Oh, but what about Dark Brown?!

Oh man! What about a really super dark brown? So that my pale skin would look all Snow Whitey? And WHAT ABOUT BANGS!? Okay, yes I understand that I'd have to straighten my bangs every time I washed my hair, but really, small price to pay and bangs are so IN right now! I mean, I could pull off the pin-up girl look right? I could do it!

I DID buy a super awesome push up bra back in January, and I DO have chicken cutlets to add even more oomph.

I Could be a Varga Girl! I could! I have to really be serious about keeping up my running regimen, but seriously, I could do it!

I want bangs!

Don't they look like fun?

TLC Shows Want to Keep It Fresh!

Morman/Boling Casting has this posted in BOLD for their latest "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" breakdown.

PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT IF YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SHOWS: I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT, MYSERY ER, TWINS BY SURPRISE OR YOUR KID ATE WHAT?

I didn't know there was a show called "Your Kid Ate What?"!! I'm SO dvr-ing that one!

Everybody Does It

I'm going over the contract from the manager I met with last week. and I've got a hair modeling gig on August 10 in Santa Monica, and all I can think about is.... Blond.

Every woman should go blond at least once in their life, right? Shakira did it, Madonna did it and does it now, Scarlett Johanssen did it, Lindsay Lohan did it, Jessica Simpson does it, I mean, come on! I want to be blond!

Blonds have more fun! Blonds can wear blue eyeshadow!

My sister grew up blond!

Oh the itch to go blond has really struck me for some reason. Why? Cause it's summer and it's hot and my birthday's coming up and I want a change? Is it because I am happy with my hair length and want to grow it out more, so I can't hack it off like I wanted to just last night, so going another color I've never been seems like the only logical choice?

And I'm so pale, so many people have said I'd look terrible as a blond, but I had to wear a blond wig for a Dixie Chicks tribute song (Ready to Run, bitches!) and I swear I was more harassed once I put that darn wig on. And struggling actresses LOVE attention.

Is it because almost every gosh darn breakdown out there is looking for a BLOND?! Is it because Patty Roberts went back to her blond natural color and now I'm hankering for it too? Is going blond infectious?

I'm bored, I think. I want a drastic change.

Plus, if I went blond, and then red, I could go a very nice strawberry blond. Just ask Ashley. She's in the coloring biz world. In fact, maybe I should just ask her!

ASHLEY! SHOULD I GO BLOND?!

PetCo Print Ads, Starring TRACY!

My dear friend Phoenix just booked a PetCo print ad! I'm sharing the love! And Trace, if you've never been around gerbils before, they make really weird cooing noises.

Congrats, girl!

Help Me!

Catch a Falling Star!

It's Done!

We finished our pick up shots for The Haunting of Winchester House technically this morning at 1:15am and Michael Holmes can now go cut his hair! When I wasn't staring at his chin, I would catch him twirling his long hair around his fingers, just like I do to mine when I'm bored, nervous, happy, or sad. And then I would make fun of him, just as any good friend would.

I walked into the Asylum's warehouse studio in Burbank, got into costume, noticed half of it was missing, alerted them someone would have to go to Target to buy new pants for me "for continuity," (which trust me, when you see the film, you will have fun picking apart where the film doesn't match or make sense. For instance, we never shot the bathtub scene where my character changes pants. So for no reason at all, Susan goes from jeans to yoga pants. And gets a bleeding wound on her arm from out of nowhere. Ahh, indie film making...)

When Tomas Boykin came onto set, he took a look at me and Michael and said, "It's so good to see you guys." And you know what? It really was! It was so great to see them both! We had so much fun during the exhausting, time-warping nocturnal shoot and I forgot just how much I liked them both when I wasn't around them for 12/24 hours for 12 days. And since we were all wearing our same costumes that we wear throughout the film (except for my never explained change of pants) it was like no time had passed! They are My Guys!

We were doing all our pickups, all the scenes we didn't get to, or coverage we never picked up, in front of a green screen, which the director will then have to compostite against stills of the house and...you know what? I really don't know how it's all gonna happen and work, but let me just say it's HOLLYWOOD MAGIC!
It was a bare bones crew. There was the director, Erica on script, a Production Assistant on slate, DB on whatever and another Production Assistant who left early. And us. And only one microphone. No makeup artist (I had to match a professional's work.) No sound op (hope the sound carried the other person who wasn't miked!) and no 3D camera. It was a regular camera. Will it match up? Hope so! We had to shoot the climax of the film this way. Hope it's good! Hope it makes sense! Oh man, how I hope everything comes together!

