I ain’t gonna lie — 2009 has been pretty slooow acting-wise. 

I’m pretty sure there was some correlation in getting my passion project with co-authors Jeff Yang, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma off the ground and into bookstores with SECRET IDENTITIES. 

Although I didn’t turn down any auditions, my heart/focus just wasn’t on acting.  Every time I had an audition, I couldn’t wait to ‘just get it out of the way’ so that I could jump back into editing the next trailer for the book or find us another stop for the book tour.  I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world and I sure as heck wouldn’t have agreed to sign on for VOLUME 2 if I felt otherwise.

It was the same thing the year “BETTER LUCK TOMMOROW” came out — as you can see on the IMDB during 2003, I had no credits whatsoever because I was definitely more focused on touring and getting the word out for the movie.

But thankfully just before 2009 came to a close, I fortunately found myself doing a few paying projects (hence, making the wife happy) sampling from each major entertainment medium. 

VIDEO GAME – “TRUE CRIME”

As shown in a previous entry, I’ve been working on a hush-hush video game project; providing the voice and motion capture work for one of the characters in the game. 

The game was revealed at the Video Game Awards a few weeks ago and will be officially called: “TRUE CRIME”. 

It’ll be Activision’s biggest game to date (the average game has about 20,000 lines of dialogue, this one will have 55,000).  Here’s the trailer with Tom Wilkinson narrating – and that’s me on the right in the wife beater (as you can see, working on a Graphic Novel for 3 years makes you ripped). 

You can see/hear me at the :23 sec mark, “I just want to get along, make some money” and throwing out my Cantonese skills at the :36 sec mark.
      

COMMERCIAL - “BUD LIGHT”

Then the next project that came along was a hilarious Bud Light commercial with the rapper, T-Pain.  Not to give away any spoilers, but it is T-Pain — so don’t be surprised to hear some AutoTune stylings from yours truly. 

Look at all the beers it took to supply the party! 

Interesting Tidbit:  No one can be shown actually drinking a beer during a beer commercial and all the actors must be over 25-years old.

TELEVISION: “NCIS: LOS ANGELES”

Then on the same day as the Bud Light, I booked a role on TV’s new #1 show, “NCIS: LOS ANGELES” (booking two things in the same day last happened to me in 1998 when I booked “Suddenly Susan” and “Beverly Hills, 90210″, so a rarity).  It’s slated as a possible recurring character with the NCIS team — I’m sure it’ll be dependent on how well the character gels with the rest of the crew in the final product though.  So, fingers crossed!

Interesting tidbit:  LL Cool J is listed as his given name, “Todd Smith”, on the call sheet — just as I’m sure The Rock is ‘Dwayne Johnson’ on his call sheets.  I was wondering what to call him before getting on set — “LL”,  “Cool J”, “Mr. Ladies Love”? 

Nope, as it turns out… just “Todd”.

FEATURE FILM: “HATCHET 2″
 
Then in a few weeks I will begin shooting “HATCHET 2″! 

For those who saw the first one, you may recall something happened to my character that made it kinda difficult to return in a sequel — but the writer/director, Adam Green made it happen! 

This one ties in pretty nicely with the story of the first one and delves deeper into the mythology of Victor Crowley.

Juggling the Schedule

There was a lot of craziness when I booked the Bud Light and NCIS:LA.  The workdays conflicted on the EXACT days in December that the TRUE CRIME folks requested me to work on. 

But after a slew of phone calls, begging and requesting to move stuff around… the TRUE CRIME producers were awesome in being able to make everything logistically work out so that I could do all the projects.

It only goes to verify the nature of this business — virtually unemployed for 11 months and then have everything slam in on the last month.  But hey, it’s better than being unemployed for the full 12 months!

Have a Happy Holidays & a safe New Year — I leave you with this classic picture of Avery & Kori’s experience with Santa this year!