10 Things I've Learned as an Actor.

Last year at this time I got a new agent – Michael Zanuck – and booked the first audition he arranged. Forty lines in an episode of the CBS daytime drama The Young & The Restless, playing marriage counselor Dr. Iris Carson. The people at CBS were terrific. So well organized and so considerate to actors coming in for guest spots. I got good comments from production. It was a positive experience all around. I thought things were suddenly taking off, but not yet.

I was called back for the role of the older I Love Lucy comedy writer Madelyn Pugh for Aaron Sorkin’s film Being the Ricardos, for Amazon Studios. It went to Linda Lavin. No shame there. She’s a wonderful actress. But what a disappointment.  I loved the script and role. 

I also got a second look for the team owner in Amazon’s TV series of A League of Their Own, but that went to Rosie O’Donnell when she became available and they decided to take the role in a different direction. 

Well, such is the business of acting.

But then the virus hit with lock downs and crazy rules. I have always believed that life happens as it does for a reason, and that if you just hang on you will come to realize that everything turned out fine in the end. So, not to be deterred, I've started thinking about what practical things I’ve learned in the past decade as an actor and how they can help going forward from here. 

The list, in no particular order, except the most important last.

1. Learn from those who are successful in the career path you’ve chosen, or in a career that’s an important adjunct, like casting.  If you’re going to take a drama class from an actor (or an actor turned teacher), then before you plunk down hundreds/thousands of dollars, check his/her credits at the Internet Movie Database. How many credits do they have? Are they in productions you recognize? Is the actor still performing? 

If their experience is spotty, you might consider online learning at Masterclass.com, leaning toward older British actors. The Brits have a practical, workmanlike approach. They're not "stars" they're Actors, and they’re good at it. I learned to assess a script and much more from Dame Helen Mirren by taking her class online. Her advice was how I knew that the Being the Ricardos role was a good one.

2. If you take a workshop, don’t pay extra to perform in a scene. Here’s why: The chance that you will so wow the person leading the workshop that they’ll cast you in a role in their next production is infinitesimally small. Worse, you’ll be so caught up in learning lines that you won’t have time to take notes. The most valuable and practical television audition advice I heard in a workshop cost me all of $30. It was given by casting director Geoffrey Soffer (Ugly Betty, The Beautiful Life) and I learned a ton. If you hope to wow casting directors with your acting skills do theatre and invite them to a performance. Danny Aiello, who played a lot of heavies, got his comedy turn in Moonstruck because director Norman Jewison saw him in a Broadway play.

3. Try new things in front of an audience and listen to their reaction.  In Los Angeles, I discovered actor get-togethers where actors were paired off, scenes were handed out, you had 15 minutes to rehearse and then you did the scene. It was a low-risk opportunity to try different approaches and roles and to get feedback from relatively average people (The kind that buy movie tickets.) The cost of such gatherings was typically a small donation, and you could attend once or twice a month. It was a good exercise.

4. Avoid magical thinking. In New York and Hollywood there is an entire industry that preys on the dreams of aspiring actors, so if an online or in-person class promises to provide “the secret” to getting cast or becoming a “star” don’t waste your money.  Similarly, do not assume a producer/director/casting director will see your face, think “He/She is it!” and pluck you out of obscurity with no experience. I see this too often with background performers who so strive to get their face in the same frame as the lead actor that they make a pest of themselves. Don't do that.

5. Don’t list credits for background roles. If you aspire to a career as an actor, you don’t want to be typed as background, and a long list of background credits does just that. On IMDB I allowed just one background credit, on House of Cards, because I felt it showed progression to the three speaking roles I booked on that same production. 

6. If you work background because you need the cash, try to get in toward the end of filming when they may shoot long days to wrap it up. Years ago I made over $600 shooting crowd scenes for a TV film that was running behind schedule and held background on set for 22 hours. That was good money when I was trying to cover the cost of classes. Another tip: whatever you're doing as background - walking in a crowd, walking through a scene with another actor, herding cattle, whatever - give yourself a backstory and an objective.  Don't ask the director, just figure it out. For example, “I came into town with a good friend today to look for a pair of red suede pumps, and then we’re going to lunch afterward.” If you do that your face and gestures become animated and real. If you don’t do that you walk through like a zombie. I've seen a lot of zombies in films lately.

7. Acting is less complicated than most people think. Yes, there are tricks to doing a scene that come with experience, and you will pick those up along the way. Whether auditioning or on set, what it requires is a vivid imagination and the ability to immerse yourself in a fantasy world that you create down to the smallest detail, all the while surrounded by technical equipment and people talking between takes. Unless you're a character actor, create your environment and respond to it honestly as an interesting version of yourself. If the director wants something more, or something different, he/she will take you there. That’s what a “director” does. 

