In the beginning...
I started going on a lot of cattle calls, going through backstage, and then bussing tables, and working in different restaurants. I was an intern for a private investigator for a while, but he didn’t --- pay me. And then finally, I went to the summer session for William Esper. I did a six week program, I talked to him and he said, “You know you should do the two year program with me.” I said, “Well you know, I- I’m working now, and---by working I meant like you know, Burger King commercial or like maybe, maybe a small part in a, in a film or something but, I didn’t really know what the hell I was doing. I had no real technique and he told me, “You know, it’ll go by so fast, you won’t even notice it. Two years will go by so quickly.” So I went to the two year program, it was twice a week. Twice a week sounds casual, but it was very intense because the homework time and the time to rehearse with your acting partner was really intense, and that sort of changed my life, from there I kind of understood what the responsibility of an actor was, and that it was nothing to be taken lightly. It wasn’t a hobby. Before that it might have been something that I had inherited. I had my mother and father’ acting blood, I guess, that’s a terrible way to say that but I’d inherited BLOOD.
My mother and father were actors. My father quit acting early. He’s actually gotten back into it recently, but my mother did a lot of improvisation, and a lot of downtown theatre, like Charles Ludlam-type stuff, La Mama, and Theatre for the New City. Some of my first memories were at Theatre for the New City when I was on Second Avenue and Tenth Street, cause I would visit her in the summer, and I did a play with her when I was ten, I lived in San Francisco with my father, they were separated when I was five, and so I moved around a lot with my father. I would come visit her in the summer and I ended up doing a play with her accidentally, when I was ten, and again when I was eleven the following summer. I was toying with the idea of coming here to go to the Fame School, and then I ended up not doing that, I don’t think my mom could handle that so I stayed with my father and my stepmother, I went to a high school of performing arts but it was only about thirty percent of the school. There were two thousand kids, and maybe five hundred of them were in what they call SOTA, School of the Arts. It wasn’t just performing arts, it was also painting, and everything, and I dated a dancer there and I got all, ‘actory’. I was into break-dancing before that, and then I, I took off all my break-dancing gear and went through like a transition, wanting to be Michael Jackson into wanting to be Kevin Bacon in ‘Footloose’ to wanting to be Judd Nelson in ‘Breakfast Club’
I had romanticized New York in my mind when I was a kid, because I had been around all these crazy artist types, when I was a young boy. I was exposed to like you know, marijuana, fabulous big-breasted women, homosexuals, and drag queens. My mother’s world was a very strange, bohemian kind of world. I was kind of like the Bob Fosse thing in ‘All That Jazz,’ the scene when he’s with strippers, and he’s kind he’s backstage, and he’s doing like a Vaudeville-type stand-up thing and they’re kind of groping him, I mean I didn’t get molested or anything, but I- but I was around a lot of adults as a kid, and I think it’s probably sim- a little similar to what I’ve heard Chris Walken’s background was---he was a song and dance kid, and I think when you’re around that as a kid you grow up fast, but a part of you doesn’t grow up. It’s a strange thing to be exposed to that kind of bohemia as a kid. You feel a little different than the rest of the kids, when I would go back to San Francisco and go to school, and have sort of a normal middle class life with my stepmother and my father, it was very odd, and I was a year older than all the kids cause I had gone to kindergarten twice, for some reason, I don’t know, my dad he had me go to kindergarten twice.
