return of the interview meme
Apr. 29th, 2005 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tabraun. If you would like me to interview you, reply to this post and I will ask you five questions to be answered along with this opportunity for others in your journal.
1.What is your favorite food?
That's hard as I'm really into food. Short list: veal piccata, shrimp tempura, good gaucamole, coconut ice, angle food cake, hard Italian provolone, balsamic vinegar, potato pancakes, toast, dark chocolate.
2.What inspires you on a daily basis?
Depends on the department. Example: every day I want McDonalds. Every day. And every day I force myself to pull someone I admire and think is probably the healthy sort out of a hat and say "now would they have Mcdonalds? no they would not," and then I go to whole foods and get a salad or a chicken cutlet or sushi or something.
I'm really inspired by people's stories, both their own and the more veiled ones they feel impelled to tell. Part of that is the content of it all, part of that is also having the will to tell it. We're such a weird society -- all this over-share in the form of reality TV and to be honest, blogs, but yet it's still hard to tell the truth for so many of us about things of all sizes. People working to tell the stories they need to, in a way that's relevant to other people and even sometimes entertaining -- I think it's a tremendously powerful thing, and it's a big motivator for me, both in general and specific.
One sentence version? I am inspired by possibility.
3.If you could travel in time,to anywhere,any time period,where and when would it be and why?
Probably the Regency Era (well, more broadly 1795 - 1830 which is technically beyond the bounds of the actually regency) because that's my big thing right now. But the reason that is my big thing right now is because it was really the moment when social manners as well as technology began to resemble what we know today. I think there are also general political parallels, and I'm fascinated by the wardrobe of the time especially as it was so encoded with data about people -- now clothes mean nothing -- it might mean who you are in that moment, it might not, but it certainly means nothing beyond that. Being a woman in that era was horrid though -- 1 in 3 died in childbirth and all unmarried ladies were treated as children with curfews inability to drink spirits or go anywhere unchaperoned. A married woman had quite a bit of social leeway though, and there are many decently documented cases from the era of women doing things generally considered far outside the bounds of home and family.
My second choice would have to be Australia in the Victorian/Edwardian eras. Obviously the sense of the continent's isolation was much more profound than now, and I'm really fascinated by all manner of things that were such events there in that time. It was such a chore to get there -- it wasn't like crossing the Atlantic, which was also a chore by our standards. To go to Australia and leave it again would be extraodinary. And I'm fascinated by what the emotional reality of being there would have been like -- a place so real you could never leave it, but a nearly fictive place to the world outside.
4.Do you ever want to get married and start a family?
I used to, when I was younger. I think a lot of that was naivete, that there would be some sort of award, or I would feel like I fit in more if I did that. I also, I have to confess, thought it was sort of an erotic idea -- that notion of being pregnant and being claimed through that. And then I got older, got over it, and had a relationship that was a lot like a marriage in a lot of ways -- although more family and emotional ones than logistical ones. I won't say that soured me on it, but I didn't really have a tremendous amount of perspective about it (or maybe more accurately a useful amount of perspective) until later.
I'd actually like to get married, but I think what I want out of a marriage is in some senses the antithesis of why most people get married. I want space. I want to have seperate bedrooms so we can invite each other on sleepoevers and it's never awkward if someone says no. Seperate vacations to explore extraordinary places and report back and then taking each other to see those marvels later. I like going to the movies alone. I'm overly fond of my own domain, and of the stories that live in my head -- I would find marriage where both of us were not busy and probably travellers not stifling so much as tiring. I have a lot of fun being an extrovert, but other people exhaust me, and I can only do so much of it, which is generally much less than most people realize.
