So my friend Kerry just got cast in this new Fox show Enlisted as a co-star on an episode. She has three lines, and in case you're not an actor and so you don't know how big of a deal that is, that is a big deal.
I have never had a line on a TV show ever. Now that I'm in SAG, I have the opportunity more available to me. However, I need to get an agent so I can actually get TV show auditions, and at this point, I am still looking for one of those.
But anyways the part is perfect for her. Basically one of the main guys comes up to her in a bar and is being sort of skeezy, and she sort of blows him off. She had to do a video audition for it because she's been living in New York, but she has some connections in LA still, so she was able to find out about it, and then she sent the video in and she booked it.
So easy right? Who couldn't make it in LA, really. Um.. let me answer that for you: most of us.
Most of us aspiring actors are having a hard time making it, including my friend Kerry for the past few years, but lately she's been getting more auditions and actually booking some things, which has been really encouraging to me.
I had lunch with her the day before the shoot, and she showed me the video audition she had made. It was good, but I was like, Dude, I can make video auditions like this. I have made video auditions like this. I could be booking stuff just like Kerry booked this, you know?
It sort of made me feel the realness of the possibility. And then I read lines with her so she could show me how she was going to do it, and it was so fun! I'm like, I love this, and I could totally be on a TV show. This is not super hard.
Like, yeah, if you're the lead role in some intense, indie drama (see: Short Term 12), it might take some preparation and hard work. But to do a few lines on a TV show? The main thing that makes that job hard is that you get so caught up in your head because you've been waiting sooooooo long for this chance, and it pays a decent amount of money, and you're going to be around people that make their livings off acting (real actors!), and this could be the role that catapults you into other roles, and omigosh you're so excited blah blah blah. But then what happens? You get so nervous you don't sleep at all the night before and then you flub all your lines and that is that. Your career is over.
Well, thankfully, that did not happen to my friend Kerry. She said it went really well, and it sounded like she had fun, (except for the long hours of waiting in the trailer beforehand, which she said was kind of lonely). The trailer! She got to wait in a trailer pretty much by herself. That is so cool.
I mean, when you do extras work (which is what I'm most familiar with in the professional TV world), you have to wait in a big, boring room with a bajillion other extras, so it's not lonely, but it can be aspiring-actor-overload, and it is still boring.
Okay well just wanted to say "YAY" to my friend Kerry, and "YAY" that it's true that people can get lines on TV shows, and "YAY" to hopefully that one day being me.
