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11:07 pm - Tues 8.28.2012
When You "Assume"

When You "Assume"

A very "thought-provoking" evening...

Went to see the documentary Side By Side with Howard and Beriau earlier this evening, about the rise of digital film-making.

It got a little too "technical" for me in spots - I don't really care much about the specific history/development of digital cameras, for instance - but on the whole, it was very interesting, and made me realize, in a very visceral way, that I'm living through a huge cultural change, as making movies on film fades and digital production rises.

On the way home (The movie was at the Laemmle Noho 7), I read Rachel Maddow's Drift, which I downloaded a week or so ago.

The title refers to our "drift" into a country where one man (The President) can basically decide to go to war without approval from Congress, and one where the act of waging war and what that involves has become excised from the society-at-large (Used to be, when we went to war, the entire country was at war. But now? Not so much).

I'm likely being extremely naive here, but the book, thus far, strikes me as being about a subject that liberals and conservatives alike should be "up in arms" about - the waste of billions of dollars and thousands of lives for no good purpose.

And not just "waste" - Whatever your political persuasion, Liberal or Conservative, I don't think you want one guy to be able to wage war at his own discretion.

But what do I know...?

____________________

Weds 8/29/12 (7:40 pm)

If I had finished my entry last night, I would have written about a belligerent homeless guy begging at the grocery store (Who was being belligerent enough that, even though I'd escaped his attention, I hung back in the parking lot for a few minutes, in case...I don't know, I guess in case I needed to run to someone's aid (And likely get myself seriously hurt in the process).

But today bigger issues have come up, so I no longer give a rat's ass about "Belligerent Homeless Guy", or my latent heroic impulses.

So what do I give a rat's ass about, you wonder...?

This morning, I woke up, and did my usual morning routine - I got a banana, made myself a cup of instant coffee, and got online to check the websites I frequent to connect to the outside world (Hotmail, Facebook, CNN, Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and TV Guide; I also spend a lot of time on The Onion "AV Club" and Slate, but they're not on the regular "morning rotation").

Anyway, I was on Facebook, and I noticed my friend Mike McGill posted a status about going to Chicago.

I just now took a break from writing this to message Mike and ask if this is the case, but I assumed he was referencing the yearly trip to Chicago Shameless makes for location shooting.

(I was in the last episode of last season, and it was a big topic of conversation on the set that day.)

That means the third season of shooting is basically over...which means the one episode I was in (where I basically had a two-line exchange with Bill Macy) is all I get.

Now, let's make this clear - No one promised anything, about how many episodes I would get or what I'd get to do or anything like that.

I just assumed - there's that word again! - that if they liked me well enough after my appearance in the first season to put me in three episodes the following season, that I'd get at least as much action this year.

And, assuming that, I assumed there was at least that much "acting fun" - and money - awaiting me as 2012 progressed; I told myself, when auditions and/or bookings weren't happening, "Well, at least I have Shameless and Austin & Ally to look forward to, and there'll be some income from those...".

And just when I thought I couldn't get any more depressed about not being used on the show this year, it struck me that, in all likelihood, that's probably it, in terms of my being on the show period.

As I said before, no one promised me anything.

But I "assumed"...and now here we are.

(As potentially self-destructive and pointless as it is, I wanted to speculate on "what might have gone wrong" - how did this character "rise and fall" so relatively quickly? - and I may do so in my next entry. But for now, moving on...)

The Shameless thing was a bad start to the day, and would have been more than enough to throw me off my game
all by itself.

Then The Universe said "But wait! There's more...!".

The beginning of the month, I had an audition, at a casting agency I've been to a number of times before, for a show I've auditioned for a number of times before.

(At the audition, I signed a "confidentiality agreement" saying I wouldn't disclose any details about the show or my audition...but I posted a Facebook status about it before I left for the audition, so do with that info what you will...)

So anyway, I did the audition, but after a number of days, I assumed it "didn't go my way".

But about a week afterward, they called and told my agent I was "still under consideration".

Then another couple weeks went by, and I thought, "Okay, now I'm sure this didn't go my way...!".

Then this past Friday, I got the call - It had "gone my way".

"Yay me!", as I sometimes like to say.

I posted my happy status on Facebook, and got dozen of congratulatory responses.

Cut to this morning, a couple hours after my morning "Shameless is moving on without me" news...

I was at WW, and decided to check my email - And there was an email from my agent saying my role in the big secret project had been cut.

So it took three weeks to cast me in a "part" so insignificant it didn't make it through re-writes.

And here we are.

Practically, I lost a day's work, and the money that would have come from it - but I was hoping it might be "recurring" (Cause they sold it that way on the breakdowns), so in my head, I lost a lot more.

____________________

Thurs 8/30/12 (8:56 am)

So yesterday was kind of a bad day...

One of the things I wrestled with yesterday, in the case of Shameless, was the feeling/fear that I might have "done something wrong" that's caused what has happened to happen.

But That's pretty unlikely.

It's more likely it's just a minor character that had limited "utility", and he's "run his course".

And who knows? It might even be about "cost-cutting" - My not being on an episode saves that episode $950-1500, so if you want/need to "cut corners", why not start with cutting out extraneous characters?

But there's not much point in stewing over this - It's happened.

I'm sad, to be sure, but the facts of the matter are still that I was a recurring character on a tv show - which I get to put on my resume - and got to act in scenes with William H. Macy.

I "popped" enough in a role that I came back. I was hoping for more (I would have liked to last through the remainder of the series), but that's not nothing.

And let's be honest - I want more than "Kermit"; while I hoped that I'd get more work from the role than I have, I knew it wasn't gong to be anything more than what it was, a "bit role".

And now at least I can get a hair cut.

____________________

I often think - now that I'm a professional actor - about how, in community theater, I used to just want things to happen (Wanting to get in this or that play, in such and such a role), but now, as a professional, I want and need things to happen.

And I think about how little I hope for now, in terms of "getting an opportunity to act" - Not getting the lead, or even a major supporting role, not getting to "emote" in some fashion, but just hoping to "have a moment" of real interaction with another character, getting enough lines and/or screen time to "make an impression".

And I think about how, before I came out here, I used to think of trying to become a professional actor as a process of struggling, struggling, struggling, until you finally "make it" and you're not struggling any more.

I had a black-and-white view that either you were "struggling" or you'd "made it", with no "in-between".

Like with many things (Falling in love, for example), I envisioned a "finish line", a "happily ever after" where you eventually get what you want and everything is okay.

But the reality is that there is no "finish line", no "Happily Ever After", and you can languish in "in-between" forever, succeeding just often enough to hope for more, while never quite getting there.

Crap - this entry has taken a bad turn...!

This is my path. I don't have another thing I want to do - This is the thing.

I'd like to get more interesting, enjoyable things to do as an actor, and I'd like to make enough money to pay my bills, enjoy life a little, and not have to worry about dying alone on the street.

But just like with the recurring role on Shameless, no one's promised me anything.

There's nothing to do but to do what I do, and hope for the best.

Just got a call from Brett a short time ago - I have an audition for a kid's show later this afternoon.

Life goes on.

You keep trying.

You "assume" for the best.

 

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