Old Acting Blog

Every actor must demand total discipline of himself if he really means to be an actor. – Uta Hagen:
Respect for Acting.

Yesterday I was chatting with my friends Ryan and Katie about the passing of time. “There will never be another March 2013”, I said. Sometimes I think about how I let each day go by and don’t do any acting! Even though I love it so much! I could tape something for my kids show, I could practice a monologue, I could read from an acting book, I could write my thoughts on another actor’s performance from a award winning movie. I have a HUGE list of ideas that I could pull from, lots of solo exercises to try. I have the equipment I need to tape something (twice over! iPhone & iMovie and a DSLR camera & FCP X).

There have been so many days in my life, and now they are gone. I’ve commented on this before I’m sure, but it is a great wake-up call that I have the control to do something about it. I’m not a victim!

Yesterday I received an unexpected bill in the mail. I started to panic, but I realized that there’s no need. It’s just money. After I spent two days of my vacation trying out new income ideas, I finally questioned my motives. Why am I devoting my energy on money making schemes?

Of COURSE having money would solve certain issues.. but then what? We are what we practice everyday, and so far I could say that I’ve had a lot of practice preparing and postponing.. instead I could be doing!

I could go on and on, but when I think about where I want to be as an actor, and where I am, I see an amazing journey ahead. There will be all sorts of twists and turns and amazing views, but I can’t sit and wish for things to happen.

It is time to work daily on the craft I love – It is time to become a master of total discipline.

hmatt goals

Yesterday I began my spring break, and already I’m off to a great start.

I spent today going through various tasks and I came upon a note to myself: figure out frequency of posts. Well, I didn’t literally write that, but the idea was still there. I have been expanding my various blogs in an attempt to simplify, but the issue now is – when do I update everything? I am only one person, and I can’t demand too much of myself otherwise I’ll fall behind and then worry about catching up and other such nonsense.

I’ve decided that for THIS blog, my acting blog, I’m going to aim for a once a week update. This way I can keep reviewing what I’m doing with my life ( at least in regards to the steps I’m taking toward my acting career).

Now, I recently saw Julie and Julia and I don’t want to give myself some sort of breakdown because I have to post something, but it is all for my own good right? I was listening to the song “100 years” by Five for Fighting on Pandora and I started thinking about how quickly life can go by. I could list all sorts of quotes and such, but the biggest one is “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” by John Lennon.

Instead of just thinking about stuff, I’m going to try to write it up in hopes that I will be inspired to do something about it. It’s just like those times when I am trying to finish my Morning Pages via The Artist’s Way- by page 2 I want to get going on stuff!

Now that I’ve went on and on for a bit, let me drop a quick recap on this past week’s auditions:

After the February month of no auditions I finally got two notices for March 20:

1) Ad for sunglasses: Character “Unlikable groom”. I borrowed my roommate’s suit and they took a few photos and that was it. These types of auditions you either have the look they are looking for or you don’t.

2) Ad for a home-improvement store. I arrived early with hopes that I would be able to get out early and pick up a few more hours of work. What happened however was something different. I walk in and right away noticed the huge line of “homeowners”. I signed in and waited.

I heard the lady at the desk calling several no-shows for the “party guests”, and as a result they were backed up. The session runner asked all of the “homeowners” if any would be seen as a “party guest”. Apparently the pay was the same, but I thought that I might have more fun if I was a homeowner and was able to do some improv.. then I chose to wait. As a result I waited another hour, and as soon as I stepped in I was switched with a party guest anyway. Lesson- when you have the opportunity to be seen in any capacity do it! I made a few other mistakes too, but instead on brooding over it all, I’ll remember the advice from Coach Mike: just focus on one thing you did right, and one thing to do better next time. What I did right was show up early, what I’ll do next time is take any opportunity to go first so I can get on with my life.

hmatt acting update

On March 10th I hosted another Pop Culture night.

There were five of us total that night: Skyler, John, Feikamoh, Marcus and myself.

We watched the HBO show, GIRLS, House of Cards, and Homeland.

I was all excited because I bought an Apple TV for these nights. I then discovered that it stutters while mirroring the display on my Macbook Pro.. This is likely due to my WIFI network, but still- completely unacceptable. I’ve since returned it and bought a Thunderbolt to HDMI cable so I won’t have to deal with that again. Oh well.

I keep hearing about this GIRLS show and once again, I am not the demographic. However, at least now I know the premise of the show. Young early 20s woman vs New York. I thought her parents had an interesting dynamic.

Next up was the Netflix created show House of Cards and it WAS interesting (like the reviews state). First off, I didn’t know that Kevin Spacey’s character breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience, which is novel! There are very few movies that do that, and as my roommate John pointed out, the last tv show to do that was Saved by the Bell. Still, it is a great way to know what the character is thinking and is extremely efficient in a series to get you up to speed quickly. Secondly, now I want to see the House of Cards tumble. I wonder where the show leaves off (this season?, how is this classified when Netflix releases everything at once?) [Update 3/21/13: I was browsing on Netflix and I found out that this is actually a remake from a 1990 BBC show, and that guy talked to the camera too. The more you know!]

We finished up the night with the pilot of Homeland. This is one of those shows I hear referenced as being quite poplar with Americans, so I thought.. I should probably see this thing. It reminded me of Manchurian Candidate (the classic movie with Sinatra, not the remake) as the tension built up to the climatic scenes. The end of the pilot leaves you with a sense of what is to come, along with a variety of questions.

Fun night once again.

Next time I’ll switch it up. Now that I have my computer connected properly we can watch online series.

Yay for new media!

hmatt Pop Culture Night