Hotel

STAGE/SCREEN 77
-fall 2006
The lot of the big city actor trying to get work involves so many semi-acting jobs and almost-acting jobs. I didn’t take as many of these as others might - my motivations were already something far less needy than fame & fortune. For me these jobs were to experience first-hand the “dues” of an actor’s life, keep food in my belly, and have fun. I worked the streets with a bunch of model/actors dressed as fisherpeople, passing out free newspapers. I did a solo gig at a private party in a tarzan suit (i.e. homosexual eye candy), passing out hors d'oeuvres. I worked a holiday office party as an Elvis impersonator...no full numbers, just being a fun presence. How committed an actor am i? I did a couple of those overhead, from-the-bottle alcohol shots (even though i hadn't had a full drink in a decade or two). My concerns about becoming impaired quickly faded, as i realized that the office bigwigs (or caterers) had arranged for the "alcohol" to be heavily watered. I was a cleaver-wielding mad scientist for an MTV2 Halloween movie marathon commercial. I was among a group of fifty “skinny santas” for some fancy store (Brookstone?) in Rockefeller Center, promoting some asinine massage belt product. I did a slew of mascot gigs (Sponge Bob, baby monkey, Spiderman). I was a wrestling patsy in semi-nude female-domination videos (BEST...JOB...EVER). I was “Adam” for a muffin company at a Javitz Center food show, freezing my ass off with Eve (they gave us each a tiny space heater, meaning that there was one 6”x6” section of our bodies kept warm). I was a buzz-cut, sunglass-bedecked astronaut at a business expo for a start-up company from one of the losers of THE APPRENTICE. I’m probably forgetting a couple (including one where the co-worker i bonded with most was a very sweet ex-WNBA player). Each of these gigs was silly, wonderful fun in some way (okay, maybe not the newspaper one so much). And then there were the “real” jobs, some of which are less-remembered because they go by quickly (and perhaps the producers fail to mail out a copy of the film). One such was HOTEL, a short film about the bizarre goings-on in the life of a struggling hotel manager. I played a cat burglar who took advantage of the distractions, to raid the suites. We filmed over several days in Queens. I honestly can’t remember whether i had any lines, but there was plenty of screen time. We had home scenes, eating with my dour parents and lifting weights alone in my room. There were shots in corridors, stairwells, and a garage. It was a delight, then it was done. Actors are generally so friendly and extroverted, there's often the sense that if there had been just one more day of shooting, the person you bonded with most might have become a real friend. And maybe sometimes they might have...but the fact that it rarely happens has to mean something. Perhaps it's the charm of serial novelty, and a bizarre sense of comfort in becoming instantly intimate with people you'll likely never see again. That might be colored by the competitiveness that plagues the theater world (which fosters buried feelings of mistrust and ill will among fellow performers), but there's something deeper, something about the oft-subconscious anti-social tendencies inherent in any society as self-centered and cold as the one we all call home. I'd like to think i'm less drawn to that than others, but it's likely that no one's entirely immune.