I was on TV this past Tuesday...

Here is the link.  Check it out.  I show up around 45 seconds.  Hope all is well.

Onion Callback with the director

Well, that was fun!  Just came back from the offices for The Onion.  This was call backs for the moviegoer role that I blogged about a few entries ago.  I also received a new pair of sides to work on.  The new ones were particularly hilarious.  The idea is that google, in a tremendous display of power has messed with gmail rendering is useless and toying with google calendar etc.  Just the thought of google shutting down paralyzes me with fear.  I am not joking. The role of office worker was a "man on the street" blurb.  It was quite funny. 

Sidenote: do you even know anyone who doesn't have a gmail account?  The only person I know who still uses an AOL account is my Dad, but in his defense it's tied to a business and he has had it since 1997 or so.  He also has the same username on gmail that he uses often so I suppose it doesn't really count. 

Just last week, a real estate client of mine gave me her email account for getting in touch during the day.  It was a hotmail account.  Gross.  Perhaps mindspring has some novelty to it....but hotmail?  That just seems cheap to me.

The call back went very well, I did each line twice and they gave me adjustments between each take, and I feel as if I took them well and nailed the takes.  You can never tell, of course...but they do seem to bring me back often.  So it's just a question of me matching what they need in a performance. 

Hotmail?  Ew.

Hey, Chris Cooper. You are really good at acting.

Hey....Hey Chris Cooper. I just wanted you to know that I think you are a really really (really) good actor.  I first saw you act in "American Beauty" where you portrayed that really hard line father of the protagonist.  The ex-Marine who collected Nazi memorabilia and turned out to be a closeted homosexual.  I thought that....well (uh oh, I'm blushing a bit) when you were so defeated in the scene with John Doman in "The Company Men" and you made yourself allllllmost cry but your character was so quietly and unassumingly masculine that you gulped it down.  Wow.  That was also really really great.  Mr. Cooper, I just wanted you to know....that....well, if I came across a magic genie, and the genie was all like "Hey, I will grant you a wish...just one."  I would probably be like "Well, let me think about this one."  And I'd think about it for a while, a few minutes probably, in silence.  I would emerge from said think tank of solace and say..."Hey, Genie.  I want an acting career where I am respected by my peers, work regularly and get to play awesome roles and am not swarmed by crazy fans*.  I am wishing for an acting career like Chris Cooper's."

Poof!  I'd get it, and it would be really fun, there would be much rejoicing.

Thanks.  I guess.  Now if you would please let me finish my meal, I would appreciate it.  Best of luck to you, by the way.

Ok....Thanks for that, BYE CHRIS COOPER!!!

Bye.










*totally assuming this.

FOUR LOKO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Masterpiece Chorba: Four Loko from Crandall Miller on Vimeo.

King Henry The Four (loko) coming tomorrow.......

Be afraid....be very very afraid.  Starting tomorrow you will no longer go by the calendar as we know it.  You will describe things as being before tomorrow's debut or after tomorrow's debut. 

Onion Audition and "Call of Duty" SNAFU

I enjoyed auditioning for the onion this morning.  Since I was cast in episode 10 of the new show "Onion Sports Dome" I detect an elevated amount of friendliness over there coming my way.  I met their needs and now they are even nicer to me...which is......nice?  Yes, it's nice.  Anyway, I was there to read for an Internet webisode bit, and after my first take the CD gave me an adjustment.  I of course, being a consummate professional, took said adjustment.  He laughed.  It was.....nice.

"Great Phillip!  Let me get something else for you to read......I'm not sure what yet."
"OK, I'll just hang out for a bit."

And hang out I did.  For about 2 minutes.  I passed the time by reading the onion, of course. 

He came by with two more sides for me to work on.  After about 5 minutes of preparation, I went in again and nailed them both.  I guess it just comes down to whether they think I look like the part.  We'll see.  On a very positive note, the CD said "We'll see you soon!"

So that's pretty great.  They'll cast me in one of the three parts I read, or they'll  bring me back soon enough.  Hopefully both happen.

