Last Class of 2016

This past week has been a pretty good balance of family, work and play. On Saturday, I had a lovely brunch with Carolyne and Lorraine, followed by the setting up of our Christmas Tree. Then on Sunday, I filmed a quick scene for the Cohort, before diving into the role of a belligerent drunk for a simulation. Not very me, but interesting to try out 😉

On Tuesday, we had our last class of the year, which usually includes food, wine and some interesting conversations. I went there right after visiting my nieces, so my arms were dead in the best possible way 🙂

My scene was from Monster-in-Law, near the end, where we have a heart to heart and figure it all out. I was a little too earnest from the get get-go the first time, so we redid it with me not revealing my intentions until later on, which gave me a lot more layers and emotions to work with.

As for the commercial, I was paired up to do one from Activia, where I talk about the bloating and gas that I suffered from. We did it once on our own, then had to be less down for the second one, even if the subject matter was depressing, before finally doing it where we are happy and playing off of each other. It felt absolutely ridiculous, but watching it…it somehow works. My favorite part is probably how as soon as we ended it, we both burst out laughing.

Class usually ends at 8:30, but we stayed until about 9:30, just talking, before we all put our boots and coats on, completely ready to leave. I am not exactly sure how the conversation started, but Suzanna, a new friend and I stayed until almost midnight talking about acting, Los Angeles, acting classes, set experiences and a million other things. I had no idea that much time had passed, but even if I had, I definitely wouldn’t have wanted it to stop.

The rest of my week has been spent working at McGill and watching movies. Edge of 17 was a lot better than I had expected, although I didn’t really appreciate the crying that I did at the end. A Monster Calls was a movie I hadn’t even heard of before, but Lewis MacDougall’s acting blew me and my friend away. I also spent about the last half hour of that movie crying, but I would still recommend watching both of them. Finally, last night I went to see Rogue One with my brother. Again, I hadn’t really heard much about it, so wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it, but it was really good, and funny, and different from most of these kind of movies. In a good way. It was also really exciting to see Riz Ahmed up there after hearing him talk at LAMDA last spring. Not that I wasn’t valuing his words of wisdom already, because it was some really good advice, but I will definitely be referring back to my notes for a little refresher 😉

“Get out of your own way. It’s not about you, it’s about the scene, so stop trying to be good or prove yourself. It’s about the people that will watch it… It opens you when it’s not about you.”

-Riz Ahmed