Paying the actor

Two of the major acting unions – the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) are moving toward a merger, and it’s prompting much debate among those in the business over the benefits of union membership vs. non-union.

Payment for an actor’s time and talent is certainly one of those benefits, along with covering an actor’s costs – mileage, meals, drycleaning if you’re asked to provide a costume, and insurance in case you’re injured on the set.  Payment can be scale or adjusted according to the size of the production, but actors typically get paid something when they’re union – and money is an obvious good thing.

But payment confers other benefits, both to the actor and to the production, that many overlook.

To begin with, advertising paid roles turns out a larger and often better selection of actors, which makes it more likely that exactly the right fit will be found for each role being cast.  Even with a multimillion-dollar budget, bad casting can ruin an otherwise good story.

A producer/director who is paying the cast - who has invested in the cast as part of his investment in the film - is going to make sure he gets his money's worth and will demand a lot from the performance. That works to the benefit of both the actor and the film. Actors want a director who's going to demand a lot from them, not one who feels he can’t because he isn’t paying them anything.

On the other side, an actor being paid knows he has to earn it, that there's a heightened level of professionalism involved. And that sense goes up with every assist that is provided to enable him or her to turn in a good performance - from professional lighting and makeup to dancing lessons and dialect coach. For the actor who's simply donating his time, talent, gas, costume, makeup, you name it, it's a far different mindset.

I’ve worked on films being produced by students at Columbia University and other respected film schools and was paid.  And I think that one reason I was paid is that the instructors at those schools understand this concept, that the more money a filmmaker has invested in a project up front, and the more he or she understands that they are working in a business with required costs, the more effort they are going to put into making it a success.  And actors want every film they are in to be a success.

Every new actor starts out working for a credit and, if film, a DVD.  You often get bigger roles in small, low-budget productions and if the script shows originality and the production values are reasonably high, it can be worth the tradeoff.

But as quickly as possible - which is as soon as they think they're ready - actors need to move into paid roles and union membership.  It pays off in the quality of your performance, the quality of the film, and the respect you get as a professional.

The importance for an actor of letting go

Those interviews with starring actors tacked on as special features on movie DVDs are often a wealth of useful information, especially for those of us in the business. This past week, I've been watching the very well done Swedish versions of Stieg Larsson's trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), and in the interview with star Noomi Rapace, who plays Lisbeth Salander, she says something that jumped out at me.  She talked about the importance in a scene of "letting go," of losing yourself in the moment and trusting the director that it's going to be right.

If you're an actor that approaches a role intellectually (as I do), that can be difficult to achieve.  If you're in your head thinking Do I need to pause here?  Walk over there? Turn my head this way? then you're not connecting with any other actors in the scene and you're certainly not connecting with the theatre audience or those who will eventually see the film.

And it shows.  I have raw footage of a scene I did with the lovely and up-and-coming LA actress Walker Hays, and in the middle of one closeup I get a look in my eyes - it's just a flash - that says "What's my next line?" Although the rest of the shot appears to be fine, and the editor can cut around that momentary lapse, the performance wasn't as true as it might have been had I fully connected with Walker.

The ability to "let go," and to live in and react to the moment, is as important to good acting as it is to good sex.   It means forgetting there are cameras and crew all around you and for a moment living fully in an imaginary world where only you and the other actors exist and whatever situation called for by the script is real.

Children are often surprisingly good at this, maybe because they still feel free to pretend.  For adults it takes a lot of trust; in the director, in yourself, and ultimately in wherever it is fate and destiny are taking you. 

Streep is astonishing in The Iron Lady

Just a quick note: saw Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady. My God she's good - just breathtaking. The most influential world leader of the past century played by the most astonishing actor of the past century. You completely forget it's Streep.  She works incredibly hard at her craft and makes it look effortless.  How can they judge her for the Academy Awards?  There's Streep, and then there's everyone else.

I thought the criticisms of the film - that it dwells a bit too much on Thatcher's infirmities and not enough on her triumphs - were fair. But even so there's much about it that's terrific, even apart from Streep.  The makeup is incredibly good and natural.  Jim Broadbent is wonderful as Denis Thatcher.  Alexandra Roach is eye-catching as the young Margaret.  The film is beautifully shot.

I'm thrilled that this kind of film was written and directed by women. It's not a "woman's movie." It's not Bridesmaids.  Women filmmakers are starting to turn out some great work.  

The Un-Pilot Season

Late January to late April actually IS Pilot Season and I'm rushing about getting all my tools together. For pilots the casting agencies will be looking for name actors that will draw interest and backing. Since that isn't yet Kathryn Browning, the agencies casting pilots won't see a submission from me.  Instead I'll be looking for interest from those agencies that are NOT casting pilots but casting current episodic television shows and independent films.  It's a small window of opportunity.  During Pilot Season many name actors are holding out for pilot auditions and a chance at a possible series so they aren't quite as available for anything else. That means slightly better odds for the rest of us in those productions that are already up and running.  At least, that's the theory.