DB was all up in the director's grill about time until finally, the director was like, DB! We're gonna go over the ridiculous time limit you imposed for no good reason so that we can do what we came to do: finish the film. I was like, Fuck Yeah Director! Cause DB is 19, never went to film school and somehow didn't develop people skills.
Right before the Martini (the last shot of the day, cause "the next shot is in a glass!") the director asked us if we wanted a five minute break, and Michael said, no, let's DO this! And we did. I held him against my chest as he coughed non existant blood into my lap, scraping the heck out of my exposed skin above my tank top, and I cradled him as the ghost lady threw stuff at me that I had to duck under, with the fans whipping my hair in my face, with me screaming full force. And then We finished. We finished!

We Finished!

So go ahead! Reserve your copy on Netflix RIGHT NOW! I'm told there's going to be behind the scenes footage (uhm, nervous about that one. They caught me on a very scandolous rant that I'm hoping does NOT make it to the dvd extras) as well as director commentary and bloopers. It should be a really fun C horror movie.

In fact, it will be a really fun drinking game: Take a shot everytime someone yells the other's name.

You Will Be Taken Advantage Of

Struggling actresses are an easy mark. We are. We so want to believe anything people tell us regarding our careers, that it's hard for us to be really objective and cautious. When certain things are said or done and Jiminy Cricket is nowhere to guide us, (and we'd probably ignore him anyways) a lot of us do stupid things. Take for instance, Scientology. They prey on actors and musicians in LA because they start out saying, "You Can Be Famous! as long as you pay for our classes and never leave"
Take for instance, psychics. One day, as my guy was looking for parking, some random person comes up to his passenger side window telling him "You're going to have a great year, a great year! Psychic reading, $20! You're an actor, right?!" Ha. No, he's not. But I know I would have fallen for that ploy and spent my $20 listening to tall tales that I really want to believe.

And it's the same way on set. Actors are the easiest ones to take advantage of. Case number one: No pay.
Now, I've produced our film where our budget was so ridiculously tiny, we didn't pay our actors. We didn't pay ourselves, but we did pay our crew. Actors we can do this to, because they WILL work for free. And they did get great reel material, and they have imdb credit, and can have their families netflix the movie and see it. Them donating their time and talent got them all that. But it's rare for a film that you're not getting paid on to actually go somewhere or do something, and oftentimes, if they don't have the money to pay their actors, they probably don't have the money to finish the film.
But if our actors didn't want to do that film for no pay, we would have found thousands more who would have.
(But there are also productions who say they can't pay you, or will pay you a decent small sum, and then you get your check, and you're like, wait a second. This is MORE than what we agreed on. And they'll just put their finger to their lips and wink. )

There's also a time when all actors must sit back, take a look at their resume, a look at their reel, a look at their training and say, you know what? I'm done acting for free. If you want me, you have to pay me now. And I self assessed and came to that conclusion a few years ago. It's extremely rare that I do anything for free. Extremely rare. And I've probably become a little snotty about it, but my time and talent is important to me. And if you want a good project, you have to be willing to pay for it. You could write the most amazing movie in the world, but if you have untrained actors in it, who's going to watch it? You get what you pay for.

But as an actor, you have to fight a lot to get that.

For instance. There's a guy I know, I'll call him Douche Bag, and he called me up the yesterday about pick up shots. Now, I've heard other people talk about DB and none of it was really all that favorable, so I wanted to make sure I had my own back. "I'm getting my same day rate, right?" "Yeah, yeah," he said. "You'll be getting your $75." "You mean $100." "You guys made $100?" Yes, DB, you put down the breakdown, you knew the rates, don't kid me on this. "Oh, I thought you guys all made $75. I'll have to talk to the producer about this."
He calls me up less than 5 minutes later and leaves a voicemail. "Yeah, sorry, I just talked to the producer and he said that because it's only going to be shooting for 4 hours instead of 12, that they're only offering $75."

Oh really? REALLY? You're telling me that you just talked to the producer who deals with actor day rates all the time, and that you got him on a saturday evening at dinnertime? And that's what he told you? You are a liar, DB.