As to children... that's odder in a way. I'm 32 and find myself oddly ambivalent about it. That bothers me more than firmly wanting or not wanting the little buggars. I think realistically, I can't have children and pursue the things I want to pursue right now. I hate to predicate the idea of children on success, but I think I have to -- and honestly, that's less financial than logistical for me. I also have a pretty hard time dealing with medical stuff, and might be better served by adoption, marrying into children or something than actually having my own. All of that said, it does strike me as sad not to pass my DNA along, because maybe I won't manage to do the level of exceptional things I want to -- maybe my children could (in whatever field they wanted, this isn't an evil stage mommie thing).
Ultimately, one of the things that really troubles me about my having children is the way they effect power dynamics, professionally and personally. Do people view mothers and pregnant women with the authority they should? Do mothers and pregnant women excercise their power in useful transformative ways? How do children change a relationship? Does one partner always feel on the outside? I worry about being left behind either in the home or outside it. Of course, the solution is to wrap it all up in one big package, but it's hard to do and hard to find, and then if I don't feel left behind, does the other person, the other parties involved?
5.What advice would you give to someone who wanted to do things similar to what you do?
Find heroes. And choose your heroes not solely for what they do, but more for how they got to do it. Everyone in this business talks about Willem Dafoe who wanted to be a movie star and went on three auditions a day for seven years and got told he was too weird looking before he got to be a movie star. Or Danny Davito who got rejected by something like 200 agents. These are good stories, valuable stories -- they teach you persistence, and they're good to give to family and friends who will want you to give up when you're frustrated. I'm a big believer in the more obscure heroes too that you look up to for reasons you don't always want to go into, but if it makes you do the work, that's all that matters.
Do the work. This means taking classes, going to auditions, learning to market yourself and making yourself the best you you can be.
Don't be afraid to be ugly. There's tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of girls who want to be Julia Roberts. There are a lot fewer girls who want to create an exciting character. Perfection and attempts at it actually open you up to more competition not less. Look at that big fat guy on Lost -- how many people do you think were up for that role? A lot fewer than were up for the hot pregnant Australian chick, I'll tell you that. Don't be afraid to be who you are.
Learn how to market yourself. This is probably 60% of the battle. If you can do this, not only have you learned a skill you can support yourself with when you are not acting, but you're positioning yourself for success.
Expose yourself to stuff that excites you -- movies, plays, books, poetry, travel, dance, whatever.
Have a hobby. Nothing sucks more than an actor who is only acting. You're no fun at parties and you tire yourself out as well as everyone else around you. Have things you want to be good at an enjoy that you also don't live or die by.
Be a creative problem solver. You've got to figure out how to support yourself and make an acting career for yourself with the limited resources of time, money and your own health and energy. It takes a lot of weird juggling a lot of the time.
Consider not going into it too young. I'm pretty hard on myself, but I'm able to shake it off pretty quickly, in large part because I had this whole other life I was successful in before I did this. This wasn't a calculated choice -- and in fact was on based on fear and not wanting to displease those around me. But it's how it happened, and it's given me a resilience, drive and perspective that has been tremendously helpful to me.
Visualization. It may not make things happen, but it sure is fun.
A sense of destiny. If you can cultivate one while also being real, not dangerously insane, and capable of rolling with the curves you can't predict, it tends to help.
Good headshots are worth every penny. Spend a lot. Do it.
Cut yourself slack. Some days you get to be a tired ugly slob, and it's a good thing. McDonalds too. Make your bad habits rewards. Because conquering that crap ain't never going to happen.
Realize famous people are hotter than you because they are airbrushed and A-list folks have people with them pretty much all the time to make them look the best they can and be the most organized and charming they can. You don't have to be that -- you just gota show the raw material and the potential.
Always watch all the credits at the movie theater. It's not just polite, it's an act of prayer.
Do some background work to see how a movie set really works. Keep doing it if need be to get your SAG card. But don't put it on your resume, and don't think it's a career in and of itself.
Do it for the love. And that's your love of it, not its love of you.
Have a sense of humour about it.
