"The label you give yourself cannot impact external forces that are not motivated by your own psychology or influenced by a third party's pre-existing consciousness of you. We are all presented with reasons to struggle which come from completely external forces; to pretend that one is not struggling is either arrogance or an admission of defeat. To admit that one is struggling is a sign and a source of strength." - Evan A. Baker

Friday, September 28, 2012

Footloose

My mother is 5'2. My dad is 6 feet tall. I should have grown to be about 5'7 (missed that by 2 inches!) because of that. How do I know? Because I have giant feet and hands.

Seriously. My hands are not tiny. They're slender, sure, they're feminine, yeah, but they are long. "Piano hands,"* Dustin Diamond told me. Thanks, Screech!

And my feet are huge. I wear a 9 1/2.   5'10 models have this size shoe or SMALLER.
My mom wears a 7 1/2. So to put this in perspective, I was already borrowing her shoes when I was in fourth grade. Yes. At 8 years old, I had the same size shoe as my fully grown mother.

In seventh grade, I was a 9 1/2 and I pleaded to the heavens, PLEASE STOP LETTING MY FEET GROW! PAYLESS ONLY GOES UP TO 11!!! and thankfully, oh, thankfully, the heavens listened and intervened.

"It takes a bigger foundation to make a church than an outhouse," my dad quoted from his grandfather. And that's true...

But for my height, my feet are still big.

And apparently, they're also popular: http://www.wikifeet.com/Lira_Kellerman

Wikifeet.com is a Real site where random strangers on the internet can find photos of celebrities off google, myspace, or where ever and stare at their feet. It's "The collaborative celebrity-feet website."

Did you catch that part? Celebrity?  So what the heck am I doing there?

Should I tell them I'm not a celebrity?

Okay. Did you see the part where you can RATE the feet? 2 people have rated my feet as Ugly! My feet are not ugly! Go ahead and ask the other 2 people who have rated them as Beautiful! My feet average out!

I mean, come on. This is ridiculous and hysterical.

....I wonder if I should eff with the site and show pictures of me in fancy dresses biting my toenails. Or painting my feet to look like I got a bad case of the gangrene?

At any rate, if you want to feel famous, go ahead and upload some pictures of yourself being silly with your feet and tell all your friends to go the page and click "beautiful"!

And help a sister out over here too, yeah?
















* True story!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Free Coffee!

You know when you're on an indie set and the coffee is long gone you have some downtime around 4pm while they reset?

You bust out your smartphone (AT&T gives their users 15% off for card carrying union members!), see that a Starbucks is only a few blocks away (cause, you know, it's LA) and offer to go on a coffee run.

EVERYONE LOVES YOU!!!!

And you can get a free drink!

Go to Starbucks.com, download the form to the right, and if you buy 4 drinks, yours, the 5th one, is FREE! And you're a HERO!

(I'll take a tall reverse caramel macchiato with whip, thanks. :)

You know what, go ahead and download a few of these forms and keep them in your wallet/purse/actor kit and go nuts through November 12th this year.

Actually, go call your agents and see if they want anything!

You're welcome!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Casting - And This Can Happen to You

Helped a friend yesterday with casting for a hush hush project and we auditioned a few older women in their 40s to 50s. The character is a mother with two 16 year old children who has to have a very terrifying conversation with each of them, and due to the nature of the project, was all improvised.

We were....less than impressed. We had two options we knew would work, but we didn't have anyone we were jumping up and down about.

"What about Stephanie?" I asked. Stephanie played my mom in a feature a few years ago, and not only is she an absolute pleasure to work with, but the woman is phenomenal. If you've watched Big Love, Parks and Rec or the Office, you've seen her work.

We looked her up online and had a heck of a time trying to find her contact info. We had to go to her facebook page, but we couldn't even message her unless she was a friend.  (I understand you want your personal page private [and you'll see mine is also mostly hidden] but I do have my email available to the general public, just in case.)

Luckily, I was her friend on Facebook, and I went into my own account to message her saying, "Hey! Are you available and interested, because this role is YOURS if you want it!"

And cases like these are not rare; you do a phenomenal job working, and you WILL be remembered.

Keep on doing great work and being a pleasure to work with, and you will work again and again.

Just make sure to make it easy to find you too! :)


Monday, September 10, 2012

Revitalized!

photo by MJ Steinbrenner
We're back from Burning Man, my fire conclave, the LA Fire Brigade, had two amazing performances, (didn't drop my staff or burn myself!) and most of our stuff has been vinegarized and stored, and we only have laundry and bedding to wash and clean and sort and store and then it's DONE!

For those of you who have been to Black Rock City the week before Labor Day, you know that it feels more like New Year's than January first.

I came home to a bunch of work emails and I'm creating a list of all the things I want to acheive in the next few months. My main goal: Writing More.

More

More

More!

I had a year or two before I started this blog where I wasn't inspired to write anything at all. But now, I have so many things I want to do, with so many people, and I'm working on several projects at once, and I JUST peeked into my writing folder where I have 5 different pieces that I only half finished and put away and now I want to get started on those too! I'M SO PUMPED THAT I'M WRITING IN RUN-ON SENTENCES CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!?!?

So I'm here to say I'm not dead, I'm just super busy from being away for so long. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to help run a casting session for a project I'm also in, and then I'm coming back home to grab my Birthday Boy Husband and to whisk him off to get a massage cause we be fancy like that.

Happy New Year!