dared to hold with both hands and show the world.

Why do this? Why risk feeling or looking like an idiot to some people as they watch you start to shine? Because it is everything. And you want everything. Don’t you? You want to be your everything. Otherwise, what did you come here for? To survive the experience? That’s a losing proposition.

Go for broke. Make that choice. Shine, baby. You’re beautiful.

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www.LoriKirstein.com
ActorTract@gmail.com

So, tonight I drive to the corner of Essex and Harrison and join 10 or so other Extras-with-cars at the set location which is … uh … Essex and Harrison. And that’s where I expect the adventure to begin! I’m hoping that the Trauma team has blocked off parking? I’d like to say that I’m expecting it, but I’ve mostly learned to expect the unexpected in life, so I’m … nervous. I’m also wondering, since it’s been raining like insanity for the past week and more, if they’ll be in bright day-glo orange gear or what? Will I see them when I drive up? Or will I pull up to the corner of Essex and Harrison, stop at the red light (?), and sit there blocking traffic with my fellow Extras…

It’s adventure, baby! Or is it trauma? Depends on your level of control freakiness.

Here’s the good part: I get paid for bringing my car. We’ll be on set from 7:30PM-??? Midnight? 1AM? 2AM? And I get paid $35 for bringing my car. Cool! That should pay for the gas…

*sigh*

I ran into Robert at an audition a couple of weeks ago – a man I met when we were shooting a Comcast commercial (which still hasn’t shown up on television – rats!) – and he told me he was booked on Trauma recently, with his car, and he spent eight hours sitting in his car. That was his contribution to the day. Never exited the car once.

My car is, well, let’s just say it’s not a Maserati…ever. It’s about 14 years old, one of the rear taillights is broken (“Well, it’s a night shoot…” one of the Casting Directors said, and went ahead and cast my car.), and it’s got a couple of pictures of Hindu gods on the windshield – guess I’ll peel those puppies off. No, wait, we’re in San Francisco. We’re expected to be different. Wow, my Hindu gods may just make the limelight. Lucky devils.

I’m bringing food, drink, writing materials for the plays I’m writing, books to read, and my cell phone.

I’m ready for my car’s close-up, Mr. DeMille.

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Lori Kirstein
www.LoriKirstein.com
ActorTract@gmail.com