Could I be an actor?

I have arrived – at least in my mind after my acting class this past weekend. Guess the previous acting classes were just background for the one I took this weekend. Robert Haas, a talent agent from Hollywood, and Ricki Maslar, a casting director, also from Hollywood, were at Chris Friehofer’s “The Actor Factory” in Norman. They broke the seminar into four segments. Two segments on Saturday and two on Sunday. The first segment covered the business of acting. That is auditions, headshots, resumes, demo tapes, and many other subjects. It appears, y’all, that I am going to have to overcome my Oklahoma accent in this process. Did you know that you can buy disks and even find a website to cure any kind of accent? Heck, you can even learn to speak bloody British. A lot more to this than I ever imagined. I had been exposed to this in another seminar so this was a good refresher. Actually, I am still working on those headshots from the previous blog.

The second focused on getting to know the class members and also an exercise in dialogue between two people. I’m familiar with this exercise as I had done it last summer and lived to blog about it previously. There we spoke to another actor using only two words which were “yes’ and “no”. This time we only used two sentences. My partner was “A”, a darling ninth grade student from OKC. Her line was, “I could have done better” and my response was “I want you to know you did the best you could”. We went back and forth like this for some time. Robert stopped us and asked what we were thinking. “A” went into an explanation about competing in a downhill skiing contest and lost by two tenths of a second. WOW – where did that come from? Mine was much simpler. She came home with good grades, but not good as she thought she should have had. He then had us reverse sentences. We did that for awhile and he asked us again what we were thinking. WOW AGAIN – Her idea was that I was her father who had remarried a younger woman and we were trying to have a baby by in vitro method. This young lady is a writer with a vivid imagination. Mine again was simple. I was leaving my wife and thought of this young lady as my daughter. (not even thinking it JOY!!)

Each student was paired with another and went through the same exercise only with different sentences. An extremely hilarious one involved a very pregnant beautiful Russian girl ‘M” and her cute partner Emily Ward. Their lines were, “I know he really loves you” and “Why did he do this to me”. Robert asked their thoughts after the first go around. “M” replied she was thinking she was talking to a sister of her father’s baby. Emily was imagining something similar as the sister of “M’s” husband”. Then Robert had them make an imaginary bed (which actually was a chair) and that “M” was in labor. They went back and forth with those lines. Those two brought the house down as they were absolutely hysterical. It is a shame that the scene was not taped. “M’s” expressions were priceless. Try this with someone using two opposing lines. It becomes an interesting exercise. Be sure to modulate the inflection in your voice.

Everyone did a marvelous job on the assignment.

Overnight night we had to learn a monologue and everyone had the same one to learn. I enjoyed this because we had to make up a scenario that fit the lines. My scenario was that I was a hard headed businessman who had no time for his son. I started and built a large business that I had wanted to turn over to him. During the time he worked for me, he did not like the way I treated him or my employees and quit and we had not spoken in years. No Christmas, no Thanksgiving or anything of the sort. I learned I had a very short time to live and wanted to reconnect. The monologue revolved around me wanting to have a meeting with him and the son, apparently not interested, never showed up. (My wife asked, “Where did that come from. You’re a great dad and great with your kids”). After each of us gave it the first time, Ricki asked us a number of questions about our character and we had to answer as though we were that actual person. I enjoyed that. By coming up with a scenario, it really helped me to remember the lines since they meant something and were not just words on paper. I felt it gave me impetus to be able to put emotion into the scene. Even my wife thought I sounded pretty good when I practiced in front of her.

I had always wondered how it was that actors seemed to be able to cry when they needed to do so to enhance a scene. After each student performed the first time, Ricki asked each of them questions regarding their character. She then asked them to do the monologue again. The talent this woman has to bring out emotions was incredible. Almost every girl ended up doing the scene while crying - and a good serious cry. I sat there utterly amazed at their talent. One beautiful attorney,"M", from Tulsa probably has the same amount of experience as I have. What she brought to that scene was terrific. Ricki is quick to point out that SHE did not do this. It was the actor brought those emotions to the scene. Almost all the girls gave their monologue with tears. Even those of us in the audience got sniffly. But then, I’m all soppy as I tear up or cry at movies all the time anyway. Whether it be 27 Dresses or Avatar. Several of these young ladies and men are leaving for Hollywood in the next several weeks. I wish them loads of luck. Can I go – Huh – Can I, Can I?

The last session on Sunday afternoon consisted of scene work. My partner was a cute student, “A”, from Deer Creek. We did a scene from a forthcoming movie, "Bus Stop Conspiracy". I was the father, Warren, and I was annoyed at my daughter, Sophia, because she had rented a boat and was also on medication. She was a psycho, but then she was also a teenage girl. (to me – synonymous). You have heard the saying haven’t you, “The devil comes and takes your daughter at 13 and gives her back at twenty”? Pssst – to my daughter Robin – this does not mean you. (Your mother made me put that in) This is fun working with someone else doing an actual scene from a movie.


There were 20 of us in the class. The age difference was similar to my other classes. I was the old man of the group. There was a very “with it” 10 year old young lady, “K”, whom, if I understand it correctly, earlier that morning had auditioned for the young girl lead in the remake of "True Grit". A retired Lawton police officer, Jed Fox, was in the class. He was originally cast as an extra in the movie "The Killer Inside Me" (the movie that started me on this quest). As it turned out, he was standing next to the director in the courthouse in Cordell when he mentioned that he was retired law enforcement and if he needed any help he would be glad to be of assistance. The director asked if he knew how to work the radio dispatch equipment. He did. He was asked to talk into it as though he were actually doing the dispatching job. Jed did such a good job, he was given a speaking part. (Rats! I see now that I should have originally dressed as a policeman).

Overall, this was a great learning experience. As Ricki said, “how many times does as adult get to play at something”. She said men will go out of their way to be in a western movie where they can ride a horse and shoot a gun. Some of the wickedest people you see on the screen can be some of the nicest people you would ever hope to meet in person.

Now I need to actually get my head shots printed and find an agent. I did have business cards printed with my suit head shot.