Theatre

“I did my audition with Spike, which was terrifying. It turned into this 45-minute improv, and it just went all over the place.” – Laura Harrier Many successful actors will tell you: When your potential big break comes knocking, not even hell or high water should stop you from taking it. That even includes getting

“My role in Hollywood came at the craziest of times… I was still performing in Ain’t Too Proud, and we were just trying to make it through eight shows a week to get to the Tony’s that Sunday.” – Jeremy Pope Many successful actors are happy to talk about and reflect on their first big breaks

COVID-19 has blindsided the filmmaking world. The entertainment industry is set to sustain $160 billion in losses over the next five years, according to market research by Ampere. Production has halted. Theaters have shuttered. Physical festivals are cancelled. And with no clear pathway out of the virus, efforts to get back to work are tenuous

“It was an open call. They were searching for new talent, and I just kept going back. I think they called me back seven times.” – Dylan McDermott Golden Globe-winning actor Dylan McDermott is up for an Emmy Award for his performance in the Netflix series Hollywood. It’s McDermott’s second Emmy nomination (he was previously

I can remember when I first began my acting career about 13 years ago, the top priorities on my list were a headshot, resume, and a monologue. The first two were relatively easy to attain, the last one, the monologue, turned out to be a greater challenge than I could have ever expected. I searched

“There are some pretty intense moments… so I’ll come to set eight hours before call, and I’ll just pace the soundstage for hours, get in the world. No one else is around me. Then when I walk on set, there’s no prep.” – Dacre Montgomery On Stranger Things, Australian actor Dacre Montgomery portrayed Billy Hargrove

“I think it made me a better actor and I was just so relieved every night that I actually got through it. It’s a crazy thing to do, a one-person show. It’s bonkers.” – Laura Linney It’s fair to say that four-time Emmy Award-winning actress — and nominated for the second time for her role

What actor wouldn’t want to take a class with Jodie Foster? Though in the last decade Foster has increasingly dedicated her time to directing and producing, Foster is one of only 14 women to win more than one Academy Award for Best Actress, and she won both of her Oscars before she even turned 30

“The ultimate intention is to create a whole life to the character so you have the ability to jump in and out of it when you can… It’s all about… being in the moment and being in the intention and motive of that character.” – Kodi Smit-McPhee Kodi Smit-McPhee stars in writer/director Seth Larney‘s sci-fi

Photo Credit: Bjoern Kommerell. “People think about voice work and they think it’s this in inaccessible thing. It’s very accessible but just like anything, it requires some work and you gotta roll up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty but it’s totally doable.” – Lili Wexu Lili Wexu is a veteran voice over actor

Based on the book, My Life on the Road, The Glorias takes a look at the like of feminist Gloria Steinem. And what a life it’s been. She grew up in a family of vagabonds, due in part to her father. That openness to live life and explore pushed her to travel far and wide,

“Do some theater, because it’s all on the actor from the moment the curtain goes up until the moment the curtain goes down.” – William Sadler Look, let’s just call it as it is: no matter what actor William Sadler does in his career — and he’s had memorable roles in everything from Die Hard

[embedded content] Happy birthday, Ian McShane! The Emmy Award-nominated Deadwood star turns 78 years old today. Though the Ray Donovan, John Wick, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and American Gods star doesn’t really look his age. Perhaps that is a result from his long career filled with a variety of roles that has

Few actors are as highly respected as Patrick Stewart, who recently reprised his most famous role as Jean-Luc Picard in the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard, and he’s also known for being extremely affable to his fellow actors. As part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors issue, he spoke with actor Henry Cavill about behavior

I can’t believe it’s been a little over a year since I filmed my first commercial through Chicago Talent Network and O’Connor Casting. (Warning! You will encounter a motto or two or three in this blog post.) Focusing primarily on theater in the 80s and 90s, in 2019, I returned to acting after taking a

“When the theater actors were working together, it was fast. We were prepared. We knew the intention of the scene and we were fast in the delivery of it.” – Patti LuPone on ‘Hollywood’ After a career primarily defined by her Tony Award and Laurence Olivier Award-winning work on stage, Patti LuPone has been seen

“Dissecting the script is my most important path because it’s not the word as much as trying to understand the character and their purpose within the scene.” – Allen Maldonado Allen Maldonado has been working so hard these past few years, as a writer (Survivors Remorse) and acting on The Last O.G., Black-ish and most

“You simply have to take the script at face value and try to build your understanding of the character from the words that you’re given.” – Billy Crudup On Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, actor Billy Crudup portrays Cory Ellison, a network executive with unclear motivations who forces behind-the-scenes gamesmanship pitting several characters against one

[embedded content] Happy birthday, James Marsden! The X-Men and Enchanted star turns 47 years old today. Though Marsden made his name as a film star, in recent years he has earned the biggest acclaim in his career for his performance on television in Westworld, Mrs. America, and, most notably, Netflix’s Dead to Me. In fact,

The Secrets We Keep, the new film from Yuval Adler (Bethlehem, The Operative) with a screenplay directed by Adler and Ryan Covington, doesn’t waste any time getting the story started. Maja (Noomi Rapace), a Romanian woman now married and living in idyllic small town America, and her son are having a picnic. She hears a

“I was really excited about the possibility of having a character and staying with a character and seeing what could happen with 10 hours as opposed to under two.” – Jennifer Connelly on Returning to TV Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly has been a mainstay in cinemas for much of her career (even as a child actress),

Look, most actors would do just about anything in order to portray one of Marvel’s beloved superheroes. Who wouldn’t want to have superpowers on screen? Plus, you’ll probably get turned into an action figure. But such physical roles certainly have their drawbacks, as Juilliard-trained actor Anthony Mackie, who portrays the Falcon, has since learned since

On August 2, 2020, I booked my first on-camera job since the beginning of this pandemic. I vaguely remember towards the end of February when this all began and would’ve never imaged we all be where we are today. Living in a new normal, with endless questions to be answered. I was ecstatic with a

Photo Credit: Orion Bustamante (@shotbyorion) “I start to ask questions: how’s this guy different from me? How are we the same? And just kind of start to get an idea for what I really need to focus on.” – Adam Irigoyen on Preparing for Auditions Adam Irigoyen got his start at an early age, booking