How Not To Relax During Summer Vacation

It's been a busy week with a variety of auditions for the teen actor. The auditions have been all over the road in terms of the characters he's had the chance to read for in the last 7-10 days. The roles have included:

*A bratty high school student forced to be part of the school play thanks to getting in trouble at school

*A kid named "Diego" that I discussed here

*An alien from the future who is 4-feet tall and trapped in the body of a teenager

*A kid who wants to have a pet cow in his city dwelling

*An action hero destined to save our world once he is no longer grounded by his parents

*The owner of a gem that a group of international thieves is looking to steal

*A boy who thinks he is a dog trapped in the body of a human

Whether or not he gets any of these parts, the audition process is giving him plenty of material for his stand-up gigs. There are times I'll ask him how an audition went and he will just smile and tell me to wait for his next stand-up gig.

Speaking of which...Rare in-blog plug time! Zach is doing stand-up in July at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank. He's opening for Felicia Michaels on Friday June 1st during the 7:30pm show in the YooHoo Room. Want half-price tickets? Get them while you still can here. He'll play the main room at Flappers for the first time on Monday July 25th at 8pm as part of "Make Em Laugh Monday". While I'm linking and plugging things, here is his Flappers talent bio if you want to book the kid and also his IMDB page containing some new photos of Zach at recent showbiz and charity events.

It's definitely a busy summer vacation for the teen actor/stand-up comedian. I think he is enjoying not having to learn the wonders of Economics 101 while also having to write fresh material for upcoming shows. I can help him with Economics and I can sometimes be a test audience for his stand-up material. However, I am completely lost when he needs help with his math homework!

Does That Actor Match The Breakdown For The Role?

Zach had an audition late last week and some of the actors auditioning for the part didn't seem to fit the description. Here's what the casting people were looking for as well as how the character breakdown matched up to Zach:

*Male 17-19 but can look younger (Good)

*Experience handling large sections of dialogue (Still good)

*Comedic timing (Stand-Up Comic and Second City cast member...Think we're still good)

*Any body type (Yes, he has a body type)

*First name of the character is "Diego" (Maybe a stepfather adopted him and gave him a new name)

*Look like a native of Budapest (Need to show him where Budapest is on a map)

*Have an interesting look (Super vague but let's take it as a compliment)

We arrived at the audition and I took a seat and checked out the crowd.  For the character named "Diego", I saw:

*Two boys 12 and younger

*Four hairy hipsters in their mid-20s who would need to "de-hipster" in order to play younger

*A very pale-skinned teen from Sweden

*A stage parent telling his kid not to mention the trouble he has memorizing "too much dialogue"

*A slightly drunk stage parent loudly stating "I thought Diego was a Spanish slur!!!"

*An African-American teen actor that kept saying "Why did my agent submit me for Diego???"

*An actor that was 30+ still trying out for the 17-19 part

All of the above actors were called in by the casting director and his/her associates. Since the casting office had the breakdown for the role, how did some of the above actors make it to the audition stage of the process?

Sometimes the production company knows exactly what they are looking for in an actor. There are other times they have an idea but are open to the thought of changing up the part if necessary. As Diego is the main character and the script has to do with his heritage, it would take a major rewrite to have the kid from Sweden be a teen named Diego.

If that does happen, it's just another example of movie making magic in Hollywood!

This actor has a stand-up gig on July 1st at Flappers in Burbank.

A Recap of (Recent) Life in Hollywood

Instead of focusing on one topic this week, I'm going to do a mixed bag and discuss a variety of "life in Hollywood" events from the last few weeks.

• I was recently approached by a writer, who is also a bestselling author, about doing a profile piece on me. He found my blog and wants to feature me in a magazine article about people who take the unexpected path in life. We are working out the final details and the interview should happen in a few weeks.
• Zach, along with two of his friends, decided it was time to give back to the community. They helped plan and implement a bowling event to raise funds for cancer research. The "Bowling Bash To Strike Away Cancer" raised over $15,000 during the 3-hour event. They served as the red carpet, social media and recruitment chairs for the event. They also helped host the bash and enlisted some of their talented friends to perform as well as serve as the official event photographer and event support. It was nice to see them excited about helping a great cause and work so hard to make the event such a success.

