Kafkaesque

"You are going through a transformation and I want everyone to take note."  This is what my acting coach told the class about me yesterday.  It's true.  Externally, I've lost 50 pounds and I am sporting a shorter hair cut and a goatee.  My acting style has also changed - not for 100% of time time, of course.  But I do have another way to perform if need be.  I used to boast a certain largess up there in the footlights. It worked for me, I was castable and cast pretty often as that.  My coach believes, and I believe too, that while that centurion way of performing does have value at times, at other times I will be called upon to act in an underplayed way, for lack of a better term.  I've been working on that, and I feel comfortable in that "place". 

I know.  Saying "place" in that way made me cringe too, but it is correct.  

I plan on losing more weight.  I'm not sure how much more.  30? Who knows.  What I do know is that yesterday I had an audition for The Onion's TV show on IFC.  This audition was a landmark because it was the first one I had since graduating college where the role wasn't a big guy specific casting need.  All of my auditions have been for "big" men, "burly" men or just plain old "heavy" men.  Some times the break down is a bit coded, and it reads that the CD's want "nervous" men, "sweaty" men or "exerted" men.  Sometimes it's not very coded at all and they call for a "fat" man.  This was my first audition when no size was specified. 

I consider this to be a good thing.  Now I am seen as a "____" man.  I know that I will always be considered a "character" actor, and that's totally cool; my wife thinks I am handsome and that's all the assurance I need.  Besides there are only two routes to getting a camera lens on you for 2 minutes in a movie - 2 minutes is an eternity on film.  You can either be a high billing leading man, like Clooney or Butler, or Pitt.  Or you can be a character actor aka an actor's actor who directors love and DP's love too, such as Stephen Tobolowsky or Brendan Gleeson or Luis Guzman.