But am I happy? I wondered. This time the reply was swift and cut me to the bone.
Not really.
I didn’t have to ask why: It had been 10 years since my last job as an actor. Acting was what I had planned to do with my life from the time I was a little kid, and Dad had used his old industry connections to get us on the set of Look Who’s Talking, Too. Real estate was enjoyable, and had proven to be lucrative, but it was the profession that was supposed to support my Hollywood dream, not smother it with a pillow. How had a whole decade whipped by? That’s it, I told myself. I made a decision, and dropped the bombshell on Jonathan:
“January first, I’m out.”*
*Was it something I said? Were you tired of me leaving my dishes in the sink?
I was going to pack up, move back to Vancouver, and give myself a year to pursue acting with the same energy and determination it takes to build a brand in any business. One last chance so I would at least have the satisfaction of knowing I tried my damnedest. I thought back to the advice Dad always gave us growing up, whenever anyone said we couldn’t do something because we were too young, or inexperienced, or, most-maddening of all, because “It just doesn’t work that way.”
“Go out and find five ways to do it, then,” Dad would urge us.
It was like that old adage said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”*—except Dad’s update made you “try, try, try, try, try” again—and he didn’t mean the same way each time, either.
*I usually just get it right the first time. What can I say, I’m that good.
I’m the spreadsheet king, so once I hit Vancouver and had settled into Pedro’s guest room, I started researching acting classes to sign up for, casting agents and network types to meet, events to attend or volunteer for—anything I could think of to get myself on the radar. I would even host casual get-togethers or dinners and invite directors, producers, and anybody else who got caught in my networking net. I knew the odds were stacked against me—and every other aspiring actor waiting tables or parking cars between cattle-call auditions—but I was going to treat the biggest gamble of my life like a poker tournament, not a spin of the roulette wheel. Save my emotion for the characters I hoped to play, and use my brain to stay in the game and get the chance. I was psyched to put my plan in motion.
It wasn’t just acting that excited me: It was the entertainment industry as a whole. I wanted to get my hands in everything—writing, directing, producing, filmmaking, live shows. The math nerd side of me was curious to learn how the financing was put together for multi-million dollar features as well as artsy indie passion projects. The dreamer in me was already getting dressed for the premiere of a film written, directed, produced and starring . . . me.*
*I can see it in flashing neon lights now: Drew Scott IS “Delusional”!
Getting an agent was my first priority. I knew that was going to take some salesmanship since I hadn’t worked in so long and didn’t have a resume full of major roles to begin with. I pitched myself to a friend’s agent, who saw enough drive and talent to sign me but ended up semi-retiring a few months later and moving to an island off the coast of Vancouver. She said she could still represent me, but she was no longer in the heart of the action, and unless there was a major studio or two nobody knew about on her tiny island, I didn’t see how that was going to work. On to Agent #2.
Agent #2 had just left a big agency to strike out on his own. He was trying to grow his roster of clients. He talked a good game, and I decided to give him a shot. What I didn’t give him was the loan he promptly hit me up for to bail him out of financial trouble.
Fortunately, the third time was a charm, and my next agent not only was more reputable—and solvent—but came with a lot of bigger clients as well, which meant closer ties to top casting directors (which, in the trickle-down theory of actornomics, meant more potential auditions for me).
I wasn’t kicking back and waiting for the scripts to arrive, though. And I wasn’t holding out for a decent paycheck, either. Experience and exposure were what I needed most to establish my brand. Not that I would give Spielberg the brush-off if he wanted to discover me in the free-weights section at the gym. I had of course created a spreadsheet for my last-chance year in Vancouver, and networking was a top priority. Every day, I tried to take someone in the industry out to lunch to talk shop, gather intelligence, and make myself known. Mainly they were producers, directors, and working actors who were well connected in Hollywood North. I also registered for the actors’ workshops that casting directors occasionally held. I was always willing to help people with small film projects because I hoped that someday I’d be the one asking for the same favor. Meanwhile, no-budget indie films were a good way to try and work my craft. I was hungry to immerse myself in a character, find out what made him tick, and explore his emotions. Maybe that sounds cliché, but when you love acting, becoming a character is like blending the paints on your palette in a way that renders the best color and texture on your canvas. That was my mindset when I was approached about one independent film project I’ll never forget, try as I might. . . .
It sounded very cool and artistic. Visually, it was meant to be a stunning, quasi-Romeo and Juliet-style film. My only hesitation was that the character I was offered had a nude scene. I spoke with the director to ensure the film was going to be shot in a way that didn’t seem amateurish or B-rated. Satisfied with the director’s artistic vision, I agreed to take the part.
Oh, forgot to mention: It was a zombie film.
When you’re a lovesick naked zombie, your craftwork is probably not the first thing the audience is going to notice. Especially not in this particular film, which in the end was as awful as they come. There wasn’t anything artsy or creative about it. The storyline was lame.* The cinematography was on a par with proud parents shooting their kid’s recital with a video camera that requires them to hiss, “Is it on?” back and forth for an hour.** My bare ass made its screen debut right in the middle of this terrible film. And no, I won’t say the name of it. Ha!
