How to Book an Acting Job

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Well I should know…
I just booked one! I just found out that I will be playing a fairly large supporting role in a independent film called Conduct Unbecoming, directed by legendary director (even more legendary name) Sidney Furie. Furie has directed countless movies over a career spanning 55 years.

This was an interesting booking for a variety of reasons…First of all, I never received a script, or even proper sides. All I had was a short monologue in which I was talking to some ‘general’ on the other line, but I had no idea what he was saying, so I knew I had to make something up, but that could either lead me down the right path or a faulty one. That is where all my training comes in. I automatically start asking myself questions that lead me to a 90% chance of making a choice that is going to be close to what the story is, or if not at least a choice that is well thought out and interesting and either way represents me as a good actor.

The audition was very non-chalant. I was asked to do my read, and then she immediately said it was fantastic, but for the sake of interest, why don’t I do it as though I was in a field of battle with bombs going off around me. This is one of those things where you hope you have an imagination and can realistically imagine things…a weakness I’ve had in the past. I just pretended I was yelling out a car window with the same intention as the first read and it seemed to work out. She pretty much said there was nothing she could tell me.

The second reason it was interesting was that I got a callback, but was unavailable for it due to having to be in LA at the time. The director was flying to Toronto the same day and even the same time I was flying to LA. He even tried to meet me in the airport. Well I couldn’t meet him or make the callback but they didn’t seem to care saying they knew I could do it, but wanted to have a face to face for some reason. After my return to LA, I got a call from my agent and booked it! So far there has been very little information to go on to decide what I should try to negotiate so we have been delaying signing until we get more information.

Negotiating your booking is something that you get to do only on occasion. If you are a star, you can pretty much ask for whatever you want and if reasonable, you may get it. Large trailers, special food, driver pickups, are some of the things you might get. I’ve been on the receiving end of some of these perks and they are great. But once you get used to them, it’s hard to go back. On this project, they don’t have a lot of money so we are fighting for whatever we can get and so far it’s not a lot.

OK, so they couldn’t even produce a script and they reduced my work days from five guaranteed to three guaranteed, which totally sucks! Also they still don’t have a script, which is so weird. I don’t even know who the writer is, but it can’t be that bad for Sidney Furie to sign on, unless he’s so old he’s lost it, and is just doing it for a payday.

I just got a call from the production manager and he said he would send me a script and I’m going in for wardrobe, so things are looking a lot better. Not sure when I start shooting, but getting over my little depression that has been dogging me lately and starting to get excited! Yeah boooy!