Sitting My Way Through Life
Page 6
I was booked for a Lexus commercial because of my laugh, which is very infectious. We were doing the thing with everyone there, and they kept taping me and taping me. And this one guy comes up to me afterwards and says “God, I wish I had met up with you five years ago when my aunt was still alive. She used to cast people for various things and you would have been perfect.” And it was like, “Oh, thanks for meeting me five years too late!” Damn it. Opportunities just shoot right on by.
I’ve tried to get into voice work, like in commercials and voice overs and cartoons and video games. Someone once told me there is a burr to my voice which is very warm and
comforting. But I just can’t get work in it. It’s a very closed incestuous little group here. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of actors and just a couple of thousand voice artists. And they always refer each other... ”Oh, I’ve worked with this guy. Let’s use him again.” Then you get all these celebrities saying “Oh, I want to do the voice for this.” Gaahh... You’ve got 20 million in the bank! I need this! Most of the people I have met and worked with in various projects are some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. But I have met a couple that most certainly didn’t match the persona they were known for by the viewers. I met this one woman at a casting party. I went up to her and said hi. She said hi back, but her nose was all up in the air. It was like, “God, lady, I’m not trying to pick you up. First of all, you’re not my type and second, you don’t look so great in this light.” Seriously, she is a rarity. Yes, living and working as an actor in Hollywood is very challenging to say the least. So here is a list of how to get through the madness.
1. As stated earlier, have good support from family and friends. 2. Laugh
3. Be prepared to attend lots of auditions.
4. Laugh
5. Learn the tricks of the trade.
6. Laugh
7. Learn your craft.
8. Laugh
9. Be prepared to fall on your face, have your clothes fall apart at the wrong time in front of a huge audience, have smoke blown in your face, be told you are too short, too tall, too thin or too fat, have comb overs done on your balding head because it looks funny.
10. Laugh
Oh! One more thing. Be prepared to sit on some people. Then laugh.
About the contributors
Palmer Scott is an actor who has appeared in movies, television shows, commercials and countless theater productions. He and his spouse, Whitney Barker, a graphics art designer, currently live in Hollywood, California with their much beloved cats.
Kimberly Thompson is an aspiring writer. She and her son, Robert Seale, a book critic, game critic, author and editor, currently live in Pennsylvania.
DrFoxmeat is a writer, comedian, musician and artist. He currently lives in the heart of the Redwood forrest in Humboldt County, Georgia.
A Final Note From Kimberly and Robert
For the past few months, Palmer has kept us in stitches as he told us his various stories for this book. He is very animated when he talks, and once he gets started, he keeps you in stitches. If his stories don’t hit your funny bone, his contagious laughter will. As I was transcribing all the audios we’ve done over the last few weeks, I have found myself stopping to laugh once again as I would picture his face and movements in my mind. Palmer is not the type of actor you’ll read about in the tabloids at your local supermarket. He is sweet, kind, gentle and absolutely wonderful. He’s also been more than patient as we struggled through with this book, missing deadlines, asking him to repeat stories, missing interview times as we had to recover from various ailments. Always, always it was, “Don’t worry about it. Just get some rest and get better.” Always in that soothing voice he has. If he wasn’t an actor, I think he would have made one hell of a nurse or doctor simply based on his bedside manner. This book doesn’t and can’t quite give full justice to his stories. For that, you would have to have a filmed documentary, because many of his funniest moments were peppered with a look on his face or a movement of his body and even the tones of his voice that the written word can never capture. There was a lot of work involved with this book as we rushed through trying to get it out in time and we do mean a lot of work. However, when you spend almost all of your working time laughing your ass off, can you really call it work then? Probably not. Regardless of what you call it, all we know is that we have never had so much fun writing anything before. We were truly blessed in being able to write this book with Palmer as both co-authors and as friends._
Xena (Warior Kitty) my Personal
Favorite, (She’s my Princess)