Acting

In publishing, you hear the word NO a lot. From your own critique partners and beta readers --"NO, this scene doesn't work." From agents -- "NO, this isn't right for me to represent." From editors and publishers -- "NO, we don't have room in our line for this."  Sometimes, NO is a good thing. For example, when your scene could use a little more work or when you're career is heading down the wrong path that isn't right for you anyway. But sometimes, NO has nothing to do with your book and your...

I got on set and we improved all the scenes. I got to work with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman & Nikolaj Coster Waldau. Then I booked the film called The Tomb, now changed to Escape Plan, with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those were the three films I did at the beginning of the year, and then summertime I went back in California to be with my soon-to-be wife. Then I went back to New Orleans to be present for more auditions and I booked a film called Aztec Warrior. That was amazi...

I grew up in the Bay Area, in Oakland. I lived on Fruitvale, so homage to the film Fruitvale Station, it’s like my hometown. It got pretty bad in my area when I was 10, so we moved to a better area — a safer area — in Dublin, California. I was there until I was 15, and then I moved to Omaha, Nebraska. California to Nebraska, can you believe that? Everyone was like “Why did you go to Omaha?” and I said, “You know, just to change up the scenery, why not?” In all honestly, what really happened...

The professional performer has to learn so much, so fast. Nimble doesn't begin to describe how we have to move through our entire careers. You better be fast. It's why they pay us the big bucks when we do get those very precious network TV jobs or feature films or commercials. I got paid a disproportionate day rate for a network comedy in 2012, and I just got the same bloated check again in 2013, because it aired on the network again in prime time. Double pay for doing nothing. I just be myself...

     Recently, I wrote a critically-acclaimed novel, The Drifts (Coach House Books, 2010), and have been staging excerpts with two major New York Theater festivals. Bully for me that the Globe & Mail called the book “magnificent”; audiences have said very nice things (“hilarious and heartbreaking…stricken and dangerously poetic”, etc.) and I’ve gotten some nice press. Unfortunately, one festival got wind that another fest was announcing my participation and selling tickets. The first (you know w...

     When Richard Botto (@Stage32online) asked me to write about how I’ve stayed in the industry so long, and maybe share some war stories, two words came: I’m interested. First, I’m still in the industry because I am curious. There’s nothing like being backstage or onstage; or hanging out on the steps of a trailer; or being in the hushed halo of light when “sound rolling” is called. Second, my life depended on it. Read on.      There is no other business for me. I have always known my life...

It seemed to take me forever to get my filmmaking career underway. I grew up in a show business neighborhood where my friends’ parents were film and television stars and, as a teenager, I found a mentor in a family friend who directed an unending series of episodic TV shows and some TV movies and welcomed me onto the set whenever he was working. Still, as I came out of college having gotten stellar grades in all of my cinema courses, it took ten years before I found myself in Paris making my fir...

So you arrive on Planet Earth, take a look around, think about what you want to be when you grow up. Jewish, huh? OK, we have the legal profession or playing the violin. Hmm. Well, since I had a grudge against my mother, I chose the violin. (And no, she isn't deaf, she just forgot to remove the earplugs). Music college, subsequent engagement as music director for a satirical stage show. Starts to write material and becomes the show's script editor. Directs several productions, including two s...

“But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me…” - Walt Whitman “Passage to India” Once upon a time, I was living a completely different life. I was in a small town running the family auto dealership that was founded by my grandfather in 1938. I was doing pretty well financially and it was important to me to make sure that the family business would continue to be a success in the decades to come. I lived with my beloved wife Emily on a small ten-acre hobby farm just outside of to...

I get worried when I don't get worried. Weird way to put it, but it's true. When I first started down this road, nerves used to bring me to shaking hands and a leaden stomach. Auditions were absolutely the worst. I'd be up there, barely able to slate. Dropping a line would be a small mercy at times like that. At least it meant you could get SOMETHING out. I'd stare down the long, pitiless barrel of a video camera lens and count the seconds till I could say my "thank you's" and flee from...