03.15.07
Acting - So You Want To Be A Movie Star?
Being a Movie Star is everyone’s dream life. Money, fame, girls (or boys) everyone likes you and wants to know you. You are interesting and your life is full of adventures…. or is it?
To get to be a Movie Star you first need to climb the ladder. Like the NBA Star you also need to play little league, local then state, then national amateur then fainally you MIGHT be accepted into a second stream division.
As a beginning actor you are going to have to do lots of amateur practise first, you are going to have to work for free and fork out your own money for lessons, travel, getting costumes and paying for photos and for shooting your own showreels.
You are going to have to study and work for free.
Then when you finally make it into your first ‘big break’ and you get to serve coffee to the lead actors at a coffee shop while they discuss the plan - then you find out what acting is really all about.
“We don’t get paid to act, we do that for free because we like it, we get paid to wait around” - Attributed to John Candy
Yep, you’ll be waiting around…. all day…. everyday.
Here is your typical day on set:
- 5am: you will be woken up at 5am with a reminder phone call
- 6am: pick up by mini vans then driven to the set if you are lucky, otherwise make your own way there
- 7am: you check in at the set, this is the start of your day.
- 7.30am: breakfast, on a decent budget movie the food is the one luxury you have, on a low budget or Indie film you had better bring some food of your own
- 8.00am: You are rushed to wardrobe to get makeup plastered all over your face, you may also get a disgusting tasting brown liquid painted onto your teeth (as we did in a pirate movie for bad teeth), you may get horrible wounds inflicted upon your face tehn covered in sticky ‘dried’ blood, you may get a clown mask painted on, whatever. Then they will put you in a costume that is 90% likely to not be your size, with matching shoes.
- 9.00am: after hurrying into costume, with sticky blood covering 1/2 your face and body, and a torn ripped too tight army uniform you are told to wait in the ‘green room’. In this case you are shooting outside. The green room is a small marque (tent) that can shade maybe 15 people, there are 30 people here today, and main actors get priority.
- 9.30am: You sit and wait. You start small talk with another aspiring actor. You are told not so politely to shut up by the Assistant Director, they are filming and you just ruined the last take.
- 10.00am: catering brings a coffee (instant) and a biscuit or two.
- 11.00am: it is starting to get very hot in the sun, you go sit under a tree. It is going to be a hot day
- 12.00 noon: now it is hot, you are sweating profusely, fake blood is running into your eyes, your body is a mess of fake blood and sweat, you feel very uncomfortable
- 1.00pm: Lunch, everyone breaks for 1 hour of lunch, everyone except the director, cameraman, grips, lighting, and the main actors in the next scene. You’re lucky you get the full hour. Lunch again on a good budget movie is good, you have your choice of meals, vegetarians and the religious are catered for. On a low budget movie there is often one or 2 big pots of food and if you don’t like it, or cannot eat it due to beliefs then tough luck - hope you brought your own.
- 2.00pm: they come and rush you back to set, shooting is about to start
- 3.00pm: you realise that shooting meant everyone else, not you. You sit waiting, not talking, bored.
- 4.00pm: you vow to never work another movie again, this is so boring
- 5.00pm you are now swearing at everyone and everything, you hate movies
- 6.00pm: Quick! They need to get your shot before we rap today. This is it. Excitement courses through your veins. The scene is prepared, the actors are in place, extras sit around the war office. ACTION! The actors start to talk, you stagger in, bloody, dishevelled and pass a report to one of them, he stuffs up his lines. CUT! Everything is reset and you ‘go back to ones’, your starting position. ACTION! Again you walk over CUT! The wind picked up and blew a newspaper off the table behind. Back to ones. ACTION! again, and again, and again. 8 times later the Director is happy with the take
- 7.00pm: you finish shooting, RAP! Now you go back to costume, they take your costume give you a small towel and a cup of water (after much asking) to clean yourself up. The fake blood mostly comes off, but you now have highly noticable red stains on your face and skin where the ‘blood’ was. You dress in your own clothes, dirty, still bloody and get driven back ‘home’ in this case a central drop off point where you need to take public transport or a taxi to get home.
- 8.00pm you get on the subway, stinky and bloody with a red stained face. People look at you strangely.
- 9.00pm: you arrive home
- 11.00pm: a phone call, the Assistant Director. The take was no good, you could see the shadow of the boom mike, it has to be reshot - I’ll call you at 5am to wake you up.
Like it? But wait there is more:
- You wait for the movie to come out
- 2 years later the film is finally released, to DVD, something went on and it missed going to cinema. Oh well, at least you’re on DVD and your friends can rent it. You hire the movie and go home to watch it. You watch the entire film eagerly awaiting your scene, it doesn’t come. You watch the movie again to make sure you did not miss it. Nope. The scene was cut. Final desperation you watch and read all the credits - nope, no mention of your name there either. You didn’t make the final edit.
Not the scenario you were expectin was it now? Be ready for it because the above is a very real scenario, things like this happen everyday.
You go through these motions for months, getting better known and meeting the right people. You get a small speaking part you say “Your coffee, sir” and keep the part - the movie is even released on the big screen and in the fine print you see your own name.
Another year later you get a small part a “fifty worder” wherein you get 3 or 4 short lines, and actually intereact with another character.
Finaloly you work it to the point that you get your own role, in a no budget film but you get a decent part. You work it, it costs you money, your Boss fires you for having too many days off your normal job. You finish it and get the showreel.
Continue for years then maybe if you are dedicated you will get a part in a big movie, then maybe if things go well and you work your butt of to be happy, friendly and sociable as well as a good actor THEN and only then will you get the chance to audtion for big movie acting roles as a main actor.
Then if you can manageto do extremely well, then you might be offered the chance to audition for a mina role and if you get that and if you do well - then you will be a movie star.
It’s a long road to the top, but remember even the top actors still sit around in the dirt and mud dripping fake blood for 12 hours a day, staring at the wall.
My advice… take a non-fiction book everyday you are on set. It is amazing how much self improvment and acting study you can do while ‘working’ on a movie.