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Sunshine over Cloudy Days
2024 is off to an amazing start, but not without an annoying hitch. I got in a few days of hitting all my goals (writing, social media posts, translating, etc.) before we set off for Florida to (belatedly) celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday with a few of his friends who are spending the winter there, and some family. The latter being me, my parents, my brother, his wife, and my nephew. It was absolutely amazing. The weather was temperamental, so we only went swimming a couple of times, and spent a lot of time indoors, but I was there for the company more than anything. My brother joked he was…
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Through the Snow
One thing you can almost always count on in Suzanna’s classes is that if you are less people than expected, you will be finishing late. The class is 2 hours, but once we are less than 6 people, we convince ourselves we have the time to talk and catch up between takes, or to try more things and then we run late. Which is kind of like a double bonus when you think about it. The first Tuesday of this month, we were only 3, so I got to play Lily Tomlin in a scene from Grace and Frankie. Not something I would get cast for otherwise, but it was…
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Commercial Families and Family Videos
Sometimes the rejection from the acting industry can really get to you and bring you down, even when you know there can be a million other reasons why you don’t get a part, a lot of which having absolutely nothing to do with you. Still, that can be hard to remember when you are auditioning or sending in self-tapes and offering to work for free and still getting turned down. I am not saying that I am currently letting it get me down, because I am absolutely optimistic about the new self-tape I sent in this weekend, and am working hard on an “I am enough” mindset, but something that…
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Hello 2017 :)
2016 has definitely changed me, especially as far as how I see myself and how I am putting myself out into the world. I plan on continuing to live outside of my ever-expanding comfort zone, and my word (or intention) for the year is going to be CONFIDENCE. Out of all the things holding me back in my life and in my career, my lack of confidence is certainly at the top. Here are my 2017 resolutions: Read all of Shakespeare I started going through the plays last year when I was studying in London, but I haven’t finished all of them. And I have the complete works, so might…
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The Fear of Seduction
This month in class I am partnered with Nick, who finally came back to Tuesdays 🙂 Our scene is from Coupling and I absolute love it. Not only is it hilarious and so much fun to play, it also has me working on something that was once absolutely terrifying to me, but is now…fun? Forever ago, when I was in LA, my scene required me to try and seduce someone. I was failing miserably, so my teacher gave me homework. I wanted to be the girl next door that the guy just happens to fall in love with, because flirting or being seductive was either scary, or made me feel…
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A 40 hour week :)
A while ago I was talking to my brother about my acting career, and he told me that since acting is my career, it isn’t enough to be working a few hours every day at it, I need to be putting in at least 40 hours a week. I needed to make it my full time job to get jobs. I recently started to tally my hours spent acting, and this week I got my 40 hours. For the first time since I started keeping track of them. The theory is that by counting the hours, I will treat it like more of a job and actually spend at least…
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Acting with Benz
This weekend, I took an audition workshop with 19-2 actor Benz Antoine. I often start to feel like I am doing nothing for my career, so I go out and do a workshop or take a class, which is a way to change things up a bit, and this workshop came recommended by a friend. I was emailed a scene on Friday night and asked to prepare it for the following day. In my head, this meant we would work on it and learn things Saturday, then be asked to bring it in as an audition on Sunday, so I worked a lot on familiarizing myself with all the important…
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Self-tapes and Troll dates
After an unexpectedly family-centric weekend, with very little work getting done, I got back to the grind on Tuesday. I spent most of my day learning lines and working on some monologues for self-tapes. In one, I had to use an accent, which was definitely interesting, although there was something about the dialogue that gave you a little twang, even if you didn’t mean to. The second one, which consisted of two monologues, was fun to do, but I am not sure I captured their essence of the character, more like my own interpretation of her. Normally, I would stress out about that and try to fix it, which maybe…
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Workshops, Classes and Nursing
I was going to start this post by saying I have been busy this week, but I realized that is also how I started my last post. Obviously, I need to be more creative with my opening lines, but at the same time, I am absolutely loving this state of being busy and doing things that make me feel like I have somewhat of a hold on this unpredictable career I have chosen. On Tuesday, I went to a workshop with L.A. Casting Director Paul Weber. There were a couple of people in the group who were in the French union and taking the workshop to transition to the English…
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The best friend mindset
Our minds are really incredible things. I have been reading a lot of articles lately about the difference between successful vs non-successful people, or even hot vs not hot girls (horrible title, but the article was really good) and they all seem to imply that a huge part of it is due to a shift in mindset. Which means that I can work as hard as I want, but if I don’t think I’m good enough and I don’t think I’ll make it, then I probably won’t. Unless I am auditioning for a really shy person with absolutely no self-confidence. Then I would nail it. But, as far as my…