The Actors Voice, 12/3/07
10:17 PM PST, December 2, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== Rookie Orientation For our first anniversary, my husband and I went to an amazing spa/resort place with his precious son (my precious stepson). (Don't worry. It was located near a really cool amusement park, and the boys had multi-day passes while I got wrapped in goo and rubbed and pampered for hours on end, each day bookended by family meals and activities.) When we checked in, we were made aware that our neighbors in the bungalow we'd rented were NFL players. More specifically, they were seasoned NFL players brought in to do talks and sessions during a week of "Rookie Orientation." Now, I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of Rookie Orientation, and the idea of some NFL hero next door to us for a few days was endlessly amusing to me. Turns out, after players are recruited to NFL teams, they go through an intense process of being groomed for the non-field parts of their lives as pro ballplayers. What a great idea! Before experiencing the first game of your first pro season, you train physically, of course. You study the playbooks. You learn about everything that will impact your time on the field. But before you do press, before you begin fielding offers from throngs of sponsors wanting to have you endorse their products, before you find yourself faced with adoring fans who have no limits to how much they'd like to express their worship for you, you have Rookie Orientation. I love it! Now, how can we create such a thing for the future pros in showbiz? And what should that Rookie Orientation include? =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn follow-up on "Suzanne and the Football Players" plus another request for help on an upcoming series about kid actors at Showfax.com. And!! Be sure to visit The Actors Voice: POV for a POV from demo reel editor Robert Campbell. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 11/26/07
5:49 PM PST, November 25, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== The Human Element As I write this, I'm watching Cars on Thanksgiving morning. I've seen this movie at least three times before, yet I'm crying--again--because the car learned a lesson and took care of his friends, respected his elders, stayed true to his sponsors, and got the girl. Hang on. Let's get it straight. I'm crying because the artists who drew the cars and the actors who voiced the cars and the music supervisor who chose the particular sound that I would hear during the precise moment that the cars were drawn and voiced to elicit this emotional response got it right. And I know how this works. I understand storytelling. I spend my days breaking down scripts, auditioning actors to interpret scripts, dealing with the negotiations required to attach actors to projects, and--when I'm not casting--demystifying the casting process for actors everywhere. So, why is it that I can--even while noting the inciting incident, a non-traditional casting choice, the transition into act two, the decision to edit a scene away from its originally-scripted destination, an actor's inflection on a particular word--fall for it and end up weeping? Because storytelling is powerful. So powerful that we all love it, when it's done right. (And, seeing as we don't all agree on what makes "good" storytelling, we are lucky to have seemingly infinite choices and all find something satisfying to consume.) Here I am watching the end-credits roll. Hundreds upon hundreds of people brought this film together, and I believe they all contributed to the film's overall ability to move me. Ah, and then there's the Walt Disney card. And the Pixar card. And I'm thinking about the strike and how I'm supposed to be mad at The Man. How corporate greed is bad and the individual artist is good. But The Man--with all its flaws--also employs creative artists. Hires individuals to bring our art to these "big" projects. And the reason there is art at such a large scale available to most occupants of this planet is because the suits at the corporations know there is money to be made in the mass production of stories. So, they commission our voices and we are suddenly able to reach a broader audience than with which we could connect on our own. But the bottom line remains: They need us. The world needs storytellers. =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn request for help on an upcoming series about kid actors at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 11/19/07
12:07 AM PST, November 19, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== Audition Ad-Libs Last month, I spoke to a group of actors down at UC Irvine. (Have I mentioned that this most recent graduating MFA class blew me away at the April showcase they put on with Harvard/ART? Just, wow. There's some major talent, there. So, when Richard Brestoff asked me to come chat to the current crop of students, I was happy to do so). After a little Q&A, I watched the actors do some sides I brought with me, then gave feedback to each actor, plus advised them on how I saw their "primary type" based on the work they'd just done. (Believe me, this last thing is something I could build an entire career around doing, if I wanted to. Actors really crave knowing how "their type" comes across to casting directors.) Okay, so one pair of actors deviated from the script during the read. Actually, two pairs of actors did this. One pair did it to great success. The other pair, I had to redirect back to what was on the page, as their deviations didn't work. So, the question came: "During auditions, when can we stray from what is written on the page and when should we stay married to the text?" =========== Continue reading this column shortly, along with a Your Turn follow-up on last week's "The Strike" piece at Showfax.com. And!! Be sure to visit The Actors Voice: POV for a POV from Philly-based CD Susan Gish. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 11/12/07
