Hello friends! It's been a while, but not for lack of crazy background stories. For example, recently, I was playing a random pedestrian outside Central Booking for a popular cable series. We shot the scene and then took a short break. When it was time to go back to the scene, there were three Teamsters standing near my spot. One of them was smoking. They asked if I was with the show and I said yes, I was a background actor. I asked what their roles were and one of the non-smokers said, oh, we're not with the show -- we're taking this guy into booking but letting him have one last cigarette. I must have looked shocked because the perp said, "don't worry - I'm not a murderer." I told them that they might want to move because they were in the shot. They said, OH! The guy put out his cigarette and the two plainclothes cops took him in for booking. The whole time, we were standing under a jailhouse window that was filled with toilet paper. The next day I was meeting family in Chinatown for lunch and walked by the window...it was still filled with toilet paper.

At "We Made This Movie" premiere so I made this blog

I will not blog boring. Stuart wanted me to write: we are sitting here at the Ed Sullivan Theatre waiting for the movie to start. I refuse. They did give us free popcorn and m and ms so totally hyped up to the nines on sugar. Okay - it is now AFTER the movie and the film was a work of demented geniuses. Go see it!

Art Imitates Life

On Saturday, I was at a UN rally celebrating the independence of South Sudan and protesting the continuing genocides in other parts of Sudan (Darfur, Abyei, Nuba and South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions). On Sunday, I was a background actor portraying an aging hippie protestor at a UN rally. Art imitates life.

OK so I finally saw the film, THE DICTATOR, and here I am in it (see the red arrow). Another freeze-frame only moment:

Now that it closed, I can tell this story. The night I saw the Broadway play, ELLING, there's a scene where Kjell Bjarne (Brendan Fraser) comes out in underwear and asks Elling (Denis O'Hare), "How do I look?" Before Elling could reply, a lady in the audience shouted "AWESOME." 5 minutes of laughter ensued before Denis said his line, "Rare." MORE laughter. "As in Uncommon."

Salvation

I was dining at the Cafe Edison in NYC with some producers and playwrights and someone mentioned that there's a 99-seat theatre at the Salvation Army in midtown. Our waiter said he was part of that - and we said Salvation Army? And he said OH - I thought you said South Asian Army. Turns out he was from Bangladesh!

Everybody Ought To Have A Maid

I've been cast at least 3 times in my life as a maid - once in the theatre, once in the movies, and once on TV. Just cleaning all the bases. On one show, they gave me a blue featherduster. They called it "Marge" because of its uncanny likeness to Marge Simpson.



So much for thinking that "the butler did it." I'd actually be a terrible servant - too clumsy. But happy to play one on TV.



For one shoot, I had to really dust the Brooklyn brownstone we were in, owned by a financial executive. It was super dirty. I should have asked for extra "housekeeping" pay, but at least I got free candy, which more than made up for it.

WORKING CLASS AND OLD LACES

I had a really funny blog up here but the people at the production company said the photos violated a confidentiality agreement so I had to take it down. Sorry folks. I guess I won't be giving you an inside look on being an extra any more. I thought they'd be happy for the free advertising, but, alas, St. Gertrude, patron saint of souls in purgatory and living sinners, was not on my side after all. As Jersey Shore's Snooki might say of her 1920's boardwalk predecessors, "Waaah."