Landing My First Background Acting Role
As insignificant as this is, I’m screaming.
AHHHHHHHH!
I’m on a major motion picture studio lot right now, and it’s not because I was hired to cater an event, as usually is the case when I’m at these famous Hollywood locations.
Back in April, I blogged about how one of my closest girlfriends out here in L.A., Shirley, slipped me into a slot for Central Casting on-boarding. She knows I don’t make any money blogging yet, and that I have a very flexible schedule with the type of work I do do to pay the rent, so she’d been swearing that if I get into background acting work, I could do well because ethnic is in. (She’s Asian with a pinch of Black and had had consistent work since signing up herself).
Since joining the roster of Hollywood’s biggest background casting company, I’d click “available” when possible work opportunities would appear in my inbox, but I’d never actively go out and search for roles. Shirley, being a full-time background actress, is in balls deep, always scouring the web for roles she could fill. Being the way-too-nice and thoughtful friend that she is, whenever she’d see somebody looking for a Black woman, she’d immediately send it to me. And when I say immediately, I mean immediately, before her eyes could even look across the entire description. A couple of times I had to say, “Shirley, do you really think I can pass for a woman in her 60s?” Majority of the time though, she wasn’t calling me an old lady and sent me jobs I could submit for.
“MODEL TYPES FOR MAJOR SHOW
** seeking women in their 20s **”
That’s what the Instagram post read across the top.
Shirley can be generous with compliments, even when they’re not necessarily true, and I know this, but I don’t mind listening to lies when I like them, so even though I don’t see myself as a “model type”, I let her convince me to go for it.
How did I book a role as a background actor for a major television network show in Los Angeles?
I submitted the headshot you see up above as this blog’s graphic and a picture of me in a swimsuit when I was in Jamaica, as well as body measurements I pulled out of my behind, and hoped for the best. That was August 13th.
A little over a week after submitting for the job, I received an email saying that I was under consideration. They asked me to send a current picture of myself. I figured they didn’t want anything special and were only trying to see what color my hair currently is or something, so I sent a selfie I’d taken on my phone in my bathroom a few days prior.
Another week went by and I’d let the idea leave my mind, like the many other roles Shirley sent me that I submitted for and never landed.
I was out-of-town for my very first content creator contract (yes, I recently had another somewhat insignificant, yet scream-worthy-to-me, first/accomplishment.. let me find out God is tryna tell me something)… I went to check my email, probably to confirm that night’s flight time, and saw an email from the casting team that was looking for model types!
I almost wouldn’t have been able to accept the job… BUT GOD!
Initially, I was planning to ride the train back to L.A. because it gives me time to endlessly stare out of a window while I tell myself I’m writing, but my digestive system was acting a plum fool. Not wanting to chance it on a 70-plus-hour journey, at the very last minute, I booked a same-day flight into LAX. I saw the email saying I was selected for the background role after deciding to go by plane instead of train. If my stomach wouldn’t have been upset and I would’ve kept my original travel plans, I wouldn’t have made it back to L.A. in time for the mandatory COVID testing and costume fitting yesterday and today.
What is it like on a major motion pictures studio lot in Los Angeles?
As I briefly mentioned, my work that pays the bills has brought me on every major motion picture studio lot in Los Angeles, including:
Universal Studios Lot in Universal City
Fox Studios Lot in Century City (this is where I cater-waiter the exclusive Night Before the Oscars official Academy pre-party for all of Hollywood’s hottest celebs)
Sony Pictures Entertainment in Culver City (last time I was here was to serve Jon & Vinny’s pizza to Jennifer Anniston and crew for whatever she had going on)
Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank
Paramount Pictures Studios in the Larchmont area of Los Angeles (I’ve passed hors d’oeuvres here on plenty of occasions for film premieres, as I always accept these jobs since it’s so close to my house)
Yes, studio lots are a cool place, no matter you’re reason for being on one. They’re fantastical and imaginative. It makes your eyes bulge to be in one time period one second and another the next. You’re walking out of a normal 21st century parking garage, then you hit a corner and blink and you’re in the Wild Wild West. It’s also revealing, giving you those moments of “ohhhhhh,” when you see how a certain setting you’ve always seen on a screen is achieved. Though I’ve never been interested in paying for one, I can see why tourists from all around the world pay to go on studio lot tours.
Being behind-the-scenes of a film production is cool in and of itself; having an opportunity to be a part of the magic on a studio lot is the even cooler part that has me excited. | photo: Universal Studios Hollywood
Though all the coolness isn’t lost from me having worked private events on studio lots, the environment itself isn’t the reason why I was giddy today. My excitement is caused by the reason why I’m here today.
Today is my first time being on a major Hollywood studio lot as talent.
What?! I’m coming to a filming production location and I’m not here to serve food and drinks?!
It feels good, as I expected it would when I talked about Getting Into A Different Type of Gig.
Will I be on television after getting a background acting role?
I’m not sure.
Y’all, it’s only a very minor background role. If I make it on-screen, you’ll likely have to squint your eyes and look past the focus of the camera’s subject into the background to see me. And notice I said, if.
Today was only a wardrobe fitting. The scene I’m selected for could be cut before it’s even shot. (The one time I got booked a job thru Central Casting, that’s what happened to me; I didn’t even get to go in for a fitting). I could make it to shoot day and a camera never even turns my way. Or, I could make it to shoot day, get on camera, then be left on the editing room floor during post-production.
It’s really too soon to speak on.
I typically don’t like discussing opportunities until they’ve happened, which is what I did with my first content creator contract this past weekend, and my best-guy-friend got pissed that he didn’t know about it until I was in the mist of shooting the content.
Even though I don’t like talking about things until I’m sure, and me appearing on a major television network show isn’t a sure thing just yet, I am sure about one thing.
I’m sure this is a part of the process.
I am sharing this with you, my aroundLAwithTK riders (my blog readers), because
I am excited about a step, as small as it may be, in the right direction.
I need to post on my personal blog daily if I ever want it to pay me.
It’s an insightful, honest, often untold part of the process that may help the next girl that’s wondering.
We don’t see the almost’s, the whoopsy daisy’s, the darn’s, the trial and error’s. We see the made it’s, the there’s, the arrived’s.
I’m willing to share my climb, not from a pinnacle of success speaking from a selective memory of how I got to it. I’m willing to share my climb as I climb. It’s vulnerable and it opens myself up to criticism, but that’s what I need. I need to be more vulnerable. I need to allow the process to construct me into something better.
Tear me apart. I can handle that. What I can’t handle is looking up years later and not having gone for it, not throwing myself in, not giving myself to something to see what happens.
Writing helps me sort my thoughts. I believe it was a TED Radio Hour episode I was listening to recently where I heard a writer say, “I don’t know what I [feel] until I write it,” and I felt that! So, I’m here.. writing, sorting, and feeling.
And you’re here… reading.. maybe striking up thoughts within your own mind.. maybe even feeling. Whatever you’re doing, I’m glad you’re here. Thank you.
Please, don’t hesitate to share. If this spoke to you in any way, it may speak to someone else.