And I am pissed.

"Whether I'm there for 12 hours or half an hour, I get the same rate. It's written in my contract, you can check it, but if I don't get my same rate," (which is only $25 more to them, but a huge principle to me) "then why should I show up?" I also mentioned how they were only giving me 26 hour notice for pick ups. There's this thing I like to do, called having a life, that I have a lot of fun with.

So of course, he emails me less than an hour later (when I told him to call) saying he can "work something out with [the] budget." Of course you can.

Don't you dare try and screw me out of agreed upon money because you're too lazy to check the contracts or get a producer on the phone.

And what really angers me about this is that I know a lot of other struggling actresses out there would have agreed to it.

Always get a copy of your contracts. ALWAYS. And if they say they're going to reimburse you, get that in writing! Take care of yourself cause no one else will.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay happy. Stay acting. Stay Strong.

Summer Cleaning

The struggling actress in me NEVER THROWS ANYTHING AWAY. Until today. I'm summer cleaning and I found the proof sheets from my first headshot shoot from 2003. And Egads! Oh, all the mistakes I made, all the expen$ive mi$takes I was making. It's like I just up and threw away $500. So I'm going to relink Headshots 101 because it really does bear repeating.

Especially for you actors who are seeking or have gotten new representation and need new photos. And always rememeber to ask your agent to be super specific with what they want for your new pictues; they should know exactly what they need in order to sell you to get you those auditions. If they don't....well, the cycle of submissions should start again.

I'm a Sophomore in College!

Or at least, that's what the manager I met with yesterday told me. Hey I don't mind! Put me on Melrose Place if I look so young! I'll ride that wave! I mean, that WAS my guilty pleasure while I was IN college, so hey, full circle.

The manager I met with said a lot of interesting things on his end about how he likes to manage his clients. And he's also the first person to tell me in a long time that I need new pictures, which I know I need, and can never understand why agent after agent says, no no! keep them! Whatevs.

He asked me who has my resume, meaning, what actress out there is doing my roles, and gosh darn you, strange but almost pretty Alyson Hannigan, YOU have the career I want. You're in weird movies, you were on a huge cult series ( i guess it being huge and cult is an oxymoron, yes?) and now you're strong supporting on a great hit show. AND you had a baby! Arrrgh! So want that woman's life....
And so when the manager was looking at my headshots spread out in front of him, he said I had no pictures to show that. And it's true, I don't.

One time, at band camp, oops, college, a professor had lined us all up and typed us. He went around all us ladies and pointed at Jen, "Leading lady," at Kristy "Best friend," at Julie "best friend," at the other Jen "best friend," and then he stopped at me. He took a deep breath, because, as an acting professor, even he got to be dramatic when the moment called for it. "You're both."
I exhaled. "Great," I said, not at all happy with that.
"No, this is a very good thing. You can be the leading lady or you can be the best friend. It's up to you on how you present yourself for each role." And as much as my very awkward adolescence wants me to believe I will forever be that less attractive "best friend," I play leading ladies more often than not. I mean, hey, I seem to have good bone structure in my face, and photoshop does wonders to make me look all awesome and modelesque, but it's almost startling to have all my pictures in front of someone who wants to sell my brand and talent to casting directors and producers to say, you don't have any pictures to get the career you want. He's right.

He typed my age to be 19-25, which is funny, because my agent believes I'm 25-35, which I have more trouble seeing.

What do you think? What's my age range?

(And this photo has not been retouched.)

Happy Birthday Tracy!

My darling friend Phoenix's birthday came and went in the beginning of June, but we were JUST finally able to spend some time together due to our crazy hectic actor schedules! I was going to take her out for an ice cream, but it was just too hot. So I made her an ice cream cookie sandwich instead. She popped by after a print audition (we're so LA).






This was so easy! Take some cookies (I used store bought cookies, cause who feels like baking right now?)














Place one upside down.









Now take some softly melted ice cream (just buy some new stuff, and it will be of the perfect consistency just from the ride home).













Plop a scoop on top of the upside down cookie.











Top the other cookie.















And squuuuuuuish!

Perfect!









Now pop in a birthday candle on the side, and Happy 18-27th birthday!









(Cute, huh? Phoenix is shy!)