Ten things no one ever sees an actor doing. By John Henry Soto
1. Leaving the house at 4am to meet a van in the city at 5:30am for a 2 hour drive to the set to shoot a 4 minute scene they cut out of the film.
2. Shooting a very low budget film and looking for a Starbucks to change into your wardrobe. Then having to walk out looking like someone else. Some people notice and I know they think I just committed a crime!
3. Running in the heat like a crazy person to make it to an audition on time then you make it and they haven’t started seeing anyone yet and THEN you’re there for an hour.
4. Get off the train with 100% confidence you know where the audition is cause you’ve been there a millions times. Then you realized you walked in the wrong direction and now you’re late so AGAIN, you’re running like a crazy person. This tends to happen when it’s 98 degrees out so you show up looking like someone who’s been smoking crack for 3 days.
5. You open the door to an audition waiting room without realizing the close proximity to everyone in the room and suddenly get some weird stage fright that you’ve never had before or after this moment. Then for some reason writing your name becomes something you really have to focus on and mess up!
6. You walk into an audition room and there is an actor you worked with on a terrible project. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the actor.
7. In the audition room is the loudest actor on Earth who decides they only want to talk to you. But all you’re focusing on is your lines and cursing them in your head.
8. I played a homeless man and a young lady was playing a hooker. The set was 4 blocks away from the make up and holding area. So now I had to walk down busy Manhattan with a hooker and I’m looking like Nick Nolte’s arrest photo.
9. This doesn’t happen to me anymore thank god but when you’re starting out in this biz you have no say on the smoking rules if you don’t smoke. So I once ended up in a small apartment with 5 crew and 5 actors smoking and coating my lungs with a nice layer of carcinogens and chemicals. I left there knowing I lost a few days of my life for that project. Now That’s commitment!!
10. Bagels, cream cheese and coffee for breakfast. Pizza for lunch and some 19 year old girl handing you $7 cash to go get your own dinner somewhere in the middle of an area you’ve never been to.