Additionally, as I waited for the uptown 6 train to take me to my real estate job, I noticed an advertisement for "Call of Duty".  For those of you who don't know, that is a video game where you play a soldier and you shoot people and take on various missions.  It's awesome.  It's a great game.  They do however, need to maybe tweak this campaign a bit, with the Tuscon tragedy still in the news.

Right?  I'm not alone on this one, yeah?

Weekend wrapup

Filming went really well with the guys from Gut Punch.  I edited down Falstaff's "sherry" monologue from Henry IV, ii and changed all references for sherry to four loko.  I think that this is going to turn out really great.  Here is a finished project we did as a spoof on Jersey Shore:

The Jersey Hulk from Crandall Miller on Vimeo.

After that, Mrs PhillyRay and I went over to a great friend's place for a delicious and overindulgent dinner and watched the Steeler's sick come from behind victory.  Great day.

My real estate clients' deal just got approved and they are signing leases tomorrow, which is really great and I have an audition tomorrow for the Onion again.  I guess they really like me over there!  Good stuff these last few days.  Here's to hoping this trend continues....

Commercial Audition tomorrow! [UPDATE]

Yippy kay-yay....

I have an audition tomorrow for a national commercial.  I am quite enthused.  It's for a national electronics store.  I am also set to audition for a brand new CD - it's going to be fun to meet some new people in the business.  This shoots in LA the first week or so of January.  I've never been to Lala land and I would love to check it out. 

And I gotta tell ya, the description sounds a lot like me...actually it sounds like they wrote it about me.  Here it is:

Friend -  Loud and outspoken, but very likable.  He always likes to be the center of attention and usually is.  He's a jokester and likes busting peoples balls.  He's the type of person that always seems to have things go his way most of the time, but he doesn't realize how lucky he is. 

So yeah, that's me in a nutshell.  There's no script to work on, so I assume it's either an improvisation (yay) or a cold read/quick study (double yay). 

I feel really great about this audition.  I just have to be me.  They will love me, because that's what they want!

UPDATE:  turns out.....it's not a new CD, I just momentarily forgot that this is the same CD I auditioned for for the Chobani Yogurt spot.  I remember the CD laughing hysterically at my takes, when I didn't get the call back I figured they went for someone older looking.  Glad they like me over there!

"You love me, you really love me!"

This feels good. Really good, actually. "Persakis Towers" was chosen in the "Top 10 of 2010" for Vimeo.com  I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

Vimeo as I've mentioned before, is a video hosting and sharing website of the utmost quality.  Gut Punch's fearless director, Crandall Miller says that it "looks how directors want things to look."  I'd have to agree with the experts on that one.  They have a great business model as the quality of the productions tend to be higher than what you'd see on say....youtube.  This is due to the fact that it costs money to be on vimeo (above a certain data usage).  It separates the wheat from the chaff.

It feel great to be one of the wheatiest bits of wheat.

An Actors tool: Charming the pants off the viewer.

Dean Winters is absolutely killing it with these All-State "Mayhem" commercials.  He is charming and irresistable in them.  Winters employs many tools during these spots, but his charm is the strongest move I see him make.  He also employs mystery/secret/confidentiality, relationship, opposite, game-play and importance.  This one is my favorite:


 "My scent? Like making love to a lumberjack."  That kills me every time.  This guy must be raking it in right now, it's a series of national commercials.  A conservative estimate is $250k this year.

Here is one excellent example of Winters mixing it up with the rate, inflection, pitch and dynamic and the line...."Because that's what I do" is especially nailed.  Check it out:


Oh and one more thing, see how he works the frame starting at the :22 mark? Ha!  This guy is excellent.

