I got off the phone with my dad just the other day and one thing that kept running in my head was his impression of what I do all day. He’s a hard working man and provided for us like anyone in his generation did: you get a good job, work 9 to 5 and went home to your family.
Well, I chose a different path of working as an actress in this beautiful city that takes disco naps and cranks out Seamless delivery orders for just about any cuisine your belly could imagine. So when I hear the slightest misconception about how little I “work”, well I am going to break this down for you real simple like.
Most of us actor types have day jobs or night jobs or day & night jobs taking up a chunk of our time. YES America, we have crazy high rent in apartments we might spend 20% of our time in because we are hustling to make something of ourselves. For me, I have 4 jobs that I juggle outside of my audition schedule.
Here is an example of one of those days I have fortunately had many times here in NYC:
Let us start at 3pm on a Wednesday: I just got back from my teaching gig and I am dead tired, but I plan to go to the gym for an hour to work on my shapely curves and maybe infuse some energy into me before going home to work on my acting admin duties. Those duties could be research on shows shooting in the area, making postcards for my targeted contacts or making updates on my IMDB page.
But at 3:43pm I get an email from my agents about an appointment for tomorrow at 11:30am for a TV show costar with a few pages of lines. YAHOO! I love that show! Wait, I am scheduled to work tomorrow in the Bronx starting at 8:30am and the audition is in Queens.
So I make the dreaded email to cancel my shift. My brain races with “will they fire me THIS time?” as I send it off. Since the recession, job security is in the toilet and no matter how many bottles of wine you buy your bosses they might find someone to replace the actor they loved having when she was NOT a working actor. Hey, I just called myself a WORKING actor, so just be quiet Mr. Self Doubt and Mrs. Worry. I got this!
We are in the middle of a snowy, slushy winter and it’s not going away. Which means everything will take time and trains might have a mind of their own when getting from point A to point Z. For those of you who have never been here, OMG commuting is always unexpected on the subway, so download Uber right now. You might have to make a mad dash above ground and trying to grab a cab competition is fierce! Uber will change your life.
I need to run these sides with a friend or if I am feeling rich this month, hire my coach for $100. On this given Wednesday, I call a talented friend to help me because I am not that rich…yet!
Right now, it’s about 5pm. I work on the sides with my friend until 6:30pm. What does that mean? We read it out loud to hear it, break down the scenes, figure out what they are saying to each other, make some character choices and run the scenes again until I feel I have a sense of who I am playing. You know the actory stuff we do to prepare for these auditions.
After that, we go to eat somewhere local, usually Bareburger because they are AWESOME! This gives me time to have the work settle in before traveling to my home 45 mins uptown. Oh, and you can always tell who the actors are on the subway by seeing those mumbling to themselves or talking to their reflections. Homeless just sleep.
At my humble abode, I try on 10 or so wardrobe choices and watch an episode or 3 of this show to get a feel of what it’s like. “Oh hell yeah, I should be on that show!”, I say very quietly in my apartment because I live above a baby and next to an elderly couple that like to go to sleep at 10pm. I try to sleep but my nerves are kicking until at least 11:30pm, which gives me plenty of time to run those scenes until they are permanently burned to memory.
I get up at 6:30am. Well, I lay there thinking 7am looks like a better option for actually rolling out of bed. I split the difference and drag myself out of bed at 6:45. I walk the dog, meditate if I feel like it, go for that run at the gym I put off because I had no time yesterday, shower eat and read though sides. Walk around the apartment saying a few dozen times while my tiny dog stares at me. She stares at me a lot. I have tried using her as people in the scenes in the past but sometimes I think she is judging me.
It usually takes me a good hour and half to look TV ready: an hour to do the hair and half hour to put my clothes and makeup. Yup, it takes that long to set this curly head of locks, which will still be drying while I walk in the cold without a hat to the train. Did I mention its 22 degrees outside? I will have to put my audition clothes in a carry-on bag so they don’t wrinkle under my 5 layers of clothes.
The audition is out in Astoria, so I have to take 3 trains to get there. I live close to a few express trains but I give a good 25 minute cushion just to make sure all three trains get me there with time to sign in and settle.
After that hour ride with no train stalls or delays, I walk straight to the bathroom before I sign in to change into my outfit and do final touches to my hair and makeup. Game face is on, my name is printed on the sign in sheet and my headshot along with sides are sitting next to me as I mutter those lines one last time before hearing my name called by casting.
“Tanya Perez”
“Yes, hey great to see you…..”
Chit chat, smiles and introductions to the people in the room all take place in microseconds as adrenaline pulses through my veins. The audition happens. I do my thing and all of that from saying hello, asking any questions I may have of the material to blowing them away, may take a total of 5 minutes.
BOOM! 5 minutes. Five minutes in the audition room I took 10 hours, or more, to prep for. Let that sink in for a moment.
If you have a busy week, you may have to do that a few times. That is all unpaid hours of work you have to put in for maybe 15 minutes of actual face time with your potential bosses. Add a job(s) to that and you have very little time you call “free”.
My daddy knows I work very hard at what I do here and I absolutely love being in New York City working in the entertainment industry. But it takes everything you can muster to endure the details of this town. I wouldn’t have it any other way.