8. Be professional. Do as much research on your role and on the others involved in the production as you possibly can, show up fully prepared and off book, be polite and considerate to everyone on set, when you’re not shooting a scene stay out of the way and avoid chit-chat.   

9. Be ready for the great role. You’ve heard that before, and it usually refers to constantly honing your acting skills. Hone the whole package. While waiting for the call, work on improving your posture, diction, and social skills. If your crooked teeth are distracting, get them fixed. Crooked teeth can be an issue with American audiences. Assess your overall look objectively, and carefully consider what if anything needs improvement. Staying super thin over time can add years to your face, so you may want to add 10 pounds as you get older. Visible tattoos can relegate you to working class roles. Your smile may light up a room or make you look menacing or goofy. 

Your aim is not to be super attractive necessarily but memorable. Some of my favorite performers have ears that stick out, chins that are too long, eyes set too close together, impossible noses….yet somehow it all works.

10. Most important, get to know people by name. On set that means not just the director, the DP, and the cast but also the production assistant, the make-up artist, the costumer, the caterer, your driver, all the people who make your experience on set easier. Off set, know the names of the wait staff at restaurants you frequent, your supermarket clerk, your neighbors. To help me remember, I save the names on my mobile phone, either with the phone contact information of the business or on a special page on "Notes." If you can associate the name with another word that helps too. For example, the first name of the waitress at one of our favorite restaurants is the same as my mother's maiden name. Easy!

Wherever you are, introduce yourself. Smile, make eye contact, say please and thank you, be interested. Smiling makes you approachable, elevates your mood, and does wonders for the muscles in your face.  Being interested can open doors. I met a famous screenwriter at my husband’s high school reunion, the father of a famous screenwriter in a McDonald’s in Virginia, and the brother of another screenwriter while camping in Arizona. Connections are everywhere, so don't treat anyone badly.

Knowing people by name encourages you to be considerate of their feelings, makes them feel valued (because they have value), helps people remember you even when you’re not famous, and makes you a mensch, which is a good thing (look it up.)

So here's to 2022. I am so ready to get back to work. :)

 

Acting Tips: Adopting a New Name

Something that used to be routine, but now seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years is the carefully considered stage/professional name.  Yes, it can feel horribly awkward answering to a name other than the one we grew up with, but equally true is that few of us have Rosalind Russell or Olivia de Havilland printed on our birth certificate. (Russell actually thanked her mother for giving her a movie star’s name.) 

Back in Hollywood’s Golden Age, actors didn’t hesitate to replace their birth names with something that was easier to pronounce, a better fit for their looks or personality, or eliminated confusion with another actor. Olivia de Havilland’s sister Joan went through several last names before coming up with “Fontaine” and sudden success. 

And success is what you’re after, so consider a new name carefully. The unwed mother of British actor Alec Guinness may have taken his last name off a bottle of stout, but whatever the truth it was often assumed throughout his life that he was a member of the rather prominent Guinness family (darn the luck!). Would Marion Morrison, Maurice Micklewhite, Doris Kappelhoff, Archie Leach, Krishna Bhanji, Alphonso d’Abruzzo, or Issur Demsky have had the same careers as John Wayne, Michael Caine, Doris Day, Cary Grant, Ben Kingsley, Alan Alda, or Kirk Douglas? Probably not. Yet I see a lot of actors these days hanging on to names that for various reasons work against them.

Here are reasons to consider a name change early in your career, some of which need no explanation:

1. You want to avoid confusion with a better-known actor or celebrity.  Actor Albert Brooks entered the world as Albert Einstein. No joke. Michael Keaton was born Michael Douglas. (I was the first Kathryn Browning on IMDb. Now there are five. It keeps the pressure on to be the one that’s “better known”.)

2. Your name is boring and/or commonly seen everywhere.  A lot of actors with the last names Smith, Johnson, White, Brown, Jones, etc. either replace it or dress it up with a standout first name.

3. Your name has an unfortunate association in English: Lipschitz, Leach, Barren, Cheeter, Slye, etc.

4. Your name is from a language or region that no longer expresses what you look like or who you are:  The world has become a melting pot.  If your great-great grandfather’s name was Wong, but you don’t look Asian you’re going to be confusing a lot of casting directors. 

5. Your name is hard to pronounce and frequently misspelled. 

6. You’ve always disliked your birth name or it never felt like a fit.

7. You want to protect your privacy and identity. You keep your personal life separate, your kids/spouse don’t live in your shadow, and you can travel and do legal business under your birth name. Also, when random strangers come up to you on the street and say, “Gosh, you look just like….” You have the option of laughing and saying, “I know! Everyone tells me that!”

8. You receive a sign! You’re considering a name change and out of the blue, you see a name in print, someone calls you by a different name, a name appears in a dream, whatever, and your head says, “That’s it!”  

