Dr. Benway

I have no idea why the site was down for a little bit this morning…but Loren fixed it, and we’re back in business, as they say.
There is a really funny contest going on at Worth1000.com featuring an image of yours truly. You should take a look. It made me laugh out loud.
Some people have emailed me, asking about the earthquakes we had here last night. I didn’t feel them, at all, which is weird. In our old house, if a truck drove by a half-mile away, it shook the whole thing, but in our current house, we never feel anything. I was watching the news at 10 last night, and they were talking about this 4.2 or something that had just happened, and the newscaster says, “Woah! We’re having an aftershock!” so I waited to feel it, and I never did. I’m not too upset, though, because there are much worse things than living in a house where you don’t feel earthquakes. Trust me.
Today, at work, we turn in our pilot for my show. I am so excited! We’ve worked really, really hard on it, and we’ve created something that I am extremely proud of. I’ll post details, as soon as I get the “OK” from the Big Bosses(tm).
One last thing before I leave for work: Today is the last day that you can vote in the 2002 Bloggies, and WWDN is a finalist in a few categories. If you have some time today, you should check out the finalists, and cast your votes. I guess the results will be posted late tonight. Wouldn’t it be cool if we won something?
I’ve spent all my spare time in the last three days reading up on CSS (and getting some very valuable help from my friend Roughy), and I’m getting a very good understanding of the whole beast. Thank you to everyone who sent in suggestions for books and websites. I realize now that I’m going to have to re-write the entire site, which will be a bear, but really worth it in the long run. I sense great things in the future…stay tuned!

Hazy shade of Winter

One of the things I love about my new job is that I can sit at my desk, and look out across Century City, and see the Hollywood sign and Griffith observatory. Then I can get up, walk for 15 feet, and look out across Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean…on a beautiful day like today, when we have lots of little fluffy clouds (to borrow a phrase from The Orb, who borrowed it from Rickie Lee Jones, from a conversation she was having with LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow), it looks magical, like an animated movie. On days like today, I am insanely envious of my friends who live in Northern California, who get to have days like this all the time.
Now that the sun is low in the sky, and just about to sink into the ocean, the sky has darkened, and the clouds have lost that friendly look, in favor of a sinister, brooding, stormy look. In the time it has taken me to write this paragraph, the sun has lit of the reflective sides of the buildings in Century City, and there are these beautiful pillars of fire and ice reaching into the indigo January sky.
It would seem that Winter has at last decided to come to Southern California. It’s about time!

Wil and FARK, sitting in a tree…

It has just come to my attention that I haven’t given up the love for FARK recently.
I really need to take a second out of my day, stop cleaning the house, and give up the farkin’ love for FARK!
FARK voted for me to be entertainer of the year, before lowtax and I were squeezed out by The Man!
FARK provides the world with boobies, weeners, and beer!
FARK may even have a Los Angeles FARKFest this year!
Fb- is the father, France surrenders, and Wil Wheaton sucks. Long live FARK!

