May 30, 2006

• A Snail’s Pace

  
  

  Man, things are slooow this year for me.

  
  

  Granted this time of year everything slows down in the business.  But coupled with the fact that I haven’t booked anything since “THIEF“ or when it was busy at the beginning of the year – makes me just itchin’ to work. 

  
  

  I’ve come close on a lot of stuff and have turned down a few offers in between that weren’t very challenging – but basically I’ve been batting about 0 for 45 auditions.  Wheras my booking ratio in ’05 was a new acting gig every 20 days, ’06 will certainly even out my “batting average” a bit.  

  
  

  Without the speaking gigs (Ohio State University, May 31), promotional stuff for projects I shot last year (“Hatchet” Fango-Con Panel, June 3) and occasional premiere (“Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift“, June 4), I would be going insane.  So what’s a person supposed to do with all that time? 

  
  

  Well, I used to either read the trades, tool on a screenplay, go to a theater and study a performance, workout, etc.  But now as a parent, I find myself doing such things as: making meals for Avery, tending to the yard and… modifying cardboard boxes.

  
  

  This box held our new patio set.  And it’s huge – like coffin sized.  It can easily fit 2 adults inside comfortably.  As you can see, I originally just cut out swinging doors at each end.   Then cut out a triangle, circle and rectangle-shaped windows on one side.

  
  

  And unfortunately, the more time I had – the time I had to work on the box.

  
  

  Now this picture is the other side of the box, where I added a tin-can telephone/intercom system, “Silence of the Lambs” – like mailbox drawer (made from a box of Cheerios), “Lost“-esque hatch (that can be popped open with the tug of a rope inside) and operational drawbridge (that pulls up with a tug from another rope inside). 

  
  

  And if my unemployment continues – I can guarantee the addition of a working paper towel roll periscope and garage to house her Big Wheel. 

  
  

  I’ve always passed onto younger actors the advice that was once given to me: “It’s what you do when you’re not working/employed, that makes you the actor that you eventually become.” 

  
  

  With that said, I’d better start taking some acting or writing classes during this drought stat, before I wind up becoming Fred Rogers (aka “Mr. Rogers”).

  • 4:38 pm
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