2:16 AM PST, November 12, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how today's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== The Strike I wasn't going to write about the strike. I really wanted to write about anything else. So much so that I had scribbled a list of a half-dozen perfectly good topics (and another dozen decent ones, perhaps three rockstar great ones too) and convinced myself that I would--that I could--write about anything other than the strike this week. But when it came right down to it, I had to face the fact that I couldn't not write about the strike this week. Hell, it's been the better part of my blogging for the week. It's certainly been the focus of nearly every conversation I've had since Halloween. And reading about, discussing, viewing, participating in, and crying about the strike has become such a way of life this month that I guess I need to expect that spillover into my column was an inevitability. I think the final nudge came in the form of an email I received this weekend, thanking me for my personal, emotional blog posts about the strike. I had already been receiving comments at both the "real" and MySpace version of my blog that were encouraging, then the Google Alerts started up, letting me know I was getting linked quite a bit lately. But the email thanking me for spelling out how very conflicted a hyphenate like me feels at a time like this caused me to realize that maybe this is a good column topic after all. Certainly, my wonderful readers must be feeling somewhat conflicted too, right? =========== Continue reading this column shortly, along with a Your Turn follow-up on the "Jingle Singing" piece at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 10/29/07
10:28 PM PDT, October 28, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== Toughen Up Seems to be going around. There's an outbreak of bad manners intersecting with a heightened level of sensitivity. And it has caused my inbox to become filled with emails from actors wondering why casting directors are such meanies. Well, here's the short answer: Most of us aren't. Most of us are actually really decent people who treat professional actors professionally and unprofessional actors politely. But even decent people who almost always behave professionally sometimes have bad days. Now, that doesn't give anyone the right to be flat-out mean to someone who's just doing his best, but not everyone plays by the same rules. However, in at least a couple of the examples that actors have been emailing to me this week, the "bad behavior" isn't actually coming from casting directors. It's coming from folks who are bypassing the casting director and putting out breakdowns on their own. Sometimes it's a producer doing her own thing. Sometimes it's an actor trying to bring together a project for himself, searching for a supporting cast. And sometimes, yes, it is a casting director. And, at least from some of the examples you've sent my way, I'd have to agree: We're dealing with some meanies. That said, the "fix" for this situations is easy: Toughen up. (Oh, and in case you think I mean it's the actor who needs to toughen up, let me assure you that this goes for these "casting people" too. Bear with me. This will make sense in a moment.) =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn follow-up on last week's Your Turn--which was a follow-up on The Let-Down--at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! And!! Be sure to visit The Actors Voice: POV on Thursday for the final POV in a four-part series from Prague-based CD, Nancy Bishop. Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 10/22/07
5:40 PM PDT, October 21, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== I'd Like To Thank the Academy Last month, I tuned in for some fraction of the Emmy Awards. Truth be told, I'm a bit of an award show junkie, so it was really bizarre that I had absolutely zero interest in staying home to watch the Emmys this year. Not only did I not cut short the afternoon plans I had, I actually extended my plans to include a dinner meeting with a colleague rather than racing home to catch up with the show. Call it The Ryan Seacrest Factor, if you will. But I'm not even sure that's what turned me off to it. I just kind of wasn't in the mood. Still, when I got home from my dinner date, I turned on the Emmys and joined the show in progress (actually, it had been over for hours, but we get that lovely tape-delayed version here in LA which just really pisses me off, seeing as every tease from the news anchors includes shots of the winners backstage in the press room. I'm like, "If you're gonna force us to watch on tape-delay, then for the love of all that is holy, you should be forced to do spoiler-free news teases on the same channel." But I digress). I found myself pausing the TiVo to let the show get in the system for ten minutes or so, then watching the last hour of the Emmys by fast-forwarding through all of the "bits" (except for the brilliant impromptu award acceptance by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Steve Carell), fast-forwarding through the host's intros, and even fast-forwarding through some of the clips of nominated shows. I wanted to watch the acceptance speeches (well... some of them. Some were just... too much. I'm lookin' at you, Gidget). I wanted to hear who these fine actors--actors at the top of their game and at their happiest career moment--listed among those who helped them get to this point. Was it their friends, their family members, their agents, their show's producers, their co-stars, their personal trainer? Who would they choose to honor in that seconds-long moment they are given to do so? =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn follow-up on The Let-Down at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 10/15/07
12:43 AM PDT, October 15, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how today's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== Life as a Series Regular Last week's Your Turn kicked off with the following email from a reader: The question I have found myself wondering about lately is what the actual day-to-day life of an actor who is a star or series regular on a television show is like. We hear so much all the time about what life is like while chasing work but what about once you have gotten a really great job? I know it is hard to generalize because no two jobs are the same and each show is different, each role is different, each actor is different, but is there any way to get a good sense of what a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly schedule is like? Well, just like we did with the popular On the Set column, I'm turning things over to the experts in this area: some of the most amazing actors I know--all of whom were willing to take the time to share a bit about what the series regular life is like. In addition to acknowledging the expertise from a few anonymously-participating network and cable series regulars, I need to extend a huge thanks to Twink Caplan (Clueless), Bob Clendenin (10 Items or Less), Sean Hankinson (Prom Queen), Valery M. Ortiz (South of Nowhere), Brian Palermo (Thank God You're Here), Anna Vocino (Free Radio), and Victor Williams (The King of Queens). Also, I'm ever grateful to Lindsay Hollister and Kathryn Joosten, whose contributions on regularly working in support of the series regulars rounds out this week's Your Turn. All of you, THANKS for bringing together such a wonderful collection of first-hand information and practical advice for actors everywhere! =========== Continue reading this column NOW at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! And!! Be sure to visit The Actors Voice: POV for the third POV in a four-part series from Prague-based CD, Nancy Bishop. Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 10/8/07