Chile and Lime Chips

This week has been the busiest week I’ve had in months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, at all. I like to be extremely busy. Matter of fact, I go absolutely nuts when I don’t have anything to do…so nuts that I make work for myself…like WWDN, for example. 🙂
I had 2 really big auditions this week, and I major deadline at work. I talked with my boss, and she said that I still can’t talk about G4 at all…but I can say that I’m doing some really cool work there, that I’m already very proud of, and I can’t wait until you all can see it.
Many people have this complete misconception about actors. They think that actors just have their agents call someone up, and then that actor is magically placed into a role, or into a movie. The way things really do happen is quite different. It sort of breaks down like this: After a role is created, the writer, and producer usually sit down, and talk about “types”, like “we want a Paul Rubens type” or “we need a brooding, mysterious, handsome man for this role”. They then think of all their friends and relations who don’t come close to any of these “types”, and try to make that square peg fit a round hole. Then they hire a casting director, and the casting director goes through his or her list of actors who he or she likes to work with, and the casting director brings those people in for auditions.
Sometimes, managers and agents hear about roles, and they submit their clients to the casting director, but, more often then not, the casting director doesn’t want to hear from an agent or manager, because the casting director would like to work with the people they already know.
This trend can benefit actors, because there are lots of casting directors who have good relationships with agents, and they’ll call those agents up, asking for a type to fill a role, and the agent can then tell the CD that he has a client who fits the type, etcetera, etcetera. This works out great for relatively unknown actors, but if you’re sort of known, like I am, it can hurt me.
There’s also this thing about not being wrong. The entire entertainment industry is extremely insecure, because everyone knows that they’re playing to a very fickle public, who can be in love with someone one week, and hate them the next (see “Mariah Carey”). So casting people get it in their minds that they “know” a person, and they don’t like to be wrong about that. They’re not adverse to “discovering” someone, but they are (sadly, understandably) reluctant to take a chance on someone, because, more often than not, the casting person gets burned.
So this process goes on for a few weeks, and, ultimately, it’s weeded down to me and one other guy, and they hire Jimmy Kimmel’s cousin.
Kidding.
Here’s why I tell you all of this: I recently added management to my team. I was really reluctant to do this, because I’ve had managers before, and they’ve never really managed to make any major difference in my career, as far as getting auditions or work goes. Basically, I haven’t been able to find a manager who works as hard as I do for me, and who cares about my career as much as I do.
Until now, that is.
One brief thing about managers, that you have to know, so this makes sense: Managers really should be an extra set of hands for an actor. They should be able to make calls when the agent isn’t able to get to somone, or is being told “no” by a casting person.
I think I’m a pretty good actor, and I know that I’m very dedicated to my craft. But that’s really not enough these days. For example, it really helps to be related to Jimmy Kimmel, or have a nice rack. As I’ve said before, many months ago, there has been this misconception within Hollywood that I was still 14, or still on Star Trek, or whatever. Casting people knew me as a strong dramatic actor, but not as a comedic one. They knew me as a child, but not as an adult. Basically, they knew me as Wesley or Gordie, and that was it.
This is where a good manager comes in.
My agents, who are simply amazing, awesome, hard-working bad asses, have struggled mightily the last year or so to convince casting people that I wasn’t that kid anymore, and to just give me a chance to change their mind, and the casting people were always saying “no”. Until two weeks ago, that was the end of it…but this time, things were really different, thanks to my new additions to my team.
My agent submitted me for a role in a very big MOW, that will end up being what they call “an event”. That’s just slightly bigger than “a very special” episode, I’m told. The casting director calls back, gives my agent a few reasons why she won’t see me, and that’s that. But this time, my agent calls my manger, explains the situation, and my manager gets on the phone to the casting director, does his thing, and I have an audition three days later, because the casting director decided to trust my manager and take a chance on me.
I have a final producers and network call back on Thursday for this role. I think there’s 3, maybe 4 of us left, out of the entire entertainment industry, within our type, going on this call back. How cool is that?! I went from “no way” to producers and network call back. I’ve been doing the happy dance all week.
Then, this morning, I got a call from one of my managers (there’s 3 of them, and they all work together. I’m sure this is terribly interesting to everyone. But it’s my damn website, so get off my back.). She had called a very important casting director at a major studio, and talked him into seeing me. He had told my agent that I was a great dramatic actor, but that he didn’t know about me for comedy. So my manager talks to him, gets him to give me a chance to change his mind, and he relents. I go into the audition, and I did a really good job with the material. As a bonus, I really liked the guy, and he really liked me (we know some of the same comedy people, it turns out). My manger was calling me after she’d gotten off the phone with him, where he raved about me, about how funny and nice I was, and told her that he was bringing me back to producers for his show.
I think it’s just awesome that these casting directors gave me the chance to show them what I can do, and I’m so thrilled that I brought my “A” game, and didn’t let them down.
I’m really excited about all of this…I think my years of suffering as the constant runner-up are going to come to an end, and pay off, finally.
Besides, Kimmel can only have so many cousins, right? 🙂