I didn’t take acting very seriously, when I was at the School of the Arts I was chasing girls and smoking pot. Acting was sort of like a hobby, so when I came to New York it was really more to come for adventure, and I didn’t expect to get any work. I just came to live this Jack Kerouac, young Martin Landau, James Dean kind of kind of existence. I really didn’t have any connections except Sebastian Stuart, a friend of my Mothers, and I did that at Theatre for the New City, that was my first play in New York as an adult. I had this monologue, I remember pouring coffee on my head or something, and it was about Barbara Bush. I started going through Backstage and going on these crazy cattle-calls. You go into an apartment, not even a casting office, and there’s 30 guys in a room, a living room with some casting director, and the casting office is her apartment. Finally I got recommended to an agent called Kronick and Kelly, I sang a song and I did a monologue from ‘Diner,’ the one that Mickey Rourke does, apologizing to the girl in the movie theatre for putting his dick in the popcorn box. It’s a great little monologue he has. I had done a couple of Shakespeare monologues, but I didn’t really know anything about Shakespeare. I think I did a monologue one time from ‘Raging Bull’ I mean it was like some Jake La Motta stuff, that’s when De Niro, everybody was doing impressions of De Niro and then everyone started doing impressions of Chirs Walken, but back then, you’d go to a party with like 20 year old actors and there’d be like a De Niro-Off. So we were all watching those movies, Mean Streets, and and, all those and I did a monologue from ‘Raging Bull’ in this agents office, and the agent was like, you know, you can’t do that. You gotta, get some real text, you know?
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d be like a De Niro-Off. So we were all watching those movies, Mean Streets, and and, all those and I did a monologue from ‘Raging Bull’ in this agents office, and the agent was like, you know, you can’t do that. You gotta, get some real text, you know?
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This was my experience and this is what I'd recommend to a new actor. The first thing you'll need to do is read and study the book "Audition" by Michael Shurtleff. Speaking from experience, acting in the theatre always requires some period of training and/or apprenticeship. Acting is a craft like any other - imagine you wanted to be a clockmaker, acting is a craft just like that - it does require training.
Yes, it is possible to to get training "on the job", but in that case you are putting yourself on the apprenticeship track which has it's own struggles. This means one has to start in unpaid productions - usually in small roles - and you have to work your way up from small roles to large roles, and only then can one leap from unpaid community theatre to professional theatre. It takes time and great deal of effort. But it can be completely worth it.
Later, you'll need to get a color headshot made. They're expensive. Where to look for auditions is Backstage.com. Just like what Sam did. They have listings for nonunion stage auditions in almost every state. A monthly subscription to the site is a smart investment. You need to find when auditions are for small theaters near where you live.
But the very first thing you have to do is read and study the book "Audition." I also recommend "Acting Professionally" by Cohen, and when it comes time to perform your audition monologue, a good book on acting is "A Practical Handbook for the Actor." The work is worthwhile.
Gorgeousg
what kind of an eejit am I, I didnt find this before. Yes thank you for your honesty and thoughtful insights. I have a son who is my pride and joy yet I had very little input into him being the brilliant individual he is today, in fact thanks to him, I reckon , I'm still here. I used to drive my mother wild changing my clothes five times a day, living in my fantasy world, and reality is still not my natural state yet.But I'm getting rightsized slowly. I trained in london and dublin with some good actors, yet did very little til someone close to me died. Then I needed to work it out of my system , but I'm always writing stuff, stand up is where I felt most challenged, yet I often ended up doing characters and improv is my way back in since I've been 'resting', cleaning toilets selling bins etc, all grist to the mill. Yes as everyone has said here . Thank you for inspiring me to get up off my large ass and get to New York , if only for a week, and take what I heard and saw and put it into positive action to do what I love.
hotlosz
To be blunt...You're my favorite actor.
In the artistic world, I've been training years for dancing, but recently I've had a sudden change in interest.
Maybe it's my youth yearning for expression, but I'm getting "obsessed" with all things acting. The cool thing is, a lot of your films are what inspires it.
I'm not sure where I was going with this, but I guess I've ended up to the spot I'm at now to say,
Thanks a bunch :)
Talli
thanks for sharing your story with us Sam. We never hear from the people, who've made it, on such an intimate level.
I have discovered acting in my fourth year in college and became obsessed with it. It went from Meisner repetition to Michael Chekhov imagination work and Stanislavski's Active Analysis. Honestly, I can't see myself doing anything else in life. It would be disappointing because nothing is as satisfying as acting. I rather do what I love and barely get by then succumb to the zombie life that our parents set out for us. This feels like a journey to me.
P.S. I use your monologue from Jarhead all the time and I fucking love it. I love playing with the nuances in it, its so rich and everytime I do it I surprise myself. I love that it's from a deleted scene so none of the people I perform it for know where it's from ha! Hope you don't mind me using it.