Author: Leah Cevoli

The past few months I’ve been working out a minimum of 3x a week, taking probiotics and a few other natural supplements that my new therapist has prescribed, spending time with my spiritual community at Agape, and making a nice income from advising crowd funding campaigns, with the occasional awesome audition or acting opportunity popping up. That all sounds great, and it truly is, but for some reason I still don’t have this whole self-love / binge eating dealio in check.  I know it’s a process, and processes take time, but I’d really love to be over this stage of…

A few days ago, an Industry peer reached out to me with a few questions and some ideas for referring clients to each other. She explained to me that she was just starting to brand herself and offer social media services to film projects, and wasn’t feeling fully confident in this new world that she was entering. I thought about it for a second, and my answer to her email came with such ease it took me by surprise.  This was my advice: “I started my consultation service in March. The only offering was a $30/hr. Coffee Chat Consultation and…

I usually alternate my articles between Coffee Chats and my Weighing In Series, but this week’s piece is actually a little bit of both.  It’s about saying YES. It’s about saying yes, it’s about being open and ready to jump on that train when it comes along, even if you don’t quite know exactly where that train is headed. Ms. In The Biz founder, Helenna Santos-Levy invited me to attend Film Break’s Fire Side Chat with Actor and Radio Host Sean Astin. They were going to be talking to him about his current Kickstarter Campaign.  I thought it would be…

As multi-hyphenates in this over-sharing, over-connected, social-media-approval driven world, it’s often easy to feel like we are doing all that we can do to move forward. That we have every minute of the day accounted for and that our life is running according to our well-planned out calendar. But what about your soul? Your heart? Your spirit? Call it what you want, but there’s a part of each of us that is nourished on much more than regular food, progress, success, that next booking, or a successful crowd-funding campaign. My past year or so has been a mixture of disconnecting…

One of the quickest ways to get a ton of self-promotion is by entering an online contest. I’ve always loved contests.  As a child, I won Halloween Costume Contests, Raffles, even won 2nd place in the Philadelphia Horticultural Society one year for an awesome scarecrow I made (with lots of help from Mom.) That’s all fun and good but how does it parlay into your acting career? A good contest gets your creation (you) out into the sights of people that don’t know who you are yet.  But that also means you better make sure your entry, whatever it is,…

In last month’s “Weighing In” column I wrote about Mentors as a dedication to my late acting coach Ivan S. Markota.   With Ivan’s passing, I was reconnected with many former classmates and teachers and received a flood of memories from my first five years in Hollywood. It was a time where I felt fearless and smart and hot and unstoppable.  In my first five years in Hollywood, (which at the time, seemed a very long time, but looking back accomplishing all of that in five years was pretty amazing).  I was Taft-Hartleyed into the Screen Actors Guild and had the…

Last month, I wrote part one of a two part dedication to the late, great Ivan. S. Markota.  Part two will follow, in a few weeks, but I thought why not dedicate this month’s Coffee Chat piece to him as well! It had been over 5 years since I had studied at the Van Mar Academy of Television and Motion Picture acting, but with Ivan’s passing, many former students gathered to reminisce and talk shop. Here are some of my very favorite, Ivan-isms. On Appearance: 1) Get your teeth fixed! – As an actor, especially a film actor, your mouth…

(Part One of a Two Part Dedication to Ivan S. Markota) If you were to ask anyone that has accomplished great feats (in any industry) how they did it, more than likely every individual will mention a great mentor. How does this relate to my on-going theme of self-love?  Hold on, you’ll see. About 2wks ago, I noticed a post on the Van Mar Academy of Television and Motion Pictures Alumni page that our beloved founder and Coach Ivan Markota was on life-support.  Ivan was 86 and had lived a full-life. He’d been in and out of the hospital a…

I’ve never been known as a Fashionista by any means, but I do have my own particular hippie-rocker style, and I LOVE me some shoes, accessories, and jewelry.  Unfortunately, on a (sometimes) working actor’s budget, it’s not often that I go shopping just for the sake of shopping. I shop, when I absolutely, positively, need something new for an event, or when the shoes can no longer be repaired, or the purse is falling apart. However, next week is “ThreadCrawl” and “Ms. In  The Biz” is a media sponsor!  As one of the official correspondents I’ll be checking out as…

This month’s Coffee Chat is going to focus on PUBLICITY! Specifically, gathering your own press for your projects before you can afford a top-notch publicist. A top-notch publicist is the way to go when you can afford one, because it truly is hard work and a niche skill-set.  But, as you know, an actor must be their own agent, manager, publicist, etc. until the time that those team members join you. In the digital-age, social media makes it easier than ever before to promote yourself and your projects. Everyone reading this article should already have a good grasp on social…

I have so many things running through my mind right now, that I’m not even sure where to begin.  I’ve just returned from an amazing time at Comic-Con 2013! The panel that I formed earlier this year (All Shapes and Sizes Welcome), was a hot panel, standing room only on Friday night, and the amount of audience feedback and press we got was overwhelming! (I’ll be talking about gathering your own press in my next Coffee Chat article). All weekend long, men and women alike stopped us as we walked by to thank us for speaking out about Body Image,…

With the annual San Diego Comic-Con having just past, networking is on everyone’s mind. Now, I don’t expect I’ll have any Coffee Chat clients requesting a consultation strictly on networking, but based on some behaviors I’ve seen over the years, that might not be a bad idea! As an actor I’ve learned that although networking with other actors is fun, it’s really not the quickest route to your next job, unless of course those actors happen to be multi-hyphenates, and become part of your tribe so to speak, where they refer you and cast you in their projects. There is nothing…

Everyone knows that when you work a job, you get paid. This might be an hourly wage or a salary (flat fee). As you advance in your chosen field, your hourly wage increases, as do things like bonuses and paid time off, vacation pay, sick pay and insurance benefits.  That’s the standard work force in the United States of America. Unfortunately, this is far from the reality in the creative entertainment industry.  Unless you work for a corporation or a big studio, a production house, as an employee, you’re pretty much a freelance artist thru your entire career.   And what…

I am typically one of the most adventurous, spontaneous people I know. Tonight, I did something that was scary, even for me. I went, alone, to a speed-dating event. I’ve never been to a speed-dating event although the thought has crossed my mind for the past few years, most recently in the past few months.  See, as a single 30-something year old, never been married, no children, you start to seek out opportunities to “meet people”, men in particular. Now to some people, the idea of signing up for an event with the goal of meeting another single person may…