Tax Time

Guess how many W-2's I had this year?

9

Add to that a few 1099's and you've got yourself a real headache. For those who are already bored, lost, confused by all those numbers... A W-2 means they took taxes out, or could have or should have. A 1099 means they didn't. Both report earnings.

As an actor working professionally, you will be paid by a talent payroll company and your wages will be taxed. One benefit to this is that you can, after your one day of work on Medium, file for unemployment. One drawback is that the IRS thinks that you were an employee of a Payroll company for a day, and they're none to happy when you try to explain to them that you are an actor, by definition a perpetually freelance job, and that you give 10% of this income to your agent, and yes you should be able to deduct that, and...

Lost you again, huh? Ok, that's my point. Hire an accountant. Let them deal with this. Because tax laws weren't built for artists but a knowledgeable professional (not H&R Block) will be able to help you write off all that needs writing off. If you should ever go through an audit, as I did two years ago, you'll be damn glad you did. (I beat them, by the way.)

More helpful hints here.

Google is Good

You have to love any corporate giant that can play an April Fools Joke.

Polaroid Obit

Next summer, 61 years after it was invented, Polaroid will stop making film for its cameras. 

The polaroid has been a beloved tool of casting directors, especially commercial casting directors, in all the time I've been acting. At any commercial audition, one must fill out a size card and have a Polaroid taken. The polaroid is then stapled to the size card, and given to the casting director, or whoever happens to be in the room.

I've never, ever looked good in a Polaroid picture. But I'm not alone. I've seen models, actual models, real life models at auditions not look good in their Polaroids. Giselle has taken bad Polaroids. And yet, I have a certain affinity for the instant gratification of the photo, the rote mechanism it has become in my life. I blindly fill out the size card, I put on my carbon copy smile, bend at the knees a little (because I'm always taller than the person taking my picture, and you never look good shot from below) and FLASH! I am captured in an instant and stapled to my sizes.

So for all you actors out there, having a Polaroid taken will soon be a thing of the past. I encourage you to cherish the moment.

Up next, the barcode. And why I have one.

Speaking of Cattle

So, I'm on someone's sh*tlist right now for not signing an animal rights petition. It was about veal. And she brought it, I kid you not, to a steak dinner, to have the guests sign it. 

I like veal. I like it tender. I like it the same way I like Fois Gras from suffering fowl. I also have a dog that I love very much. I believe in animal rights - I'm just not sure when it comes to the ones I eat. 

I didn't make an issue about not signing it, by the way, I just politely passed it back without my name on it. Where I come from, you don't bring petitions to dinner. And you don't get mad at people for not signing them. I believe that's what led to fascism.

But really, a veal petition at a steakhouse?

Cattle

I deny that I ever said actors were cattle. What I said was 'Actors should be treated like cattle.'

-Alfred Hitchcock

I thought of that quote the other day while entering a casting office. In front of the building there was a sign. 

CASTING:2nd Floor. Actors, please do not disturb other tenants in the building.

Now, how would I disturb them exactly? Would I run from office to office, poking my head in and saying "Boo"? Would I just meander the halls, mooing like a cow might. Or was my very actorly presence disturbing in and of itself.

Hitchcock's line might seem offensive, but in fact, he makes a great point. It's not that we act like bovine creatures, it's that we're treated like them. Treat an actor like a cow long enough... he might just turn into one.

A few other ways actors are treated like ripening rib eye...

NO ACTOR PARKING. A familiar sign at all casting offices. OK, I understand. But somehow, a "Client Parking Only" sign, or "Parking for Employees Only" sign doesn't work. These NO ACTOR PARKING signs feel a bit like the WHITES ONLY water fountains of the 50's.

At auditions, we're often told to sit in the order we're supposed to go into the room. Like we don't have brains and memories. "You're first, you're second." Like it's really difficult to call someone's name.

Cattle calls. I don't think I need to explain this one.

Listen to This

One of the better things about LA is public radio station KCRW, and one of the best things about KCRW is Rob Long's Martini Shot, two minute interstitial bit of industry observation. Rob Long is a television writer (he wrote on Cheers, and also wrote a funny book about the business called Conversations with my Agent), and he calls it exactly as he sees it in his commentary. From this week's assessment of the end of the writer's strike as analogous to that moment in a slasher movie when the "dead" villain rises in the background just when everyone feels safe...

"And rushed and frantic as it is, it's never so rushed or so frantic or so hurried that every single executive still on the payroll (and surprise! Even after four months, they're all still on the payroll!) doesn't build a little time into the process to deliver a set of script notes. We're in a time crunch, sure. But I'm making it better."

Anyway, check out Martini Shot past episode podcasts here. Among my favorites, Good Agentry, Continue Trading, and the one to which I personally connect most, Check Email. And support your local public radio station.

They Call it Acting

One of the things that has happened in the two years that I've been in Los Angeles is that I've made more money "acting" than I ever have before. And in that time, I've done less "acting" then ever before, leading me to wonder just what "acting" is.

When I became serious about this career, I had the unshakeable belief that to act was to explore and share the human condition with an audience in an authentic and novel way. I was a behavioral scientist, presenting my findings of character and crisis to a live crowd. I could effect people. This, I felt, was important work. I was not simply an entertainer. I was part of a movement, I was trying to change the world. I was connecting to people, and as a beloved acting teacher once told me as if it was scripture, "only connect."

My last job was a Wendy's ad. I didn't change anything. I did get a lot of text messages from friends I hadn't heard from in awhile when it aired. I guess that's connecting.

Last year, I played an Internal Affairs Detective, a Honda Salesman, a guy at a dinner party, a security guard,  bartender, a rapid sports fan, and an office worker. Rarely did I explore the human condition, and if I did, I was hawking some product or other. I don't really feel like I've done any acting - which involves things like collaboration, creativity, challenges, discovery, personalization. Instead, I've been filling in a small gap in other people's creative vision, I've been fitting the bill. I match what someone sees in their mind, hopefully add to it, and they hire me.

This is not what I set out to do as an actor, and I'm not actually presenting any findings of fact here. I guess I just wonder what one calls this thing I do. Cuz I don't think it's called acting.