return of the interview meme

[rm]

ludimagist has revived the interview meme.

The Rules: You comment on this entry requesting an interview. I respond with five questions. The questions will theoretically be tailored to you based on what I know of you (or want to know). You copy and paste those questions into your own journal, and write the answers, along with these rules. Anyone wanting an interview from you continues the game by requesting an interview from you.


1) What are your most and least favorite things about being in theater?

It's funny, because while I have a lot more experience with theater, just because I think pretty much everyone does (although the advent of digital video is about to change all that -- after all, it's nearly cheaper to say "hey kids, let's put on a film" than "hey kids, let's put on a show" these days), I don't think I "get it" culturally as well. I don't feel like I know how to do it, mainly in a social sense.

I'll say that my least favourite things about theater include fucking cold theaters and that one person on nearly every show who just intolerable to deal with because they choose to be that way. I also hate never being able to see the finished product.

On the other hand, I love the adrenaline rush, I love that most of the team is together most of the time, and I love the constant "you do what you have to" challenge of it. In film, when something breaks, you hope you have the budget and time to wait for someone to fix it, on the stage you just keep going, and I get a kick out of that, and it appeals to me a lot in terms of my personal outlook.

2) You just took a pretty serious overland trip through much of America. Do you think this is the sort of thing everyone should experience? Is there a certain point in life you think it is better to do that sort of thing?

Well, I think ideally you do it in a vehicle you have control over, and I think ideally you do it when you have the physical stamina for it, which is to say, not at 31.

And yeah, everyone should do it, definitely, and physical stamina aside, I think it is somewhat lost on people say as a summer before, during or after college. The reality is, I think, that at that age, everything wows you, everything, without much effort is some weird reminder of your special (or not) place in the universe. At thirty-one, not so much, so to a given degree I think waiting is good. And I think if you can do the trip, just for the sake of the trip, that's best.

3) What's your best case scenario careerwise, within say... five years? How active are you in pursuing that scenario?

That's a weird question. In that it's asking me to put a top limit on things, and I don't really believe in that. Let's say the reality in life is that we only get five percent of what we want. Or whatever fraction you choose. Which means aiming not just high, but "absurdly" to hit that stuff you couldn't imagine completing a life without. Someone has be one-in-a-million, and I'm happy to have that be me. I'm just smart enough to know that my version of one-in-a-million isn't of a Julia Roberts variety.

I'll tell you my minimum goals for the five year plan - first, having my Equity and SAG cards. I know better than to see them as be all end all goals or "I want these now now now" goals, but the reality is that in five years I need the access they provide, even if that means I'm still not necessarily making anything resembling tolerable money doing this.

I want to be over my issues with monologue auditions. I want to be able to trust myself more and to really integrate the disparate skills I have. I want to learn how to stop thinking so hard.

I want to have had more than five lines in a film that's actually out there in theaters -- whether that's something big budget or some little indie thing that's only at the Angelika for a week and a half.

I want to have an agent.

And I think that's a list that sounds modest enough to sound really pathetic and naive too. But this has become what I do for a lot of reasons, and among those reasons is a very odd sense of adventure and a very genuine curiosity about people, and I think that lends itself to a tendency I've had in everything I do to take strange detours. And within the next five years, I'm going to know if that's going to serve me really well, or be something I have to conquer.

What am I doing to get there? Everything I can and not enough. A lot of dental work. My next financial expenditures on the adventure are monologue class, some speech classes focused mostly on slowing myself down, clearing up one or two speech tics I have that I can't stand and then accents (which I'm both good and bad at because I'm a natural mimic, which means cadence gets in the way of my hearing the shape of words a lot), and then some on camera classes. I should audition more than I do, but I'm also proud of myself for doing as much as I have as blindly as I have, so I just need to keep the pace and focus up there. I am absolutely unequivocably doing that month at NIDA in January 2005 -- which isn't even about my career really, but it'll make me happy and proud, which is generally how I need to feel to get anything done, so that's to the good as well. I need to figure out where, when and how to network. And I think it's important that I find myself in a situation where I have to travel for a show or to film something, just because I think that makes me uncomfortable, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later. I also need to make some sort of internal peace with my appearance. I think of myself mostly as "unlikely" looking, which is a description that pleases me in a personal amusement sort of way, but I need to decide if it's time to get comfortable with being beautiful or with being anything but.

4) What are 10 books everyone should read in their adult life? (I tend to ask that one a lot)

That's terribly challenging. Should is a really crappy word. How about books I'd like everyone to read in their adult life? Or the types of books I think are useful?