My headshot prints arrive this week along with new post cards and business cards.  Cutting my demo reel down to 60 seconds and adding a couple of new clips.  Putting together a mailing list of New York casting agencies that I know have cast roles for the 15 or so TV series based in New York, but who aren't on the list of those agencies casting pilots.  Also listing the DC/Baltimore agencies for the features being shot there, like House of Cards with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, which begins shooting next month I believe.  Trying to get everything out the door by next weekend as I have film and stage auditions coming up and an 8-week Meisner class that starts the 24th.

Glad to be past the holidays and seeing things moving again.

And trying not to get fired from my day job for insubordination. But that's another story (I'm so bad.)

The Artist: Best Picture of the Year

Off to rehearse for a comedy pilot, but had to say something about The Artist, the new near-silent, black-and-white film that's generating so much buzz.  It's terrific.  The most imaginative and visually beautiful film I've seen all year.  Jean Dujardin may single-handedly bring back the pencil mustache!  (The Fedora is already making a comeback among sophisticated dressers, my darling husband included. Let's hope the film also brings back the beefy three-piece suit to replace those silly, skinny-legged things sold in New York at Suit Supply.)

But enough about fashion.  Every frame of this film is drop-dead gorgeous.  The lighting is perfection. (Watch for the scene where Dujardin stands at the back of a darkened, near empty theater with the light on his face.  It took my breath away.) The story is simple, straightforward, and compelling.  It also has some quirky scene elements reminiscent of The Coen Brothers.  In fact, this is a film the Coens would have made had they thought of it first.

The Europeans are again showing Americans how it's done.

The only disappointment: I looked up Dujardin on IMDb and his photo shows him with the ubiquitous three-day beard sported by half the actors in Hollywood.  He looked utterly forgettable, whereas in the film he's a knockout.

But that's a small point to be dealt with by his agent.  I'm buying this film.

Surprise, surprise. There's a global market for American TV.

Racing through December and trying not to be too dismayed by the scheduling conflicts and missed opportunities.  Family responsibilities.  Too much to do.  The tree isn't up. I'm so tired I found myself in tears on the way to the day job on Monday.  But I watched Phil Rosenthal's hilarious doc, Exporting Raymond, while wrapping gifts the other night and was amazed to learn there is such a foreign clamoring for American TV.  No, not subtitled reruns.  They are selling the scripts to foreign production companies and reshooting the series with foreign casts.  This doc is about efforts to sell Everybody Loves Raymond to Russia.  It's an eye-opener, and very funny!  Hang in through the credits.  There's a scream of a sight gag involving a Big Mouth Bass (the animated plaque.)  Also check out the completed Russian episodes.  The question I had was, "Is this kind of humor universal?  Or have we found a new way to export American culture?  If the latter, let's hope they stick to shows like The Nanny and ELR and leave Community in the can (or wherever they keep shows these days.)

Sadly, Hugo disappoints

I really looked forward to seeing Martin Scorcese's film Hugo because Scorcese is a terrific director and the film was getting great buzz online and in the papers. A lot of people like this film. Last night I saw it and, sadly, I did not.  Boo. To begin with, it's not a film for children, it's a film in which children appear.  It gets long and talky, which kids have no patience for (even for adults it could have been 20 minutes shorter), and Sacha Baron Cohen is allowed a running aside to another character that is inappropriate for children to hear.

But the killer for me is that it goes from a film about action happening to the main character (OMG a little boy is lost and in peril!!!) to a film about something that happened to Ben Kingley's character years ago (the old man fell on hard times career-wise and is just distraught about it.) At that point it loses its magic.

Films are about ACTION, as Viki King points out in her book on writing screenplays.   Plus, when Kingley's story is presented as the "mystery" the plot as been building toward, and the focus shifts to him, my reaction was "What?  THAT's all it is?!"  What about the kid?!  Oliver Twist is about Oliver Twist!  David Copperfield is about David Copperfield!  Harry Potter is about Harry Potter! Halfway into Hugo, the little boy's story goes away and the film becomes a college seminar on the origins of filmmaking.  No, no, no.

It wasted wonderful name actors, like Emily Mortimer and Jude Law, in under-five-line roles that could have just as easily gone to lesser known character actors who needed the work.  It brings in characters, like the bookseller, played by Christopher Lee, and then goes nowhere with them.  It indulges in gratuitous camera shots (the overhead in the book store, the revolves around people when they're talking) that distract the viewer from the dialogue and lose the intimacy of the moment.

That said, Hugo has a rich and breathtakingly beautiful look we don't often see in films.  It moves seamlessly between real characters and CGI.  And Asa Butterfield, the boy who plays Hugo, is captivating and a delight to watch.

And this review is why my kids don't like going to the movies with me.