*You were expecting Citizen Kane?
*Seriously? You wanted a sharper picture?
Back in high school, when Jonathan and I were first putting together our acting resumes and portfolios, we drew up a list of all the special talents we thought would win casting directors right over in case our experience in school musicals and goofy home videos didn’t do the trick. For starters, we were excellent at karate. And we had basically acted out all of Jean-Claude van Damme’s movies and moves whenever and wherever we could, just in case anyone was considering a sequel to Double Impact.*
*Knowing how competitive you are, I always thought Bloodsport 2 would be more up your alley.
Which brought us to another of the “skills” we listed: Twins. Not to boast, but that was something we had mastered over the years, and even though we were never mirror-image mimes, we were both veteran clowns. Jonathan listed his magic, and I threw in pretty much every sport that existed, including a few I’m sure even Webster was making up. Who knew Extreme Zorbing was a thing . . . but MAN, was I good at it ;-). There was singing, dancing, improv and, last but not least, we were excellent horseback riders. We were adolescent Renaissance men, box-office hits waiting to happen.
“Look at all we do! Who wouldn’t hire us?” Jonathan concluded. A comedy featuring twin clown ninjas on horseback would be perfect, obviously, but we were open to anything.
Any delusions that the identical twin advantage would separate us from the crowd evaporated as soon as we walked into an audition and discovered four or five other matching pairs waiting to try out, too.* It happened a lot. On my own in Vancouver, I still listed “twin” among the dozen or so other Special Skills on my resume, which also mentioned rock climbing, cartoon voices, and college-level basketball. I was actually an avid athlete, and in the event I hadn’t done whatever sport a director was looking for
, I was pretty confident I could quickly learn enough to appear credible on-screen. I had second thoughts about that the time I landed a Coors Light commercial being shot over four days in Whistler, a world-renowned ski resort in British Columbia.
*Guaranteed they couldn’t ride a horse while singing Happy Trails in a German accent and juggling four tennis balls.
I was supposed to play a snowboarder, and there were three or four guys cast who were expert skiers. I admitted in the audition that I wasn’t an expert, but I may have said I love snowboarding for fun. In reality, I had only gone once with Jonathan, and let’s just say I posed no future threat to Shaun White. Everything was fine until they wanted to take us all up to film on a triple black diamond mountain, the toughest hill for expert skiers. I’m a thrill-seeker, but I’m not stupid about it: I knew I couldn’t handle that, and I didn’t want to kill myself. “He was pretending he could snowboard” was not how I wanted to be remembered. They shot footage to make it look like I was actually up on that hill with another guy wearing my outfit, but in reality, they only shot me down on the bunny hill. All of my shots were completed the first day, so I got to hang out at the chalet in the hot tub with the Silver Bullet girls for the next three. No regrets there.
Much as I longed to be in front of the cameras, I had to stay on point with the purpose of my year away from real estate, which was to know at the end of those twelve months that I had done everything I possibly could to realize my dream. This was about setting myself up for success by building the best foundation possible.
Luckily, I knew when to take emotion out of the equation. If I wasn’t landing a part, I didn’t take it as rejection or failure and sit around licking my wounds. I continued taking classes and networking to improve my chances next time. I took private voice lessons and studied American dialect, as well. It was interesting to discover some of the subtle nuances that separate Canadian and American language. For example, I learned that Americans speak in clusters of words, whereas Canadians sort of ramble on in longer run-on sentences without taking a breath. There were also trick words like “about” and “house,” which Canadians draw out to sound more like “aboot” and “hoose.” The training was long and arduous but surprisingly helpful. As were the workshops on how to audition like a pro in the first place. A course in scene study at a top school called The Actor’s Foundry made us drill so deep to explore emotion, it was like group therapy.
It was like strength training minus the pulled hamstrings. I found that the same coaching and visualization techniques I’d used back when I worked as a personal trainer were as effective creatively as they were physically. I also tapped into the wisdom of one of my personal heroes, Tony Robbins. I’d discovered his amazing motivational books while still in high school, and his message of positivity and creating your own destiny resonated with me even as a teen. I admired how Robbins had overcome a childhood scarred by abuse and abandonment, then went from janitor with no college education to “peak-performance life coach” with millions of followers and a fortune to match. I devoured every one of his bestsellers and bought all his VHS cassettes, then the DVDs.
I became a big believer in what Robbins calls incantations, which are like pep talks you give yourself, cranking affirmation up to full power. You don’t just send yourself a quick mental valentine: You speak the words out loud, with body language and facial expressions that match the message and show your passion. In others words, you act out the part. Win-win for me. I rehearsed every day when I passed a certain house on my way to and from Pedro’s place.
The house was an elegant Colonial with big pillars out front. Understated but impressive, I imagined it was home to a wealthy CEO or brilliant heart surgeon. It graced a manicured estate with green velvet lawn on either side of a long driveway that ended in a semicircle in front of the house. I spotted a fountain, too, and felt like I could hear the water splashing even though I was in my car parked on the street outside the arched wrought-iron gate and a 12-foot hedge. I stopped twice a day and delivered my incantation.