Zach Louis hosting the start of the ceremony.

• I've had a couple of conversations in the last week about turning my blog into a book. In fact, I've spoken with two people from different companies in the past week about writing a book. One of them found me through hashtags I use regularly on social media. The other person found me searching for blogs about acting and Hollywood. I'm in initial talks with them and it's definitely an intriguing idea.
• There was a production crew in our neighborhood last week. I discovered them while taking Doc on his morning walk. The crew asked us to stop for a moment while they finished filming a scene. I was fine with waiting but Doc kept pulling on the leash, When it was finally time for us to pass through the trucks and crew, I noticed Doc had peed on the stack of daily sides left on the ground by the guy who wouldn't let us pass. I smiled at Doc and quickly started walking. My dog knows how to show his displeasure while not messing up the scene being filmed.
• Zach just started his summer vacation from college. On the agenda for this summer? Creating a YouTube channel and its content, writing new stand-up material and testing it around town, guitar lessons, sleeping late, acting classes and auditions. It might be summer break from school but the kid doesn't know how to take it easy. He is determined to create opportunities while waiting for auditions from his agents.

Writing this update reminds me I need to get book proposal samples together for both of the interested parties! I need to review the samples closely because spell check likes to spell "dadager" as "dada get" or "da did ma". Looks like a manual review night ahead of me.

This actor is looking forward to summer fun.

Should You Make Acting Your Career?

I know a lot of actors and they are never on the same page in their careers. While one or two of them might be doing well and booking jobs consistently, there are other actors who haven't landed an audition, much less booked a job, in quite some time.

There is plenty of self-doubt and hard times in the acting world. With all of the competition for parts in Hollywood, sometimes you have to ask yourself one question:

Should I choose acting as my career path?

The simple answer to this question is "No".

In general, only a small portion of actors earn enough money as actors to make a living. This does not mean they are household names or big stars loved by the public. It just means they are earning enough money to make acting their main job.

The not so simple answer to the question is..."Yes. You should make acting your career choice if you can't imagine doing anything else with your life." 

A career as an actor is never going to be an easy journey. The amount of competition is extremely high and you will need to perform at your highest level at all times to have a chance to succeed. Can you handle that kind of pressure or are you better off choosing a more traditional career path?

Acting is a career that needs to be worked on each day. You don't necessarily need to act on a daily basis. You do need to check casting sites, submit yourself for parts, attend workshops and acting classes, network with other actors and try and create your own projects. Acting is a skill that needs to be practiced and performed on a regular basis. I try and update my blog on a weekly basis. I don't always succeed but the desire is always there. Even when I post an update, my brain is already thinking about the topic of my next post. I write on a daily basis and my work ranges from medical articles to job search tips to cooking with seasonings to creating compelling social media updates for businesses. If I go a day or two without writing, it takes me a little while to get back in the groove. Acting is the same way so you have to decide if your career path involves exercising your acting muscles on a daily basis.

Finally, you have to decide how far you want to take acting as a career. Some people are happy being known as one of the best actors in their hometown. Their place of residence might consist of 1000 people or 100,000 people. If that is the place where you want to try and build an acting career, it will be harder because there are not as many opportunities on a daily basis to book work. If you really want to maximize your potential as a working actor, you need to move to Los Angeles or New York. Even cities like Chicago and New Orleans that host movie and television productions on a regular basis only have so much available work to offer an actor. You have to decide if making the move, and leaving behind your family and friends, is a good career choice for you in the long run.

The decision about making acting your career choice is completely up to you. There are many people that give advice and offer encouraging words. When it comes to answering the question about choosing acting as your career path, you are the only person that can provide the final answer.

This teenager decided he wanted to be an actor at an early age.