I’m Finally Here!!!

I have now been in L.A. for a week and am loving it! (although right now probably isn’t the best time to be writing, as I just said goodbye to my parents, who are flying home now, making me all alone for the next 18 days)

This town has a weird effect on me, as my dreams have never felt more realistic or close than they do here, but they also feel extremely far away and unrealistic. I think it is because I am so close to where the magic happens, to all of the Hollywood icons, but I am also surrounded by so many people with the same hopes and dreams that you start to wonder, why would I make it when they haven’t?

I feel like everybody here is trying to get discovered, so I would feel slightly embarrassed whenever my dad would tell our waiter that I was here because I want to be an actress. I was convinced they were thinking, “Oh, another one.” But at the same time, not every person in Montreal who wants to be an actor flies out to L.A. to take classes. It’s a really scary and big step, so maybe I am just another little girl with stars in her eyes, one among millions, but isn’t it still incredible that I’ve made it this far?

As I had predicted, this week was very busy, as my parents and I took our tourist job very seriously. We went to Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Universal Studios, The Grove, WB studios, Paramount Studios, SONY studios, toured Beverly Hills, compared our hands to the great at Grauman’s Chinese Theater…We were busy exploring, but there is still so much left to see and discover here!

I did take time out from my tourist schedule to audit a class taught by Anthony Meindl, who I hope to study with when I come back in January. He started the class off by telling us about the workshop he just taught in London, and gave his students some homework, which he suggested the rest of us could do too. I thought he was really passionate about what he was teaching and it would probably be really hard and interesting and fun to study with him, but then I saw the scenes his students performed for us. They still had their sides with them, although some seemed to have it memorized, but this didn’t seem to get in their way like it always does for me. The emotion they put into it and the acting…it was incredible. I would have paid to see some of the scenes. They were amazing!

This morning I walked to Margie Haber’s studio, and a few other places I will have to walk to, in order to see how long it takes me. I am on the waiting list for Anthony Meindl’s Introduction class in January and will spend the rest of my day preparing for what is to come, especially my headshots tomorrow afternoon!