I went to a free screening of the IFCFilms movie The Edukators on Monday#–a German film about dissolute twentysomethings who take out their frustrations by breaking into rich people’s houses and rearranging their belongings. It was enjoyable, although a little slow in the middle. The film seems to have been shot digitally, so it’s not a pretty film by any means. The strength lies in it’s earnestness and well-drawn characters. The actors are all top-notch, and the score is mostly alt-rock faves, European and American. If you like art-house movies, you’ll probably enjoy this one, but if you’re a multi-plex goer you might find yourself a little bored.

In other news… I’ll be doing Guiding Light again next week, and also One Life to Live. I’m doing background on all the NY based soaps pretty regularly now, so hopefully I’ll move up to speaking roles soon. It’s sometimes easy to forget how much I’ve accomplished by being able to say "I received a paycheck this week as an actor". Most actors can’t say that… so even the small work I’m doing now is something in which I take pride. By joining the Unions I’ve said goodbye to juicy roles for a little while as I work my way up the ladder.

ANECDOTE:

Yesterday, I was scheduled to work on As The World Turns. Most soaps rely on an elaborate system of hotline numbers that the actors call for call times, wardrobe information, and script changes. These hotlines are recordings that cover everyone involved in a given day (or days). When I called the "call time" hotline for ATWT on Tuesday, I wrote down a call time of 12:30pm#–which I thought was odd because the casting director had originally told me 7:30am. "Ah well," I figured, "things change." I went to sleep Tuesday night, planning on a Wednesday morning schedule with my leaving Queens at around 10:30am to arrive at the Brooklyn studio around 12:30pm.

On Wednesday, at around 8:15am, my cell phone rang. My phone usually does not ring before 11am#–most of the people I know enjoy sleeping in, even during the week. I answered the phone to find a rather annoyed stage manager wondering why I wasn’t on set. Cripes! The call was at 7:30am! Somehow, information had been miscommunicated and I was laaaaate. I got my things together in a huge rush, and scurried to the subway. I have no idea how it is possible, but I made it to the ATWT studios at about 10:20am. Not too bad! But, of course, I was almost two hours late. Completely unacceptable! I am usually very early when arriving on set, so I was embarassed and worried#–this was my first day with this soap, and I clearly was not making a good impression.

Luckily, my scenes were not scheduled at the beginning of the day and I had plenty of time to see wardrobe and settle in before I was called to set. I did, however, manage to spill coffee on myself during shooting (the scenes take place in the Java coffee house). Yes, that’s right, I spilt coffee on my pants. And then, after shooting, I realized a piece of paint from the surface of my coffee mug had come off on my face. Yesterday, I was just the most disfunctional actor ever. And now you know my secret pain… ;)

After my scenes today, I assured the SM that my behavior today was more typical of me… and that yesterday I must have just awakened on the wrong side of the bed.