One day blends into the next. I had forgotten how that happens when you live here.
So. I've been here two weeks. And in those two weeks, I have said YES to four jobs, went to a Q&A with Sally Field, saw the Broadway show "The Heiress" (starring Jessica Chastain and Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens), Run/walked three miles a day, had coffee dates with a few friends, memorized four monologues, and...I still feel like I am not doing enough. But let's first focus on those YES's.
Here's how I got to be an extra on The Carrie Diaries TV show. I saw the posting on Casting Networks that was looking for a Tama Janowitz look-a-like (she was a 1980's author that was part of what was basically deemed as the Brat Pack of literature). I googled her and low and behold, I kind of looked like her. That is, if you took away the crazy hair and make-up. I hesitated on submitting because she was quite slim in the 80s and I more resemble her nowadays. This is the point in which I would normally say NO to myself and move on. But instead, I pushed the submit button. I hmm'd and haw'd over whether I should add a note saying that I probably wasn't slim enough but then my increasingly growing backbone screamed at me, "Ju dumbass, don't ju write jorself outta a part. ju gotta wait for someone else to tell ju NO, mija." Apparently, my backbone is hispanic. Who knew?
Anyway, I was contacted two days later for candid photos of the front and back of my head. Now, this is the point when I could have just got out the camera and taken photos of myself normally. But I thought, what the hell, I'll go for it. So even though I was ready for bed, hair in a braid, not a stitch of makeup on, I foofed my hair out super big, put on thick black eyeliner and red lips and took the shot. I remember Sally Field saying in the Q&A, "Don't expect the industry people to have imagination. When they cast people they want the finished product ready to go. When I auditioned for Sybil, I went in crazy. I picked one of the crazy personalities and auditioned like that. Did they think I was crazy? Definitely. But I got the part."
Two days later, I got a phone call saying that I was booked for two days on set at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn. Thanks, Sally.
The best part about it was that it gave me my first SAG waiver. For those of you not in the biz, here's the run down of what that is. SAG is our Union. SAG pays you much better than if you are not union. Most jobs worth having are SAG. It's a pain in the ass to find a way to join SAG. One of the ways is to obain three waivers. You can get a waiver if you work a job where they have to use non-union actors but are under SAG contract. This means they give you SAG pay for the day, feed you like SAG (yes you get better food), and the overtime is $30 an hour (I ended up with almost four hours of overtime on top of the 16 hours of regular work.) And lately it is like pulling teeth to get a waiver these days. So, in short, SAG Waiver (for me)= big deal. That, and the fact that they had to dress us up in 1980s costumes and I had the biggest hair out of anyone didn't suck either. Kinda fun to play dress up once in a while and have professionals primp you like a barbie doll. Although it did take a half an hour to untangle all the teasing and hairspray they used.
Now the experience itself of being a background extra is not even close to being glamourous. In fact, in some ways it can be slave labor. It's not real acting. You are not an actor when doing it. In truth, you feel like an ass most of the time. Pretending to talk to people by mouthing words, people you don't know, and trying not to piss off the crew or director by doing something stupid accidentally. The principle actors (the famous people) are treated like gods. The crew bickers amongst themselves, and the extras are looked upon as something between moving-scenery and cattle. From my observations it's kind of like 25 people in an office, all trying to work in the same cubicle. And all of them feel like what they are in charge of takes precedence. It's a tricky thing. Some sets are better than others. I've been on some where the tone is fun or respectful, some that are like war zones, and some that are like tibetan monasteries.
With all that, I think the worst part about extra work, are the extras themselves. There are a few gems in there that make it fun, but for the most part it is filled with self entitled, egotistical, whiny assholes who think their motivation will make or break the scene. News Flash: "Background" means you stay in the BACK. I had this one girl give me direction in between shots. She felt it important that I laugh at the right moment, lean in at a certain point, and even told me how she was going to look at me and therefore how I should react. I was tempted to tell her how grateful I was for the advice since my Masters clearly didn't cut it...but I refrained. You have to laugh. And remember that it is a choice whether to take these gigs. No one is making you. So you deal with what's been thrown at you.
I like background work because I like learning how a set works. I hope that one of these days I won't feel like I'm always in the way and doing something wrong. Because the more I am around it, the more fascinated I become. And with fascination comes that ultimate hunger to become fucking amazing at it. But I believe to get good you have to DO, not observe. And unfortunately, getting auditions this time of year is beyond sparse. I get very anxious knowing that I haven't been on one yet. But then I have to calm myself down and remind myself yet again that I've been here fourteen days.
It's just that...I feel like, my entire life, all I've done is climb the side of a mountain, then slide back down to the bottom. I've fallen off that mountain more times than I can count. The top is where I want to be; be it physically, mentally, monetarily, spiritually, career, whatever. I am the constant slider. And I notice that it gets harder and harder to pick myself up from the ditch in which I fell and start the climb again. And everytime I look up at the mountain after a fall, the mountain seems bigger and colder and further away. I worry sometimes that one of these days I'll slide to the bottom and just not have it in me to get back up again. That I'll sit on the earth until it grows over me and I'll never move again. That seems a bit dramatic, but remember who you are talking to.
Anyway, I'm at a point right now where I am as far up the mountain as I've ever been. So if there's a way to push further, I want to take it. And I panic if I give myself a break or any allowances. Because you never know if that day I don't go to the gym, that audition I passed up, that cupcake I ate, that NO I said, will be the beginning of the slide. And as many of you know, once you start the slide, there's no stopping it till you've reached the bottom.
Up until now, I've been afraid of the top of that mountain. What happens if I get there? What would happen if I don't? The unknown was far scarier than anything else; than giving it truly all I've got. But that's changed. The only thing scarier than getting or not getting there, is having it be my fault.
Now don't you worry, my friends. I still give myself days off. I watch movies and have that Wendy's frosty when I earn it. Giving yourself kindness is a very important part of what helps you cling to the sides of the mountain. But I still feel like you gotta give so you can get. And I wanna Get a LOT.
Ok, so I've written entirely too much already and I've barely scratched the surface. But I've been pulling a minimum of fourteen hour days so I'm going to just give bullet points for the rest.
I took an emergency stage management job for the next two weeks that will pay my bills through March which is a huge gift. I signed on with a temp agency that is super flexible and I can basically write my schedule which will help with auditions. And I am a temporary receptionist at a performing arts college for awhile. I am grateful. I just hope I remember how to juggle all this, that I get enough hours to survive, and yet not let it stop me from auditioning. That's how it happened last time and I fell off the mountain.
I've also started writing a novel and I am toying with the idea of somehow producing and directing a 1940s play. May not go anywhere. But you should always keep something for yourself. Something that's yours. It makes you feel not as empty after a day of hustle and bustle.
I'll finish with this little epiphany I had when riding home on the subway the other day.
I used to believe that NYC would make or break you. But actually, I think she only magnifies what you are already. If you come here with holes in you as a human being, if you come here with doubts and fears, and expect her to make you harder, faster, and stronger, she'll just throw you on the tracks and run right over you. All those feelings will double or treble in size.
But if you come here, knowing what you want, knowing you can get it, knowing that you are strong, and worth the best...well, she'll make you sparkle more than a drag queen on a runway.
At least I hope so.
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