Customer Reviews

Adventures of a No Name Actor

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My daughter once conned me into taking her to a casting call for a TV movie. I was sitting in the lobby awaiting her when someone came up, took my picture and a few minutes later I'm talking with some assistant to an assistant director. They wanted me to be in the film, despite my pleas that I was not an actor. "We don't necessarily want actors," they told me. So I agreed to giving them a day (my daughter, of course, did not make the cut). And what a day it turned out to be! Directors screaming at prop people, myself and my fellow extras being herded into holding pens, endless delays, star tantrums. I knew for certain it wasn't going to be my cup of tea when we extras were lined up late in the afternoon for some scene that had to be reshot. As we prepared for inspection, the assistant director queried the director as to the type of people he wanted. He looked at her as if she were crazy and yelled, "Oh, I don't know. Choose a dozen of the better looking ones." Talk about acting -- the feigned indifference between us extras rivaled anything that ever appeared in this production. That was just one day. This actor has done it for years and skillfully tells of the highlights...and lowlights...of being a regional actor. I tried to stifle the laughs but had to abandon the effort. His writing is laugh-out-loud funny and is dead on. I wasn't ready for it to end. I hope he keeps acting long enough to write a sequel.

Marco knows of what he speaks. Truth is stranger than fiction and Marco tells the truth funnier than anyone else on the planet. Whether you're in the business or not, this book is for EVERYBODY!!

As an Austinite, I have been aware of Marco Perella for years--here in a commercial, there in a movie, here emceeing a Children's Symphony, there with his wife taking over the dance floor at a club. He's always seemed like a very pleasant, hardworking guy. Suddenly he's also one of my favorite writers! I just finished reading this book, and I immediately started reading it again. It is HIGHLY entertaining. I believe just about anyone would think it is very funny, but it is particularly funny and interesting if you enjoy going behind-the-scenes in the acting world. Marco is literate and savvy, with a real gift for finding the irony and humor in a situation. I find myself wanting to telephone friends and read particularly hilarious or juicy passages to them. My guess is that while you're reading it, you--like me--will be making a mental list of people you're going to give it to as a gift.

I'm surprised this book isn't more famous, but most books that do well are for the dreamers. This book makes you cringe-laugh. I'm so glad that I don't have it in my blood to be an actor. But any artist will appreciate the absurdity of business with the arts. But Hollywood needs more Texans like Marco Perella and Kinky Friedman to keep it all grounded. (And Rest in peace, Miss Molly!)

Molly Ivins was right...this book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they want to be an actor. It gives a thoroughly honest, and FUNNY, view into the life of a working actor. Fantastic!

Marco Perella is a self described "No Name Actor" who has worked with many huge stars such as Kevin Costner, Drew Barrymore,Charlie Sheen, the list goes on and on. I work in the operating room, and I laughed so hard outloud while reading it that the surgeon thought I was laughing at him! My favorite story is "Streetcar Named Desire"- Having some experience in TV and theatre, I found it poignant and quite laughably true. Now I find myself thinking back to some of the described scenes and will be looking for you Marco!

ADVENTURES OF A NO NAME ACTOR is a light and humorous glimpse into the life and livelihood of working actor Marco Perella. Thrill and giggle to his experiences as a seasoned film villain, the insane nature of movie stunt work, his adventures with auditions and conventions, as well as some VERY surreal celebrity encounters. Great behind the scenes stuff is sure to interest wannabe and working actors, film buffs, and even just fans of fun memoirs. We'll be looking for you Marco!

Have you ever been in a cafe, reading a book that made you laugh so much, attracting the attention of people around you who either think you are a sandwich short of a picnic or what you are actually reading is hilarious?
Well,this is exactly what happened to me, and of course only because I was reading one of the funniest books I read in years,at par with the best of Peter Biddlecombe, Bill Bryson or Peter Moore, and this is Adventures of A No Name Actor, by Marco Perella.
The book is a humour filled ride into the world of movie making like few have been written before,full of anecdotes and behind the scenes stories,all dressed up in an ironic and self deprecating style.
My only disappointment is the fact that the book was too short for my liking, as I really wanted to read more and more, so I ended up reading it again, something I rarely do.
If you want to know why Leslie Anne Warren cried..How good a dancer Kevin Costner is..Oliver Stone's casting style..what the actors and crew thought of Ned Beatty,and many more stories then by all means by this book now, and laugh out loud!

Marco Perella, an actor based in Austin, Texas, recounts the highs and lows of being a working actor somewhere other than New York or Los Angeles. Perella has a way with an anecdote and his attempts to make a go of what he sees as a very strange business are frequently hilarious. Particularly telling are accounts of spending time on the set with two stars who have a very particular idea of dinner-table etiquette, and a frantic day when he has three auditions in three different Texas cities (hundreds of miles apart) AND a performance of "Streetcar Named Desire" in Austin that night. Choice nuggets about well-known names in Hollywood entice the reader with juicy, but never malicious, backstage gossip. Like his existence, Perella's writing style is pitched at a continuous high speed and volume and can get wearying, but it's easy in this loosely organized memoir to stop reading and come back for more at a later time.

Want to be an actor? This is a good, funny look of the work-a-day life (if he's lucky to be working)of the kind of actor who plays small bits and doesn't get interviewed by Access Hollywood. The stories are well and amusingly told. Toward some the end, some of the vignettes became a bit tiresome, since the stories are arranged in no particular order and build to no particular conclusion. This is a fun -- though hardly gripping --book that you could breeze through in a couple of hours.