For one year do everything that comes your way that isn't a scam or porn. Everything. Now you have a resume. Now get selective, do more by doing less. I learned this the hard way and I'm still learning it.
Worry about getting in front of casting directors, not agents.
Always Be Closing -- mainly because it's fun to quote Glenngary Glenross.
It's impossible to be fearless, so just don't get stopped by fear instead.
Trust your gut.
tabraun. If you would like me to interview you, reply to this post and I will ask you five questions to be answered along with this opportunity for others in your journal.1.What is your favorite food?
That's hard as I'm really into food. Short list: veal piccata, shrimp tempura, good gaucamole, coconut ice, angle food cake, hard Italian provolone, balsamic vinegar, potato pancakes, toast, dark chocolate.
2.What inspires you on a daily basis?
Depends on the department. Example: every day I want McDonalds. Every day. And every day I force myself to pull someone I admire and think is probably the healthy sort out of a hat and say "now would they have Mcdonalds? no they would not," and then I go to whole foods and get a salad or a chicken cutlet or sushi or something.
I'm really inspired by people's stories, both their own and the more veiled ones they feel impelled to tell. Part of that is the content of it all, part of that is also having the will to tell it. We're such a weird society -- all this over-share in the form of reality TV and to be honest, blogs, but yet it's still hard to tell the truth for so many of us about things of all sizes. People working to tell the stories they need to, in a way that's relevant to other people and even sometimes entertaining -- I think it's a tremendously powerful thing, and it's a big motivator for me, both in general and specific.
One sentence version? I am inspired by possibility.
3.If you could travel in time,to anywhere,any time period,where and when would it be and why?
Probably the Regency Era (well, more broadly 1795 - 1830 which is technically beyond the bounds of the actually regency) because that's my big thing right now. But the reason that is my big thing right now is because it was really the moment when social manners as well as technology began to resemble what we know today. I think there are also general political parallels, and I'm fascinated by the wardrobe of the time especially as it was so encoded with data about people -- now clothes mean nothing -- it might mean who you are in that moment, it might not, but it certainly means nothing beyond that. Being a woman in that era was horrid though -- 1 in 3 died in childbirth and all unmarried ladies were treated as children with curfews inability to drink spirits or go anywhere unchaperoned. A married woman had quite a bit of social leeway though, and there are many decently documented cases from the era of women doing things generally considered far outside the bounds of home and family.
My second choice would have to be Australia in the Victorian/Edwardian eras. Obviously the sense of the continent's isolation was much more profound than now, and I'm really fascinated by all manner of things that were such events there in that time. It was such a chore to get there -- it wasn't like crossing the Atlantic, which was also a chore by our standards. To go to Australia and leave it again would be extraodinary. And I'm fascinated by what the emotional reality of being there would have been like -- a place so real you could never leave it, but a nearly fictive place to the world outside.
4.Do you ever want to get married and start a family?
I used to, when I was younger. I think a lot of that was naivete, that there would be some sort of award, or I would feel like I fit in more if I did that. I also, I have to confess, thought it was sort of an erotic idea -- that notion of being pregnant and being claimed through that. And then I got older, got over it, and had a relationship that was a lot like a marriage in a lot of ways -- although more family and emotional ones than logistical ones. I won't say that soured me on it, but I didn't really have a tremendous amount of perspective about it (or maybe more accurately a useful amount of perspective) until later.
I'd actually like to get married, but I think what I want out of a marriage is in some senses the antithesis of why most people get married. I want space. I want to have seperate bedrooms so we can invite each other on sleepoevers and it's never awkward if someone says no. Seperate vacations to explore extraordinary places and report back and then taking each other to see those marvels later. I like going to the movies alone. I'm overly fond of my own domain, and of the stories that live in my head -- I would find marriage where both of us were not busy and probably travellers not stifling so much as tiring. I have a lot of fun being an extrovert, but other people exhaust me, and I can only do so much of it, which is generally much less than most people realize.