“I can have this house someday,” I said. Forcefully, not wistfully. With the windows rolled up; no need to alarm the dog-walkers. “I deserve it. I am driven. I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. I will succeed.” I invoked the same message when I was younger and pulled up alongside BMWs. It wasn’t that I was trying to be a baller—I’m not flashy that way. And I wasn’t planning some horror-movie scheme to drive the unsuspecting imaginary CEO/heart surgeon from the Colonial I coveted. I would get my own, and add a security system to discourage strangers from parking out front every day and weirding me out by having an animated conversation with an invisible passenger.*
*Was lurking and lingering your method for attracting girls, too?
Says the guy who pulled quarters from their ears.
Voilà!
The incantations weren’t to reassure myself that I was capable of achieving my goals, but to remind myself that every waking moment was an opportunity to do something about them. It’s the difference between wanting someone to hold your hand or push you forward.
Keeping up the positive energy was more crucial than ever as my self-imposed deadline loomed. The year was nearly up, and I knew what it felt like when your all just wasn’t enough. I’d been there once before.
I lived for basketball in high school and college, but I was a latecomer to the sport. I played for fun at lunchtime, but I didn’t go out for the team until my senior year. I became a power forward and, at 6-foot-4, was considered respectably tall for a high school player. I tried to make up for the three years’ experience I lacked over my teammates by showing up first for practice and leaving last. I was obsessed with basketball, and I was focused. I ended up MVP, though I still didn’t have the seasoning most college-bound players did. When I graduated, I applied my athletic scholarship to U Calgary, intending to play my heart out for the team there and pursue a pro career. I knew I had the drive to realize my potential.
What I didn’t have, as fate would have it, was the body.
The string of devastating injuries began with a horrible accident in early winter on a straight stretch of a two-lane highway in Calgary. Dad was driving, and I was riding shotgun. Mom was in the backseat. We were going about 50 mph when a teen driver up ahead hit a patch of ice while making a left turn onto the highway, and we crashed head-on. I looked over at Dad and saw that he was fine, then turned back to check Mom. All I could see was blood everywhere. I got out and wrenched her door open. Her face was split open, and I could see the bone beneath her nose, but she was conscious and coherent.
“I can’t see anything at all,” she said.
I went in the ambulance with her. Even with two black eyes and her face ripped open, she was cracking jokes to reassure me and, no doubt, not be a burden on the paramedics. They stitched her up at the hospital, and the next day, she went back to work even though she was so swollen and bruised, it looked like she’d been in a street fight and lost badly. “I’ll just close my office door,” she said. Doctors warned that there was a chance she could go blind because of the tiny bone fractures behind her eye socket; I can’t help but think her positive attitude had something to do with her full recovery. I came out of the wreck with a knee injury, whiplash, and bunch of other bumps and bruises.
When I tried out for basketball at U Calgary, I didn’t make the cut. Power forwards at the university level had a good four inches on me—and those were the smaller guys. The bigger ones went up to 6-foot-10. It just meant I was going to have to push myself harder. I decided to work overtime in the gym with weights and conditioning. I also invested in jump soles, highly unfashionable platform shoes from the 80s designed with the goal of improving your vertical leap . . . and preventing you from winning any runway competitions. After my first year at U Calgary, I moved back to Vancouver to play off-season with the University College of the Fraser Valley team for a while and just try to work thr
ough the pain.
My knee kept getting worse and worse, though, to the point where I couldn’t straighten it. Some days, it would jut out at a 90-degree angle. I thought I was helping it by stretching, but it turned out that all I was doing was tearing the meniscus even more. I was limping around and felt so old, I half-expected to wake up some morning and find tufts of hair sprouting from my ears.*
* Which you would immediately mousse, no doubt.
I couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. The knee was only going to get worse without surgery, but the top sports surgeon had a waiting list of six months. Fortunately my coach at UCFV pulled some strings and got me on the surgeon’s schedule within a week.
On the morning of the operation, when the doctor said they were ready to put me under, I bolted up.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m going to stay awake.” I wanted to make sure the surgeon didn’t take too much cartilage and leave me worse off down the line, which is what had happened to JD when he underwent the same procedure with a different doctor a couple of years earlier.
They gave me an epidural. The inside of my knee would show up on a monitor as the surgeon scraped away at the damaged meniscus like barnacles on a tiny shipwreck.
“No, no, I need the angle more toward me,” I instructed as he began. “Sorry, but I need to see what you’re doing. I have to make sure you’re not taking more than you absolutely need to.”
“Is this alright?” he’d ask as he zeroed in on another white mass. He had to find it annoying to be stage-managed by a college kid who thought a few kinesiology credits made him Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H, but he was gracious enough not to show it. In hindsight, that was the first documentary I directed and starred in. I should have put Drew’s Knee on my resume. Maybe add “Assistant Surgeon” under Special Skills while I was at it. Anyway, both the doctor and I came through the surgery in good shape.
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