I think everyone should read a biography of a figure they've admired, that's honest or unflattering in a nonsensationalistic way. I think everyone should make an effort to find a book of poetry they actually enjoy reading, and finds informs them (I have mine and it's something I return to again and again). I think everyone should be very widely read in religion, and I think that's becoming increasingly the case in the world we've wound up with. I'm a great believer in reading works of the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers and historians, and even if you can't read the original language at all, I think it's worth perusing just to understand the role cadence and alliteration played in their writing. It's absolutely influenced how we communicate today, and I believe it's absolutely how anyone can learn to become persuasive. Everyone should find some period of strife they care about for some reason and read military history/strategy -- it's this weird combination of math and the way people tick, and I think it's good to learn to use those two parts of your brain at the same time. Find novels that you think are about you, and then discover why they're not. Then find new novels, and discover why they're not. Read biographies of people you've never heard of.

5) What attracted you to Blogging? Are the elements that attracted you to it the same reason you continue to use it? How much are you aware of the mix of friends and relative strangers who read your journal as you are writing in it?

I've been on the Internet since 1990, and came to it via mailing lists and then online communities such as Mindvox and The Well. My experience there was about telling my stories and eventually learning to shut the fuck up and listen to other people's. Regardless of whether that was appropriate to those mediums (and some people thought it was and some didn't), that very much solidified my way of communicating as being through stories. Blogging, which I intially resisted for reasons that were lame (people I didn't like did it, it was the hip Internet thing of the moment, etc.), is just a natural outgrowth of that. It's also a great way for me to vent when I need to, but also to explore other people at my luxury. A system like LJ has it's appeal, because there are layers beyond the content, made clear through interests, communities, friends and friends of friends -- all that shit that causes "drama" on a bad blog day is just narrative and character when you're outside of it. And I dig that.

One of the things, and this is sort of a side story, that's been compelling to me about blogging, are the people who don't write well. And I don't mean fourteen-year-olds who can't spell and use slang I don't understand. I mean the accomplished people with thoroughly-lived lives I've met in this medium to whom writing is not natural, and yet insist on telling their story here anyway. I've never yet really understood why any of them do it, but I am always moved by it, because what they choose to tell us, is often more moving than how we choose to tell things. It reminds me greatly of the people I have tutored in English as a foreign language, and the snippets I've learned about them.

As to who is reading, I have a lot of filters. I have individual filters for a few friends, just because I know they check this more than email, or it's easier for them -- and those are posts that get deleted after the communication is made. I've an inner-circle that includes my roommate, my best friend, my girlfriend and a couple of other people who are there for reasons I can't really explain. I have a filter that's just people I know in the physical world. I've set up filters to discuss gifts for another person on the list, etc. So, in short, I'm _constantly_ thinking about it, although I realize that my filtering behaviors are such as to be nearly meaningless. I do it for my own internal organizational principles, more than for any real sincere hope of keeping secrets, which is another rant anyway, as secrets are generally trouble only 'cause they are designated as such. We choose what to make currency and all that.

Comments

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

What the hell, I'll give it a go. :)

[orien.livejournal.com]

I want one, too!

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Please do.

[ludimagist.livejournal.com]

I want to play too of course :)

[shakespearessis.livejournal.com]

Interview me! :)

[jonqui.livejournal.com]

I'm curious...interview me?
Did you want more questions, or have you had your fill of being quizzed?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, I'm also requesting an interview.

Also, a comment, you wrote:

Let's say the reality in life is that we only get five percent of what we want. Or whatever fraction you choose. Which means aiming not just high, but "absurdly" to hit that stuff you couldn't imagine completing a life without.

That is impressively different from how I live my life. I have extremely modest slacker-geek ambitions and achieve most of them that I actually try for. I could not even imagine aiming for something that I don't think that I am very likely to achieve. I suspect that this is why your like will likely turn out exceedingly different from mine.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I know you don't know me that well (at all?) but I'm interested to see what you would come up with, and I'd like to pass it on to others, so yes, ask me ask me ask me

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Too late to request an inner-view? If not, here I am. :-)

[tommx.livejournal.com]

i have been interviewed by you before, but i'd be willing to make another go of it if you want to ask.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

You've done it before but you ask such damn good questions. So if you're up for it, yes please. It's the end of the year.

[schmidtybooger.livejournal.com]

I'd love to be interviewed by you.

[lordcamiliano.livejournal.com]

Mind if I join in on this too?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Why the hell not? Surely I need something to ponder when I go back to the slaving tonight.

[chite.livejournal.com]

I'll play too.

Speaking of theater, arts, etc. I have no idea how they tracked me down, but I got a post card from Usdan saying that they are trying to put together a Usdan alumni list. Freaky :) www.usdan.com

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'd call you, but I'll be at RotK. ;)

1. If you could allow the people in your head to have physical lives outside of the use of your form, which if any would you bestow that gift upon, and why or why not?

2. In the last year what has been the most significant fear that you've either overcome or have discovered to be false/irrelevant?