For me, most of the above applied.  Confusion: I was named for a famous actress and daughter of an equally famous radio personality. Too common: Growing up there were at least a dozen girls in my high school with the same first name (often attached to a last name that made it a joke). Frequently misspelled: For some reason people almost always add an extra “n” to my first name, which makes it a pun.  Disliked my name: It never felt like a fit and the first and last names said together created an “ah-ah” sound that was hard on the ear. It was a sign: my husband and I were mulling over various actress names and my husband blurted out “Kathryn Browning!”  Why that? I asked.  “I don’t know, it just suddenly popped into my head!”  

And that last one is as good a reason as any. I would add that my husband doesn’t remember that story at all, which means it REALLY WAS a sign. 

Acting Tips: Getting Clips for Your Reel

It's 2021 and finally I have a new credit. (Whew) A week ago, March 12th, I appeared as Dr. Iris Carson, a couples therapist to Sharon and Rey on the CBS daytime drama The Young and the Restless. Four scenes and 35-40 lines. Wonderful people at CBS. Professional and friendly. My whole time there went like clockwork and was such a positive experience. I even had a parking space with my name on it. (Funny how much the little touches mean to an actor.)

Now, how do I get my clip? Years and years ago I addressed this topic from my perspective as an East Coast know-not-much and it seemed terribly difficult. Now that I have an agent the whole process is much easier. Olivia at MZA referred me to sceneclipper.com where actors can get a downloadable high-res copy of their scenes, any length, for a mere $10.  In fact, for a bit more, they'll even string your clips together into a reel. The caveat is that you do need to be an "industry professional" and the staff at Scene Clipper need to approve your account application. Read the terms of service here.  It seems to me that having professional representation was required and one way they determine you are a pro. Check it out, just to be sure.

My YnR scenes won't show up for a couple of weeks yet, but I was able to find and view my scenes at other cable and broadcast shows I'd been in, such as House of Cards.  Also, since a clip is $10 regardless of length, and since I have my own editing program, as most actors do, I found it easier to just grab the whole section in which my scenes appear and to cut them out and string them together on my own. Anyway, it's good to be back, even if the production people I meet - for the moment at least - look like they're dressed in hazmat suits. I have four auditions hanging. Keeping a good thought.

Acting Tips: How to Recognize a Great Role

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've been taking Helen Mirren's online acting class at Masterclass.com and it's something I recommend. If you're looking for advice in any career field, get it from someone who is highly successful at it.  Mirren has won the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. She knows her craft.

One bit I found particularly useful is her advice on how to recognize a good starring or supporting role. You should already be able to recognize a good script. If you know a century of film inside and out, and you should, your ear will tell you if the dialogue works and the story is compelling. 

But is the role for which you're being considered a good one? Mirren has a formula:

1. If you're offered the full script to read, look first to see if your character is in the last scene and what your character does. If your character is important to that scene, as opposed to just hanging out or tossing a line, it's probably a very good part. 

2. If it's not in the last scene, find the last scene in which your character appears and assess the power of that scene and how far it is from the end.

3. If your character has no impact in the last scene in which it appears, if it just disappears, then it's not a good role and there is no point in reading the full script.

4. If the character has an impact at the end, or an impact at the point where it exits the film, then read the script through from the beginning, knowing that it hardly matters how often your character appears in the film, because you know it's is going to play a pivotal role in the story. Think of Robert Duvall's "Boo" Radley in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird.  Duvall, who had already appeared off-Broadway and on television, didn't even have a line, but it was a powerful role - his first in film - and he knew it. 

I've really been enjoying this online class, because it presents the kind of practical information that I haven't seen since I took Geoffrey Soffer's Workshop in Washington, DC, ten years ago (see the link to my featured post at right). Actors are always learning, and this has been time well spent.

Acting Tips: Creating a Vision of Success

 As I told a fellow actor this morning, I am ready to shake the dust of 2020 off my shoes and get moving! What an awful year! Coming off of a national, multi-platform commercial for Rocket Mortgage in late 2019, I expected work in 2020 to really take off. Instead....bupkis! No work and almost nothing in residuals. (Even my old shows didn't air.) To top it off my agent decided to leave Los Angeles permanently and waved good-bye to all of her actor clients (I think she went home to Sweden!)

But in every crisis there is opportunity. Remember that. Already I'v booked a new agent and a new agency and I'm getting auditions, even with the current slowdown in Los Angeles. Feeling upbeat and working on being more relaxed on camera (your skills can get a bit rusty after periods of inactivity.)

Now, as I do every year, I've also taken time to review my life and career goals (and no, they're not the same thing.) Something I believe in absolutely is that if you can see a better future for yourself you can live it. The more you can imagine yourself in a future situation - in a setting with near cinematic clarity, down to the tiniest details - the more likely you'll be able to make that vision a reality.  

