debor009

Comedy is a route many actors use to break into high profile TV and film. It allows you to work large in voice and movement and, in a way, it illuminates voice and movement for drama, because it allows you to see a broader range of what you can do.  I’ve never thought of myself as a “funny” person. Can’t tell a joke to save me. Often referred to as quiet and aloof around those I don’t know well. But I started doing comedy in theatre and found that for me it was the one instance where the phrase “make a bold choice” seemed to make sense.  Plus it’s safe. If you make a bold choice in a drama audition and people laugh, that’s bad.   If it’s a comedy role you’re after and they laugh, that’s good.  I’ve just booked a couple of comedy roles in upcoming productions, one film and one theatre, so I’ve been researching the finer points.  One good source is Scott Sedita’s book The Eight Characters of Comedy: A Guide to Sitcom Acting and Writing . Sedita provides b...

Actors have all been through this at one time or another: casting liked your r ésumé , looked at your reel, and thinks you might be right for the role. They called you in, you killed the audition, and got a call-back. Maybe two. At some point in that process, you may have heard the phrase that strikes fear in the heart of many an actor: “Tell me about yourself.” (What?!) Let’s face it, a lot of us got into this business because our own lives didn’t seem nearly as interesting as the roles we hoped to play, so “Tell me about yourself” sounds like a trick question. You feel l ike Meg Ryan in the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally , where she says "telling you the story of my life wouldn't get us out of Chicago." Besides, what else do they need to know? They can see you’ve got the experience and can do the role, yes? True, but acting in a film or play is a team effort and if you’re going to be spending a significant amount of time with the rest of the cast (more than a bit part...

I've been thinking about some of the great women's films lately. Films like Two Women , which won an Oscar for Sophia Loren ; The Women , Clare Booth Luce's tour de force comedy, which has been made three times, and others (it's a short list unfortunately.) One that's often overlooked is MGM's 1951 Westward the Women , starring French actress Denise Darcel as a prostitute trying to turn her life around and Robert Taylor as the man charged with bringing a wagon train of women from Chicago to California's Sacramento Valley to marry lonely ranch hands. I don't know why the film wasn't a hit. Maybe it was the poster art that has Darcel in an off-the-shoulder blouse - a la Jane Russell in The Outlaw (and that she doesn't actually wear in the film) - that makes it look like a standard-issue oater. Maybe later viewers linked it with Here Come the Brides , a rather awful TV series that ran for three seasons from 1968 to 1970, about a shipload of marr...

--> There is nothing like a taste of warmer weather to get a person moving. Here in the East the winter cold and snow have been brutal, and I’m one of those people who - if I can’t get out - pace like a caged tiger.   No point in trying to get any work done.   As soon as the snow goes away and I can get out, I sit down at the keyboard. “Options,” as hockey coach Herb Brooks used to say. It’s important to have options. The warmer weather was heralded by robins and the appearance of my little scene in Season 3 of the Netflix hit series House of Cards, playing North Dakota Senator Ann Wallace opposite another robin, series star Robin Wright. It’s television at its best and I was more than happy to have a small (very small) role and to see my name in the credits.  It’s the opening shot of Episode 2. Long-time New York actor David Little is to my left.  Now on to my continuing class with Helen Hayes Award-winning director Serge Seiden at The Studio Theatre, which...

Lucky Money Toad Another Year and, no, not the Mike Leigh kind I hope, although it was probably the most profound film of 2010.  Actually I was thinking about that film the other day and how – despite the synopsis – it was really about Lesley Manville’s character, Mary. Another year older. Another year alone. Another year of desperately looking for Mr. Ideal (and with her options becoming less and less ideal.) Profound, and heartbreaking. For an actor, however, the arrival of another year is about staying positive. On New Year’s Day we rush to read our astrology forecast, seek out messages in fortune cookies, tarot cards, runes, hold onto our lucky numbers, lucky jewelry, lucky audition outfits, lucky Chinese Money Toads….anything to keep our energy up and our attitude optimistic. Because no profession brings more rejection and uncertainty than acting. It takes, on average, about 10 years of hard slogging to support yourself as an actor.   Sure, some are seemingly ov...

Viewing good films is not only a way to study acting technique but also to see ways to handle a big genre on a small budget. Lonely Are the Brave , for example - a film of which Kirk Douglas was immensely proud - is an example of how to make a Western with one horse, one jeep, one star (Douglas), a handful of fine actors who were relative unknowns at the time ( Carroll O'Connor , Walter Matthau , Gena Rowlands , George Kennedy ), one jail set, one house, and lots of open (and free) desert. Directed by Volker Schlondorff Another example is now in theatres: Diplomacy , a riveting French-German film about the faceoff between Raoul Nordling , the Swedish consul general in Paris during World War II (played by Andre Dussollier ) and Dietrich von Choltitz , the German general charged with destroying Paris before the German infantry retreated across the Rhine (played by Niels Arestrup , a favorite of mine). The acting is superb, it is wonderfully directed by German filmmaker Volker Schlon...

You have to have a touch of the wanderlust in you to be an actor - travel is frequently part of the job, after all - but if as part of your travels you happen to wander into an old film location, so much the better. I often seek them out: the LA river bed where the giant ants hole up in Them! , the old train depot in New Jersey where they filmed The Station Agent . The Caribbean island of Dominica Last week my dear husband and I went farther afield to Dominica (pronounced Doh-meh-nee'-kah), the volcanic island near Barbados where many of the scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean films are shot. What an unbelievably gorgeous island. It rises from its black sand beaches more than 4,000 feet, all tropical rainforest with streams and waterfalls at every turn. Breathtaking. The next in the Pirates series - Dead Men Tell No Tales - is now in preproduction. Lucky the actors who get to leave gray skies and brown trees and work there. The beach is indeed black