Getting The Most Out Of Your Acting Performance As A Movie Extra

Dan Rodandan, teaching actors how to act. Hey everybody, that was me, Dan Rodandan. Dan Rodandan podcast. Dan Rodandan, acting coach, teaching actors how to act.

That's the name that I finally settled on. I decided that that would be the name to go with. I had a few other names rolling around in my head. Dan Rodandan, acting guru, teaching actors how to meditate through life on stage as art. Seemed a bit long, so I went ahead and shortened that down, sort of truncated it. Went with acting coach Dan Rodandan, teaching actors how to act, because you can remember all those words. Those are all great words in a row. And I think it's important that the people who listen to this learn how to memorize things, because sort of step one. After you, of course, book the role that you were hoping to get, step one is really the audition. Before that, it's making that hard choice that I'm going to live the life of an actor and not of an audience member.

Which we all are at the same time an audience member, even in our own lives. We watch ourselves do sort of unspeakable things from time to time. Sort of our own audience watching your hands do things that you would never, especially as a child, would have expected to be a part of your future. And sometimes your mouth will do things that you don't want to look at.

But we have a great show coming up here for you today. Here we are again in the beautiful Hawaiian Gardens area. And I could not secure a guest today. I tried. I asked everybody I knew, and some strangers, if they were interested in acting, if they'd like to come in, and if we could maybe read part of Prometheus together, or Cloud Atlas. Maybe even the novel, not even the screenplay, just something to get the juices flowing.

So I got a few juices flowing on my own. I just had a large Indian food meal that I fished out of a trash can. I watched the couple that was eating it. She was just picking at it. She did not even really take a bite. It was still inside the doggy bag, so it's clean. It is free Indian food. And I finished it off.

Well, since I could not secure any guests, and I promise you I tried, I went ahead and I threw my phone number up on Craigslist to see if we could get some people to sort of ask me questions about acting, about performance, about the theater, about art, about painting, I don't know, about anything. Just so that I could take my iPod Touch and record my wisdom, sort of blast that out over the pod waves, which is a term I coined, pod waves. So we're going to go ahead and listen to the first call. I have not pre-screened these. These are on my analog answering machine. And let's press hello.

That's my downstairs neighbor. That is not an acting question. However, that is a question that I feel deserves an answer. Yes, he is below me. And yes, there are things seeping. That's fine. That's fair to say that things would seep through the floors in my restroom, or la toilette, as the French would say, who are European, and have their own particular style of acting.

But the thing that I believe is seeping through is that I got very nervous, you know, when they were talking about Hurricane Sandy on the news. And I know that I do not live in the Northeast, but it's always a good idea to fill up a bathtub just in case. So I filled up the bathtub, and then I sort of forgot about it. Sort of forgot about it. And I had some fruit in the bathtub, some grapefruits that I had gotten from a neighbor, or from the ground outside my apartment building. And I had left them in there. They had been soaking. And, I mean, I'm not going to say that my apartment doesn't have bugs. It would be honest to say that my apartment does have bugs. Which is something that the landlord needs to deal with, not me. I'm not going to go to the hardware store and spend my hard-earned money on Raid to deal with this issue. No, that is something that a landlord, not a slumlord, which, I mean, let's call a spade a spade. And I'm talking about shovels here. We know what I'm talking about.

Either way, things are seeping through the walls, through the floors. And it's not just limited to the bathroom. It's happening in the kitchen. It's happening in the bedroom. Well, they're the same room, the kitchen and the bedroom. But either way, things are seeping. And for you to call me about it instead of our slumlord is, I think, irresponsible on your part. And I feel like I've addressed all those issues. Let's move on to the next call. Hopefully, it has something to do with acting.

Okay, working as an extra. That is a very important part of acting. Something that many people are afraid to do because they think, oh, I'll just be a part of the background. Nobody will notice me. Will they even get back to me about this? Can I get paid? Will it go on my reel? What other questions do I have? You know, these are questions that people ask.

