debor009

You have to be an optimist to be an actor. You get great reviews in a play, or your film wins an award, and then for months you get nothing and begin to wonder if you're on anyone's radar. What keeps me going through the down times is the persistent belief that something wonderful is about to happen. Like now, for instance. For the past week I've been obsessed with organizing the house. Clearing out closets and attic storerooms. Hauling unused items to the thrift store, junk to the dump, trash to the curb. Cleaning out the basement and setting up a space to tape auditions. The last time I felt this obsessed with the nest I went into labor! So what else is about to pop? A few nights ago I had this dream. I can't remember most of it, only the end where I walk to a picture window, pull back the drapes, and gaze up at that hill that has the #Hollywood sign on it. Only in my dream, instead of "Hollywood" it has "2014" in great big numbers.  Not sure what...

News just in that Rob Raffety's political comedy series CapSouth  - which was shot over the summer with me in the role of Congresswoman Gracie Todd Englewright - has been named an official selection at this year's LAWeb Fest !  Naturally I'll be heading out to Los Angeles for the festivities and to connect with film industry friends in the area. The LAWebFest is the world oldest and largest web series festival in the world. Last year saw entries from 33 states and 19 foreign countries. Workshops, networking, lots of good times. The New Year is already looking up.

With all the bustle of the holidays - not to mention the need to get out the door this morning to drive to a location shoot - I also have the pleasure of looking forward to appearing locally as Lady Stagg-Mortimer in a staged reading of #NoelCoward's anti-war (WWI) play "Post Mortem." It's one of Coward's lesser known and more vitriolic works, and as such not often staged (as it was here at King's College, Cambridge, in this old photograph.) But it's so good to appear in a drama, even briefly, and to dust off the old British accent.

"Lights, Camera, Action!", the local arts & entertainment program hosted by Allison Howard here in the Washington, DC area, has aired Episode 2 and it is now posted to YouTube. The actors I appeared with illustrate the broad range of character types needed for film, television, commercials, etc.  But I also post it here because I think I did a good job of plugging the good people and p roductions I've been associated with over the years - #RobRaffety, Jonathan and Rick Robinson, #CapSouth, New River Media, #JamesFoley, #HouseofCards, #MollyParker, #MahershalaAli, Think Tank, #EricFelton, #BenWattenberg, and more. Public appearances are a chance to say "Thank you" to those who help you along the way: directors, writers, producers, actors.  It's a good habit to have.

Scarlett Johansson was named Esquire magazine's "Sexiest Woman Alive" a few weeks ago (for the second time).  Here's what she said: "The 28-year-old cover star tells the magazine that getting older isn't all fun and games for a woman in Hollywood (shame on you for thinking it was), explaining how 'pretty soon the roles you're offered are all mothers. Then they just sort of stop."  Full coverage in the Mirror here . Well, it occurs to me that if an actress projects largely her sexuality onscreen - i.e. the depth of her cleavage or the perfect roundness of her bum - then the bloom really is starting to go off the rose at 28.  But why does Hollywood do that to women? Playing a "cougar" Marion Cotillard tore up the screen in La Vie en Rose , a 2007 French biopic about the legendary Edith Piaf.  She was wonderful. Yet in the 2010 Warner Brothers Sci-Fi film Inception she is reduced to little more than an artfully positioned potted plant. ...

I've just come across an online post defining the different schools/approaches to acting.  It is as succinct as I've seen (original here ) in outlining the basic themes, explaining that.... Adler is built upon Imagination Meisner is built upon Immediate Experience Strasberg  (Method) is built upon Sense Memory British is built upon Observation "The Meisner system seems to produce actors that pay attention to their partner better. Some of the basic Meisner exercises include the YES/NO and various repetition and back-and-forth exercises that tend to 'bond' the actors together. "Acting is living life truthfully under imaginary circumstances". "The emotional life of a scene is a river and the words are the boats". "The Strasberg system or METHOD system tends to produce actors that are a bit more tightly wound. The system is based on SENSE MEMORY, which is the process of recalling all of the attributes of an object, and EMOTIONAL MEMORY which...

I feel like I’m struggling.  Getting a fair number of film auditions, but not nailing as many roles as I should. Actors get a lot of advice when this happens, most of it vague and unhelpful. You need to make bold choices (whatever that means). Don’t rush your lines (but, on the other hand, avoid melodrama). Just react (even if your scene reader is giving you dead lines). Be the most interesting version of yourself (even if you got into acting because you don’t think you’re all that interesting). Do it large (the director can ramp you down). Don't do it large (they'll take you for a stage actor). And (least valuable of all) if you didn’t get the part it’s not your fault; it’s because of a whole laundry list of reasons unrelated to how you did. A film audition typically involves the barest summary of the story line and where your character fits.  The sides you’re sent to read could be satire, drama, farce….the words themselves don’t necessarily tell you. If you’re auditioning fo...