3. Write a little narrative about the happiest moment of one of the creatures living in your head.

4. We know about your fondness for estates, mansions and compounds, as well as inter/national travel. Suppose you were able to acquire said multiple residencies -- give us a one year calendar of how you divide you time between them and the general architecture they contribute to your life.

5. You get an repercussion-free hour to give vacuum-cleaner lady a piece of your mind (or anything else). What do you do/say?

[rm.livejournal.com]

More questions aren't required, but I kinda enjoy the work involved, so if you have some, feel free.

1. In what ways has Texas contributed to your personality?

2. Quote for us the most peculiar part of your internal monologe.

3. What's the most valuable thing you learned from school? And what's the most valuable thing you learned while in school, but not from school?

4. There's a really annoying article in the New York Times today about what "adulthood" is. What do you think it is?

5. Tell us about someone who drives you absolutely up the wall.

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. Based on your "type", your skills, and the types of roles you enjoy, at what age do you think acting work will most easily come your way? Why?

2. Which experience working in theater or film has caused you the most aggravation? Why?

3. Name five people in the industry you would absolutely kill to/die to/love to work with.

4. Describe the relationship between whatever personal control issues you may have, and the realities of the artistic process as you've been involved in it or perceive it.

5. Do you genuinely like people to the degree that you seem to, or are you just a really good schmoozer?

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. Describe the relationship between whatever personal control issues you may have, and the realities of the artistic process as you've been involved in it or perceive it.

2. What will it take for you to feel like you've "made it" in your chosen field of endeavor.

3. When directing a project, to what degree are you focused on the characters, as opposed to the greater story, as opposed to the individual needs of the actors. Assign percentages adding up to something approximating 100%

4. Creativity, ambition and relationships -- not three things that always get along well. If you grapple with this issue, tell us about some of your conclusions. And if you don't, tell us why.

5. Name five people in the industry that you'd absolutely kill/die/love to work with.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I would be interested in seeing what questions you might come up with for me.

Cheers...

:)

[jonqui.livejournal.com]

I'll work on your questions during my drive to Midland tomorrow and post tomorrow night... in the meantime...

1) What are the best/worst things about Austin and Texas in general?
2) Best/Worst things about New York(state and City)?
3) How did you first get involved in RPing and why?
4) If you could cast yourself in any role in any film ever made, what would you choose?
5) And the frivolous question: If you had to choose one outfit (layers, jackets, shoes and all) to wear for a year...

[justpat.livejournal.com]

If you're giving out interview questions, I'll take five to go, please.

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. What is the first new years resolution you remember making?

2. Who do you have a tendency to bargain with?

3. Your feelings on American's often inept and strange fixation with British culture?

4. What would you like to do, just so that you know you can?

5. A running joke about the show Survivor is that it would be more fun if it involved celebrities and they had to eat each other for food as they got eliminated. If this were the case, who would you insist on being on the program?

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. What makes you so profoundly dislike doing the politically expedient thing?

2. Will being a home owner make you feel like an "adult"? Or do you feel the act of defining that word is totally grotesque in an of itself. Why or why not?

3. How did you get into cooking/originally learn about food?

4. You decide to be an ex-pat -- where do you go and why?

5. Somewhere the path diverges -- tell us about a critical choice in your life, and where you'd be now if you'd made the other one.

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. Do you feel that excessive intelligence is equivalent to mental illness -- either on an internal level, or the external level of how others deal with you?

2. What type of environment would eventually like to live in? Why?

3. How do you feel your relationship to gender and sexuality differs from that of your older friends? (I ask not because you're young, but because you are a different generation from me, and I find there are very marked differences between myself and my friends seven or more years on either side of my age).

4. What about fandom disturbs you the most (not irritates, but genuinely makes you go, "what the hell is wrong with people?")

5. What film has been the defining one of what the emotional resonance of the medium is for you?

[rm.livejournal.com]

1. You've lived with the cat for a long time, but now she is your cat. How is that? Does she react differently to you? Has anything about the experience surprised you?

2. What physical activities/sports did you engage in as a child? Do you still pursue any of them? Why or why not?

3. How many of your fears/concerns related to dealing with other people have a basis in a past, non-family related event? (this is a non-judgemental question, and I'm sorry if it seems otherwise... I'm just really curious when you worry about being a burden to people if any has ever had the audacity to say that to you or not).

4. Life is full of critial pivot points. Choose one moment in your life where you made a big choice, and then tell us where you'd be now if you'd made the other one.

5. What one book do your feelings about define your personal emotional relationship with the written word?

...

[keith418.livejournal.com]

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;

- Shakepeare

[czarchasm.livejournal.com]

czarchasm sees the meme bus pulling away!

Wait! I would like interview questions!! Wait!!

czarchasm sees the meme bus driving away, anyhoo.

Damn. I'd still like to get on this thang, if possible.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Thank you.