Attended the first cast meeting for the film on Saturday, then drove 80 miles home in a driving snowstorm that went right over Washington instead of going to the south as was forecast. Thank heaven for four-wheel drive and a GPS that got me around all the pile-ups on the beltway and I-95. I’m a good driver in snow. Still it was four hours on the road before I finally pulled in the driveway.

We start shooting next weekend and I’m looking forward to it. This is going to be good on-camera experience and in a significant role. Plus the producer is hoping to premier the film at a local theater, which should be a kick.

Feeling really good about it, and reasonably confident. I have a lot of experience working behind the camera and I read books on filmmaking constantly. Plus I’m a huge fan of movies and old TV series, as my thousands of Netflix ratings can attest. I can’t imagine wanting to be an actor and not having an historical view of the business, and yet I encounter that all the time among fellow acting students. Younger people tend to be very current on American television acting, which is something I find too often rather slap-dash.

Besides, unlike British television, which uses actors of all shapes, sizes and ages and can actually conceive of romance between two dumpy, middle-aged, rather ordinary looking people – and pull it off brilliantly! - American TV tends to homogenize the cast. Almost everyone is trim and attractive and has a “cool” way of speaking. Child actors sound like they’re 10 going on 35. It’s so unimaginative.

I’ve been thinking about this dearth of historical perspective because of an incident in class last Tuesday. One of the students – a very talented thirty-something guy – had done a scene from Homicide: Life on the Street where he was playing a convicted rapist/pedophile. I remarked that he reminded me of Richard Widmark in the film where he shoves the old lady in the wheelchair down the stairs. His response was, “Who’s Richard Widmark?” at which point the instructor and I looked at each other like, “Oh my God!”

Okay, so Widmark was before his time. Clara Bow was before my time, but I learn a great deal from watching silent films, and foreign films too.

There is so much to be gained from studying films from the standpoint of craft, and so much to be gained from reading books by and about great actors, directors, producers. Talent alone is no guarantee of success in this business. In fact, if I had to put my finger on what is, I would say focus, an obsessive focus on the goal of seeing yourself succeeding in film. When you stay focused, good things happen – in part because you’re more alert to opportunity when it comes along and in part because, in some peculiar way, you become a kind of opportunity magnet. I saw that happen in my writing career. I saw it happen again when I got into television as a producer. It wasn’t having “connections,” because I had none. It just happened.

Case in point, this film I’m doing. The producer said she was so pleased when I finally sent in my headshot and résumé because she’d seen my headshot online and thought I’d be perfect for the role. It also helped that there apparently weren’t a lot of other actors vying for the part, but how often does that happen? The producer thinks you’d be perfect and few others apply?

Focus. Focus and study great film actors and great film roles.

Which raises the issue of whether to try at all for theater, but that’s a topic for another posting.