8:23 PM PDT, October 7, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== The Let-Down So, you might recall that I was hinting around (but superstitiously not revealing too much) about a "big thing" for which I put myself "out there" a couple of months ago. Okay, well my plan was to have next week's column announce some splenderrifically delicious news about a new chapter in my writing life... but at this point (even though I haven't heard the official word that I'm not moving forward with this "big thing"), I'm thinking there's value in sharing where I am right now, which is absolutely certain I didn't make the cut. I mean, even if by some miracle I am selected as one of only three writers in this year's Warner Bros. TV Comedy Writers Workshop within days of posting this column, the fact remains that right now, I'm suffering from something actors face every single day: the let-down. =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn requesting a bit of help in putting together my *next* column (which will be all about life as a series regular) at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 10/1/07
5:57 PM PDT, September 30, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== A-List Playlist One of my actor friends mentioned that my columns had been heavy on the analogies lately. Yeah, that's definitely true. We've had a little football, a little high school, and a little cereal. So, I pledged to make this week's column very straightforward. I was going to enter an analogy-free zone. I promised myself. And then, as I drove to a speaking engagement the other night, I came up with another flippin' actor analogy. So I bounced it off a group of showcasers I was meeting with. Could I go against my plan to have an analogy-free column? Was this one worth it? Yes, they assured me. So, here it is. I'm going to write about the A-List Playlist. To get into the mindset where this will work, I ask that you hop in the car with me, as I drive to this speaking engagement. But first, you have to understand the lengths I will go to avoid crossing the 405. (Yes, I am a Westside snob. And it's not because I think the Westside is better than anywhere else; it's because I really, really, really love living and working by the beach and I find it to be a "day trip" any time I leave the 310.) One of the ways I make the trip to Hollywood bearable is through listening to really outstanding music. But I don't always start out with the iPod. I will generally give the six radio stations on my car stereo's preset a shot... until I can't handle the unpredictable, random, occasionally interesting but eventually less pleasing musical options coming through. And that's exactly like casting. Eventually, we all go to our A-List Playlist. =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn tribute to Eric Gelman at Showfax.com. And!! Be sure to visit The Actors Voice: POV for the second POV in a four-part series from Prague-based CD Nancy Bishop. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will. The Actors Voice, 9/24/07
9:26 PM PDT, September 23, 2007
Hi Everyone!
Here's how tomorrow's The Actors Voice starts out. =========== Staying Present I was watching this weekend's Georgia game and heard one of the commentators say something that seemed somewhat meaningful. This was in the final moments of the fourth quarter. The score was tied and the Bulldogs had the ball. With less than one minute to go, we either had to score a field goal or go into OT. Obviously, scoring a field goal right then would be preferable. Game over. Let the celebration begin. But we only had one time out, and our coach was saving that for setting up his kicker, rather than having him sprint out while the clock was still running. So, we needed to get a first down to stop the clock (without using that one last time out sooner than we wanted to). The commentator said something along the line of this: "They can't be thinking about the field goal. It's not about how to score the field goal. They need to get this first down and that's all they can think about right now. Don't worry about that score. Get that first down." And I thought, "Hmm. How tough that must be, staying focused only on the thing you need to make happen first and not about what it means to be able to get through that in order to do the bigger thing." And then, as if on cue for a "hey, write this week's column about this, Bon," moment, I came across a paragraph in this awesome book I'm reading (Created by...) from showrunner Barbara Hall. [When] I was halfway through writing the pilot [for Joan of Arcadia], I realized I had no real idea what the series was all about and I shouldn't even finish writing the pilot. I thought about calling CBS and saying, "I just don't know what this show is, so let's not even bother." Then, I had a change of heart. I decided that what happens to the show after I finish the pilot is not really my business. My business was to finish this pilot. So, that is what I did. So often in this business we find ourselves consumed by our goals and our dreams to the extent that we lose sight of the one thing we need to get done in order to even have the opportunity to score. And that's why sometimes the best thing you can do is train yourself to stay present. Because thinking too many steps ahead can actually prevent you from getting the chance to go for it. =========== Continue reading this column in the morning, along with a Your Turn filled with answers to quick questions at Showfax.com. As always, THANK YOU for reading! Woo hoo! Cheers, -Bon. Live your dreams! If you don't, someone else will.
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Bio
Bonnie Gillespie, an author and casting director, has taught seminars to working actors in Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles. Her books include "Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director Interviews," "Self-Management for Actors: Getting Down to (Show) Business," and "Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors." Bonnie specializes in casting SAG indie feature films and regularly produces the Cricket Feet Casting Actors Showcase. She is co-founder and co-host of Hollywood Happy Hour and co-founder of the Flickering Image Short Film Festival. Her weekly column, The Actors Voice, is available at Showfax.com. In 2006, Bonnie Gillespie was named a Top Film Casting Director in Back Stage West's "Best of Los Angeles" Issue! So far in 2007, Bonnie has been interviewed on BBC Breakfast and Judy Kerr's Internet series, Acting Is Everything. For more information on Bonnie Gillespie, please visit CricketFeet.com.
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