My Blossoming Career: "Flowers" Shoot

Hello loyal readers (All four of you! Hey guys!)!

I've been a little busy lately. As the old adage goes, "when it rains, it pours." Okay, it doesn't rain in LA that much minus El Nino and when it actually does, people somehow forget how to drive (and how to dress. Uggs with shorts? Really?). But metaphorically speaking, I find that saying uncannily true. Why is it that when I have the day off, I'm sitting by the phone (the cell phone, or email inbox, rather) waiting for a call to rush to an audition? On any given day off, you can find me anticipating an audition that will only arise on a day when I'm scheduled to work or actually shoot something else. There I'll be, making only tentative plans (oh sure, Dentist, I can come in for an appointment that day if I don't have an audition) and waiting patiently for a call that doesn't come.

The moment I'm busy, actually living life, I'll check my phone and have numerous missed calls and emails and audition opportunities. That's a lesson, you four readers. The important moral is to never check your phone! Just kidding. Check it. Because when you don't text me back, it's annoying. But seriously, people always want what they can't have. I know this, working in retail. People always want the size we're out of, the color we don't have in their size, regardless of the myriad choices and options they know are readily available. Maybe we should all try to be a little more unavailable, and countless opportunities will come our way.

Or, maybe we should just think about the real statistics of this business (when I say "we," I mean "I" but "we" just sounds so much more inclusive). Math is hard but it's also true. This past weekend, I picked up a very funny (well, kind of sad) pamphlet about the true odds of gambling at a Las Vegas casino (Vegas is a cool place to spend your post-Thanksgiving weekend, on a side note). It discussed how any superstitions are completely futile, and in the end, the statistics are all that matter. The odds are rarely in your favor, to get all Hunger Games about it (and if you don't understand that reference go read the Hunger Games trilogy immediately. You'll thank me later).

The odds are ever more skinny these days with the advent of the internet (see, skinny is not always good!). As actors, our first audition is truly our photo submission online. Casting Directors are bombarded with thumbnail after thumbnail of headshots of hopefuls like yours truly, and only a fraction of those are called in to audition in person. And of course, only one of those people can book the job.

This was the case with a really fun industrial I shot last weekend called "Flowers." The director, Ezra Allen Gould, told me he'd received 3,000 submissions for two roles, one of which I'd booked. It made me grateful that they'd taken a gamble on me, just in time for Thanksgiving at the end of the week. Check out some pictures of me cultivating the garden that is my career on the set of "Flowers":

Thanks for reading!!

Gilli