As to children... that's odder in a way. I'm 32 and find myself oddly ambivalent about it. That bothers me more than firmly wanting or not wanting the little buggars. I think realistically, I can't have children and pursue the things I want to pursue right now. I hate to predicate the idea of children on success, but I think I have to -- and honestly, that's less financial than logistical for me. I also have a pretty hard time dealing with medical stuff, and might be better served by adoption, marrying into children or something than actually having my own. All of that said, it does strike me as sad not to pass my DNA along, because maybe I won't manage to do the level of exceptional things I want to -- maybe my children could (in whatever field they wanted, this isn't an evil stage mommie thing).
Ultimately, one of the things that really troubles me about my having children is the way they effect power dynamics, professionally and personally. Do people view mothers and pregnant women with the authority they should? Do mothers and pregnant women excercise their power in useful transformative ways? How do children change a relationship? Does one partner always feel on the outside? I worry about being left behind either in the home or outside it. Of course, the solution is to wrap it all up in one big package, but it's hard to do and hard to find, and then if I don't feel left behind, does the other person, the other parties involved?
5.What advice would you give to someone who wanted to do things similar to what you do?
Find heroes. And choose your heroes not solely for what they do, but more for how they got to do it. Everyone in this business talks about Willem Dafoe who wanted to be a movie star and went on three auditions a day for seven years and got told he was too weird looking before he got to be a movie star. Or Danny Davito who got rejected by something like 200 agents. These are good stories, valuable stories -- they teach you persistence, and they're good to give to family and friends who will want you to give up when you're frustrated. I'm a big believer in the more obscure heroes too that you look up to for reasons you don't always want to go into, but if it makes you do the work, that's all that matters.
Do the work. This means taking classes, going to auditions, learning to market yourself and making yourself the best you you can be.
Don't be afraid to be ugly. There's tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of girls who want to be Julia Roberts. There are a lot fewer girls who want to create an exciting character. Perfection and attempts at it actually open you up to more competition not less. Look at that big fat guy on Lost -- how many people do you think were up for that role? A lot fewer than were up for the hot pregnant Australian chick, I'll tell you that. Don't be afraid to be who you are.
Learn how to market yourself. This is probably 60% of the battle. If you can do this, not only have you learned a skill you can support yourself with when you are not acting, but you're positioning yourself for success.
Expose yourself to stuff that excites you -- movies, plays, books, poetry, travel, dance, whatever.
Have a hobby. Nothing sucks more than an actor who is only acting. You're no fun at parties and you tire yourself out as well as everyone else around you. Have things you want to be good at an enjoy that you also don't live or die by.
Be a creative problem solver. You've got to figure out how to support yourself and make an acting career for yourself with the limited resources of time, money and your own health and energy. It takes a lot of weird juggling a lot of the time.
Consider not going into it too young. I'm pretty hard on myself, but I'm able to shake it off pretty quickly, in large part because I had this whole other life I was successful in before I did this. This wasn't a calculated choice -- and in fact was on based on fear and not wanting to displease those around me. But it's how it happened, and it's given me a resilience, drive and perspective that has been tremendously helpful to me.
Visualization. It may not make things happen, but it sure is fun.
A sense of destiny. If you can cultivate one while also being real, not dangerously insane, and capable of rolling with the curves you can't predict, it tends to help.
Good headshots are worth every penny. Spend a lot. Do it.
Cut yourself slack. Some days you get to be a tired ugly slob, and it's a good thing. McDonalds too. Make your bad habits rewards. Because conquering that crap ain't never going to happen.
Realize famous people are hotter than you because they are airbrushed and A-list folks have people with them pretty much all the time to make them look the best they can and be the most organized and charming they can. You don't have to be that -- you just gota show the raw material and the potential.
Always watch all the credits at the movie theater. It's not just polite, it's an act of prayer.