And the greatest way to get noticed that I have found is really do something strange with your hair. Do something strange with your facial hair. Sometimes when the primary actors are acting in a scene, I just mouth the words that they're saying at the same time that they're saying them. And then people might think, oh, who's saying it? Is it that background actor? Is he the focus? Or is it the lead actor that I'm used to seeing throughout the whole rest of the scene? Because both of their mouths are moving the exact same way. I'm confused. I'm watching him. I'm watching this. And at the end of the day, you leave home and you say, that guy gave a great performance. I don't know his name. I don't know where he came from. But gosh darn it, I want to see him again. And that's how you create a buzz. You know, so you generate a buzz. Hollywood is sort of a large beehive, if you will. There are stingers and there's honey. And these are not metaphors. This is literal. These are things that exist in the Hawaiian Gardens area. There are, we talked about insects before.

But to get noticed, another thing you can do, wear a button. Wear a big shiny button on your shirt. You bring it from home. You don't tell the costume people. And then you tell your friends, oh yeah, I'm in that movie. I'm in Argo. I'm the guy with the button. Did you see Argo? You probably saw me. I had the button on. It said, Ben Affleck. Hooray.

Okay. Well, I feel like that's good enough advice for the young actors out there. If you're an older actor, I would say a nice, thick mustache. Nothing says attention like a nice, thick mustache. And if you can, grease it up. A little shoe polish, maybe. Candle wax. Find a way to really accentuate the mustache. I don't want to say glitter, but maybe glitter. Maybe body glitter. Maybe confectioner's sugar. There are a lot of ways to highlight a mustache. Okay. Next caller.

Oh, yes. I have worked with animals. As a matter of fact, I had a fairly steady gig, sort of a part-time thing. Well, I was a middle school administrator. Every Sunday morning, I would go to the local television station, and I would help the Humane Society sort of display the animals that are about to be murdered, sort of show them off to the people, see if they could come and pick them up, and I'd say, hey, look at this fucking cat. It's a great cat. Don't let it get murdered. Or, hey, look at this dog. It only bit one kid. He's cool now. They got it worked out. He had a tumor, and they fixed it. Don't let them murder this dog. It was basically that kind of a situation. So I got to see all kinds of different animals. One time, I had a ferret, and I was like, don't murder this ferret. That's all. I mean, it was just a ferret. And I believe 90, 95% of those animals that we displayed on television were destroyed later that day.

But the fact of the matter is, I, unlike you, did not have animal allergies. So in your case, I would, Dr. Rodandan, on my Hippocratic Oath, would say Benadryl, probably, more or less. Are you going to be working with cats, dogs, ponies, parrots? What kind of animals are they? You say you're allergic to all of them. Did you disclose that to the casting director? And is this a part that could be played by a male, sort of a Dan Rodandan type? Or maybe give me a call back as soon as you hear this, time permitting. And we can, I don't know, maybe we can chat face-to-face. You sound pretty. You sound like a pretty gal. And my schedule's pretty open. So I'd be willing to have a coffee with you or a tea or a couple of bumps if you can get them.

All right. Let's see. What's next on the call? Who else is calling? And my answering machine is a flashing zero right now. Flashing zero on the answering machine. Did I run out of tape? No? Still plenty of tape left. Three calls. Three calls. Two calls about acting.

I mean, all I can do is try. You know, I try and I try and I try. And when I fail all those times, I just keep trying. Only thing you can do these days in Obama's America, which is the America we live in. You know? But I'm going to keep plugging along. I'm going to keep visiting Craigslist. I'm going to keep visiting Mandy.com. I'm going to keep making my podcast. I'm going to visit Barnes and Noble, maybe read a little Uta Hagen, catch up on what I need to, go to the public library, update my Facebook and my Twitter and my Tumblr, and try to ignore the homeless people masturbating.

And I don't know. What do you do? You lie back and you think of England, I guess.

Good luck out there, everyone. Dan Rodandan, teaching actors how to act. Please, I beg of you, call in or tweet at me at my Twitter. I can only check it about three times a day.

All right, I'm going to play the music one more time. Getting it ready here. Hold on a second. Just be patient. Dan Rodandan, teaching actors how to act. Let's go to the doctor's office and find out what's wrong. Thank you.