Curly = PhillyRay's Hamlet

This is for real.  I have not been this excited since I booked The Onion Sports Network gig back in September.  Fresh off the interwebs, the "Three Stooges Movie" has received a greenlight after a long time of various castings, red tape etc.  For a while the rumored cast consisted of: Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn and Paul Giamatti (in various blends) 

The Farrelly brothers are directing the piece and have said:

"The script is ready to go, and we are opening up these roles to the world right now," Peter Farrelly told me. "We'll make it with the best possible people. Our feeling is that no star is too big to audition and no matter who it is, we're going to have to see him in the role. This is not The Flinstones. You've got to be Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard, and that could be a major movie star or an unknown."

Did you read that?  Are you picking up what I am putting down????? A major movie star I am not.  An unknown, I am!  Ha!  I should also note that filming is slated to start on March 14th, which is my birthday.  I believe this to be a sign.  I truly do.  Here is the article of which I speak.

"Niche over type." Does an Actor need to have a niche market? Oh, also a Dr. Phil impression.

A comment in the last post asked for a Dr. Phil montage.  (hey Jamie!)  But while I will certainly do this, it made me think about what I was actually going to type and how I could relate it to the actor content of my blog.  PhillyRay, can you do that?!?!!?!??!

I totally can! 

I have heard from people that I am "limited by my type", or have "a specific type".  While I personally say to them "Hooey!" and bookend that with a raspberry, it made me think.....can an actor be so specifically a type that he invents his own niche? 

After all, wouldn't my loyal reader(s) say that Danny DeVito could be considered a type?  I say that he transcends "type".  I say that he is himself, he is the best Danny DeVito anyone could possibly be.  He is so fucking charming.  He is short, yes and not the most handsome man in the world, but he just oozes charisma, and I love him and his impressive career.  In other words, think "approachable blue collar type", and now think about the niche market that Kevin James has carved out for himself.  I know that Mr. James had a substantial stand-up career before becoming an actor, but my point is - he wouldn't have achieved such success without a tireless work ethic and strategic planning.  DeVito and James are two success stories that I crudely categorize as "niche over type". 

I am at a crossroads of sorts.  While I am totally cool with being a large man with a certain comedic genius, I am not sure that I am totally comfortable with attacking the acting world with said genius and creating my own sub-type, a nice if you will. 

Then again, niches can become extremely fruitful.  Take Dr. Phil, for example.  The man is a savant.  With his mustache and tan suits and down-home attitude, people immediately trust him.  And, of course, an Oprah endorsement can never hurt.  To me, the guy is just cashing in on common sense.  Is it the accent that sets him apart?  I really don't know.  Anyway, he'll have the worst people in the world on his show.  The worst, the absolute worst.  It'll be a meth addicted mother of a toddler, who only started doing meth when her child was a newborn.  Because he has earned money by putting others down, he will offer some sage advice such as this, and the crowd goes completely batshit with applause...

This got me thinking.....could I reinvent myself as a cheap knockoff of Dr. Phil?  I think I could.  I think that day-time TV viewers are so stupid that they would not realize they were watching sarcasm.  I could be the Andy Kaufman of Astoria Queens.  I think that there is a niche needing to be filled with someone who takes heinous people and tells them what they need to stop doing and what they need to start doing.  Heck, the "stop" and "start" issues don't even have to be related.  Besides, it's more fun that way.  Well, here could be a preview of the sage advice that could indeed, rocket-launch me to success. 

Gut Punch Greatness and success

A few posts ago I mentioned how we missed the boat on an e-mail as it went unchecked for 4 months.  I also mentioned that we shot an apology video to send to the client.  Here it is:


Fashionably Late Reply from Crandall Miller on Vimeo.



Funny huh?  Why, thank you.  And guess what?  It worked!!!! HAHAHAH.  The client wants to have a conference call at 2pm today.  This of course is subject to change.  Stay tuned for updates. 

Update:  Conference call at 4pm.  Fingers crossed.

Commercial I did

So someone did indeed cast me.  Here is the commercial; it is 100% improvised.  It's for Feed Granola.  Check em out here I did this along with the talented team of Gut Punch and their internal advertising faction.  Check out Gut Punch and all of their hilarity and talent.

I'm also available for birthday parties.

And Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. If your dog is now 13 years old, we can have a bark mitzvah. (shows self the door)