Spring of 2009, after The Source, I feel at the same time energized that I might be able to pursue a new career, and intimidated by my own lack of experience. Regardless, I want to go to the next step.
By now I have sought sources of film acting opportunities outside of Craigslist. You meet people and you talk about things. I become aware of Full Sail University, which is a big film school outside of Orlando, about 2 hours from me. They are perpetually making student films so they are perpetually auditioning actors. I tap into their casting notices which are published bi-monthly.
And lo and behold, they advertise one film in particular that grabs me immediately. A father, a daughter, and an intruder. I can't explain but I know I have to go for this role. Something tells me very clearly that this is right for me.
Patty and I make a weekend trip out of it. When we get there, the procedure for this particular film is to present a monologue, provided by them. What this means is that they give you a paragraph, and you go away until you are ready to present it back to them. I go out to the parking lot while Patty cools her heels, and I try to grasp this paragraph.
I will do a separate blog post on the psychological torture that it is for me to try to memorize things like this.
OK so I deliver, I get some direction, I deliver again. At least with Full Sail, they tell you when you will be notified IF you are chosen for the part. That is a huge luxury, believe me.
A few weeks later I am notified that I got the role and I am beside myself.
So it turns out that there is a fight scene involved, and I need to go back to Orlando to choreograph the fight. OK, so again Patty, being Patty, tries to make a fun weekend around it and books a cabin at Disney wilderness park to wait for me while I work. I meet up with the cast and crew of Latro at an apartment complex indoor basketball court with the typical gymnasium wooden floor, and we have it all to ourselves. Now I am working with another actor who is more or less my age, he's the bad guy in the film, and these 2 twenty year old young men who are showing us what they want from us. "You punch, you fall, you get up, you get your head rammed into a wall. Now, you swing, you...." well you get the drift. Over and over again.
I go back to the cabin that evening completely bruised and beat up like I never have been before in my life. Patty is shocked, like "What the hell happened to you?!" I tell her it's OK, but I'm spent and sore.
So we finally shoot the film, but our production unit only has the studio from 5:00 pm until 5:00 am on two consecutive nights. So there's another first, I never pulled an all nighter before even when I was in college. Helloooo "5 Hour Energy"!
But now I've gotten my first leading role, and in a film that I really wanted... I feel good...
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