Do some background work to see how a movie set really works. Keep doing it if need be to get your SAG card. But don't put it on your resume, and don't think it's a career in and of itself.
Do it for the love. And that's your love of it, not its love of you.
Have a sense of humour about it.
For one year do everything that comes your way that isn't a scam or porn. Everything. Now you have a resume. Now get selective, do more by doing less. I learned this the hard way and I'm still learning it.
Worry about getting in front of casting directors, not agents.
Always Be Closing -- mainly because it's fun to quote Glenngary Glenross.
It's impossible to be fearless, so just don't get stopped by fear instead.
Trust your gut.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Sure, why not?
Date: 2005-04-30 01:29 am (UTC)May I have five questions?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 02:59 am (UTC)HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MY THEATER COMPANY?!?!?!?!?!?! IT'S INTERESTING! THEREFORE I MUST BE INTERESTING!! I HAVEN"T SLEPT IN WEEKS BUT I HAVE A THEATER COMPANY!!!!!!!
*snerk* You're right, of course.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 07:58 am (UTC)You should, perhaps, keep this post somewhere easily accessible to pass along to any of the people who ask you for advice.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 08:25 am (UTC)Personally, I tend to think of Europe and America as isolated because they are so far away from here ;), but my maternal grandmother (who was born in the Edwardian period) always referred to England as home -and would get quite sentimental about it too, apparently.
She was born in rural Victoria and lived out her life in northern Tasmania.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 08:49 am (UTC)thank you...you are an inspiration...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 01:09 pm (UTC)I think a lot of my sense of Australia being so far away is being in New York -- that puts me five hours from England, which I don't feel particularly emotionally close to, but is obviously a source of a lot of cultural hertiage. Whereas if I lived on the West Coast, that would be 11 hours from England and about 14 from Sydney -- not all that much of a difference.
One of the things that interested me when I was in Australia was how many people really do seem to view England as home, even if they've never lived there or have family currently there. I don't see the same thing in Canada at all, which is of course also part of the Commonwealth.
I saw this exhibit in Sydney, and I'm a big fan of photography, espeically older stuff just the random documentation of people, an it just struck me so tremendously. http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/photography/menu.cfm
no subject
Date: 2005-04-30 06:11 pm (UTC)Yay
Date: 2005-05-01 04:41 am (UTC)Re: Yay
Date: 2005-05-01 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 02:01 pm (UTC)2. Okay, you have a cat now. Cat is good. Cats are also really annoying. What drives you nuts?
3. Because everyone needs the reminder... what are you liking about the single life?
4. Name your war.
5. I spend a bit of money ordering food from far away. What food would you order from far away if you could?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-02 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-03 03:02 pm (UTC)2. What's with the stuffed owl?
3. If you could live the life of anyone on your friends list for a week who would it be and why?
4. What's your life like in the universe next door?
5. What should you be doing (in the grand metaphysical sense) that you're not?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-04 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 03:55 pm (UTC)2. Who are your work/life rolemodels and why?
3. What aren't you doing that you should be?
4. What's your dream project that may never happen... or if it does will be a story in an of itself? (I think of Orson Welles' Othello as an example).
5. Do you have an petty and peculiar vices you would like to share with us?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 04:00 pm (UTC)1. How is your ability to truly see yourself being effected by the process you are currently going through? I know many people cannot process accurately what a mirror presents them, and you have even more reasons for this to be a challenge, but I always think of that thing you've posted about people telling you you would be an ugly boy... and I look at the photos of your new jaw line, and I wonder what crack they were smoking... do you get it? Do you see it?
2. Tell me about the rabbit. I know there is a rabbit, and it does rabbity things and is soft, but I don't have a sense of Life with Rabbit the way I do in terms of Life with Cats. Hell, what's the rabbit's name.
3. If you have an interest in pursuing one or more careers, what are they and why?
4. What cities have you not yet been to that you suspect will feel like home?
5. What do you often want to say, and yet don't?