How does that work? Instead of writing "I want to become a famous actor" (remember, O.J. Simpson and Sharon Tate are "famous" actors), write something like, "I see myself booking leading/supporting roles in highly regarded dramatic films shown in movie theaters, and seeing my name in foot-high letters on the screen."  Or maybe "I see myself booking a breakthrough dramatic role that gets me noticed in the film industry, and my agent fielding phone calls with tons of opportunities for me in bigger films."  Or "I see myself becoming a truly fine actor, winning an Oscar for a wonderful performance, and mounting the steps to thunderous applause in a huge auditorium to accept the award in person. I'm writing my acceptance speech now." (As a young girl, Oscar-winner Kate Winslet practiced her Oscar acceptance speech in front of a mirror, holding a bottle of shampoo!)

Dream big and don't be vague about it. None of this "I just want to act" business, which I hear from too many actors. As my author husband says, if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there. Don't settle for any road. Think about the kind of work you want to do and where you want to go with it, and write it down. 

Also, don't tell anyone what your Big Dream is. This is where writing it down differs from the Vision Board idea that has become so popular. When Big Dreams are made public, others have a tendency to shoot them down, even those who love you. Don't give them the chance. Discuss short-term goals certainly, because others can help you connect with what you need, but keep the Big Dream in your heart.

And do everything you can to make it happen. Follow leads, research, make friends in the industry, prepare yourself as an actor. Ask, as Sean Astin asks in the 1993 film Rudy, one of my favorites, "Have I done all that I can do?" When you've done all you can do, good things seem to come like a bolt out of the blue.

Acting tips: Commercial vs. Theatrical Headshots

Now that my silver hair has grown out a bit longer, I'll be getting new headshots as soon as I get back to Los Angeles (whenever that is!). The dilemma with headshots is trying to shoot a few that will serve all situations. Of course they don't, so you often end up with shots that are never quite right for the role for which you're submitting.

Backstage magazine updated an article recently that provides some guidelines that I'm hoping will make the process easier (you can read the full article here).

In a nutshell, here are the basics, illustrated with some of my old headshots and candids:

1. Commercial Headshots are intended to appeal to advertisers promoting a product, and that means positive, positive, positive!  Smile. Wear colors that pop. Project energy, warmth, trustworthiness. Most important: convey your age range, demographic, and type. 

For example, now that my hair is silver I'm the "modern grandmother"in commercials. I'm healthy, active, and part of the family fun. Even within my age range, that restricts me to certain kinds of products and services, so know what you can believably sell to a specific sector of the population.  Also, for commercials my agent likes waist up shots.

If you've already booked commercials you have an idea of where you fit in. If you have a photographer who wants to constantly pose you, explain that you need to capture a moment that feels alive, not posed. 

2. Theatrical Headshots are used when submitting for roles in film, TV, and theatre. You want to convey emotional depth and an identifiable personality, whether trustworthy or not. Consider the types of auditions that get you callbacks and pitch the photos to those types of roles - essentially YOU from A to C and from comedy to drama. Wear earthy but not muddy tones. Make sure you have good contrast between your wardrobe and hair and the background, and that your skin tones look healthy against the background color. 

Being tall and having a lower-range voice, I often play figures with some responsibility or authority, from comic/cantankerous to confident/serene. (With Westerns making a comeback on television I may want to add a horse to a candid shot in the next go 'round, as I also ride.) 

The idea is to look more well-balanced and sensible, wherever that takes you. 

3. Comedic Headshots are recommended by Backstage as a possible middle ground between commercial and theatrical shots and are geared specifically to sitcoms and romantic comedies. Those are lucrative and fun roles and if comedy is your strong suit, run with it. Just don't make these shots too over the top unless that's the kind of acting for which you're well known. In general, keep it light. Add a bit more character. Hint at the type of comedy you do, whether dry/sarcastic, quirky/slapstick, or whatever. Your colors can be brighter than in this shot, but keep your expressions subtle.

I'm looking forward to a new round of professional photos and getting back to work.  

Life's roughest storms prove the strength of our anchors

Last fall, my career ramped up. I grew out my silver hair and saw a good number of auditions. I booked a national multimedia spot for Rocket Mortgage that paid a ton. Came back from the holidays expecting to hit the ground running.  Instead, wham!

Who could have possibly foreseen what has happened? Hollywood is shut down from a perfect storm of high tension and bad policy. Every actor I know is out of work and depressed. Having a few acorns set by, I decided the best action was simply to stay out of the way and avoid making things worse. But who knows how long it will be before I again get a chance to do what I love, to act.

In the meantime, I'm taking an online Masterclass with Helen Mirren, a wonderful actress whose work I admire tremendously. Prepare for work to resume and look to the best teachers as you do.

https://www.masterclass.com/classes/helen-mirren-teaches-acting