My Summer Update

Hello everyone, hope you are all enjoying your Summer...

Things have been up and down, but am happy to report, mostly up! I have been very fortunate with auditions lately, for the most part I have been going out on readings every week. There were a couple short film / independent features I came really close to landing. One of which, would have taken me to Sundance Film Festival this year, and the other on location in Arizona for a few weeks...not as cool as traveling to Tokyo, per se...but still a film big enough to have a budget for travel, lodging, actors expenses, etc...alas, I didn't get either.

The first film called 'Paradise' I auditioned with well over 100 actors, and was called back with a group narrowed down to 6 guys. The director had emailed me wanting me to know that I was in the top 2 for the role, and that my footage was really impressive and he does want to work with me on an upcoming project this Fall, so all is not lost.

Last week I was called to audition for what could have been my first paid commercial gig, for a major casting agency. Unfortunately, I was working an overnight shoot for the tv show 'Numbers', and couldn't get out of it...so I had no choice but to grit my teeth and let it slip away. It was a National spot for Yoo-Hoo, and I would have played a boxer.

In other news, I did get cast in a spec commercial for 'Scrabble', which we filmed last weekend! It's a pretty funny spot, and has me cast as the office clown, xeroxing a copy of my buttocks and once caught by my corporate boss, I try to get out of it by throwing big words at him. It's a pretty funny spot, and the director is going to shop the commercial to Hasbro, so who knows...maybe it'll get picked up!?

I mainly did it for my comedic reel.

Speaking of comedy...here, have a laugh!


I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y

All in all, it has been a verrrrrrrry slow Summer here in Hollywood, but now that the dust has settled with SAG, more and more movies are being given the greenlight. Plus, we're now approaching TV's Fall lineup, so it's about to pick up. I recently found out that SAG is going to be making it even more difficult to gain entrance into their union doing background work, as the 3 voucher rule is now being bumped up to 6. (siiiigh)

Hope is not lost though, being that I am an AFTRA member, I need to land a U5 (under 5 lines) role on one of the daytime serials...fancy way of saying 'soap operas'...as they are mostly AFTRA productions, and then I will automatically gain SAG eligibility. So, I'll be sending out my headshots to their casting agencies this week.

June was a busy month for work though, as I was cast in 'Iron Man 2' as a member if the International Press. It was nice to have a steady job for a few weeks! The scene took place in Monaco, at the Grand Prix. The first day started out to be a really fun shoot, complete with F-1 racing, and more importantly cloudy / cool days. But it wasn't long before the sun won that fight, and we were forced to embrace those lovely UV rays for 13-14 hours a day.

**SPOILER ALERT** This sequel stars Mickey Rourke as the villianous 'Whiplash' who is a Russian madmen, armed with two whips that are electro-charged (kinda lame if you ask me) but he ultimately creates mass chaos on the racetrack and destroys cars flying down doing 200+ mph by whipping them in half, as he is on the hunt for Tony Stark. Well, as everyone who has ventured to try this before knows...this causes fire; and fire causes smoke, and breathing smoke causes, well...a lonnnnnnng day at the office. This wasn't any ordinary smoke, this was black disgusting toxic smoke, which caused the crew to eventually hand out paper gas masks, it was a nice gesture, but didn't mask the smell very well.

I also come to find out two things about Mickey Rourke, whom I have come to really appreciate after seeing The Wrestler and Sin City...1) Apparently he is a method actor now, and 2) He is a complete a--hole!

Without turning this into a tabloid blog...I'll give you a couple examples of what I witnessed. Right before the director yells action on set, the AD usually calls for "last looks" which is the cue for hair & make-up dept. to rush out and make sure the principles look how they should look, usually for continuity purposes.

Well, Mickeys characters hair has a greasy look to it, so they constantly spray him down...well, he flipped out on the make up guy, who must accidentally sprayed him in the face with the dreaded water bottle and got in his face screaming at him. Jon Favreau (director) came out and made sure Mickey was okay, but you could almost tell in Jon's face that he has been a nightmare to work with since Day 1.

The second incident was when I was walking to grab a water, I was about 5 feet from him and saw someone from "continuity" trying to get a picture of him so they know what he must look like in the next take. Ohhhhh no, he wasn't having this, and starting yelling obscenities and wanted people to "just leave him alone for a few %*&@ minutes!"

I guess this is where his method acting comes into play, he requested those fires burn 10 minutes or so before he comes out, so his character can just be in the moment, which meant our characters all had to inhale the fumes, while he was in his tent prepping. He chose a few songs to be blasted on set, so he could stay into character, which meant we had to listen to that damn Gnarls Barkley song 'Crazy' as well as Patsy Cline's...yep, you guessed it...'Crazy' and a few others...over and over and over and over. Not the most original of song choices, but hey...it seemed to work, as he was caught by TMZ that week hugging a tree while drunk, and trying to get into some random strangers car, trying to escape the paparazzi.

"Does that make me craaaaaaaaazy?"


I was most impressed with watching Robert Downey Jr. be so involved with the rehearsal process, and staying loose and in-character(s) while doing hand-to-hand combat with his personal trainer in between takes. I say "characters", as he could have been preparing for his new Sherlock Holmes role as well. None the less, he was very involved and constantly chatting with this stand-in and stunt double to make sure he knew exactly what he should be doing, and you could just tell he knows what this role has done for his career and wants to continue to get it right.

Clocking in at just under 200 hours working on set...it was a very long run, and while I am excited about the movie coming out, I might just close my eyes during the race scene and take a nap, or at least plug my nose. :) No, I was very fortunate to be chosen to work the entire length of the race scene, especially when things are as slow as they are now.

Well friends, that about sums up my Summer adventure thus far. I have a couple more auditions this week...one is a crazed cop for a 8 week internet webisode, and the other is short film, and my role is loosely based on the character 'Joe Gillis' from the classic film...'Sunset Blvd'. Wish me luck!

Oh, in closing...I was able to post my 'Mystic River' piece up on YouTube and for those who haven't seen it yet, and would like to...click on the image below. Thanks again for all of your continued support, and I hope you like it.




All the best!

~R