There’s no acting without drama

Becoming a working actor is nothing if not jumping through a series of flaming hoops. It means taking headshots, learning how to deconstruct a script, learning your “type,” convincing an agent you’re worth it all, preparing physically to perform, and preparing mentally to travel to a lot of places and have strangers tell you “no.”

Despite this, Louisiana’s film slate is growing, and more local actors than ever are gunning for roles in feature films. Along the way they are learning the dos and don’ts of the business.

Soon after earning a bachelor’s in theater performance from LSU, Derrick Denicola moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream. He pays rent on an apartment out there, but a steady stream of roles in large-scale films like The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond and smaller pictures like Trance keeps bringing him back to Baton Rouge. He never regrets moving to Hollywood at a young age, but he does count his theater education as the best career decision he ever made.

“I’ve noticed that a lot of people trying to break into the business seemingly wake up and think they’re pretty enough to be an actor or actress,” Denicola says. “But as pretentious as it sounds, acting isn’t easy. It involves really training your mind and body, and being able to communicate through fear and insecurities. It takes incredible honesty and dedication to pull a performance together.”

Though his first passion was for live performance, Denicola has learned that theater doesn’t pay the bills. Modern actors need to balance regional theater work with film, television and commercials.

As an assistant professor of movement and acting, Nick Erickson taught Denicola at LSU. He has seen trends change with developments in the state’s film industry. More of his graduates are presented opportunities to stay in Louisiana, he says, though all don’t pursue them.

While Denicola has benefited from acting in local productions, Erickson goes even further. He recommends actors remain in state for at least a year before moving to a larger market. This is time, Erickson says, that can be used to establish a good relationship with casting directors, build up a resume, and even hang out on sets and study how movie stars prepare themselves and collaborate with veteran directors. Most importantly, Erickson says, young actors need to view their profession as a craft—one that needs to be continually exercised and improved.

“Professional actors are always in acting class because frustration comes when they aren’t focusing on their career in the right way,” Erickson says. “If they are focusing too much on getting the job and the business and forgetting the craft, they’re just going to be like so many of the other rats in the maze in Los Angeles and New York running into dead ends.”

The problem, according to Erickson, is that young actors from Louisiana go to Hollywood, where they audition against Jodie Foster and Kurt Russell types, that is, actors who have been groomed for the industry since childhood. It’s difficult to land the part when the guy next to you has a resume a mile long and is supremely comfortable and confident on set.

Few young actresses from Louisiana have more experience auditioning than Amy Brassette. The 28-year-old was a cast member of Cedric the Entertainer Presents, appeared as multiple characters on Reno 911! and starred in a popular commercial for the Apple iBook. But after seven years in Hollywood, Brassette got out of the business and now works as a photographer and novelist in Austin. When Fox cancelled Cedric and Brassette’s upteenth audition for Mad TV left her frazzled and so close to being cast on her dream show, she says the Hollywood grind had finally dulled her passion for acting. Brassette wanted to take more control of her own life and career.

“That pilot season I felt my soul being crushed,” Brassette says. “I wasn’t inspired anymore. I wasn’t doing live comedy with my sketch characters and an audience. I wasn’t writing and creating. I was running around town, throwing spaghetti at walls, and no one would tell me what stuck and what didn’t. I am a driven go-getter, but everyone has a melting point.”

Brassette doesn’t regret her time in the business and certainly doesn’t regret leaving it behind. But she does wish she knew more going into it at age 20.

“Beyond talent I think it takes only three things to be successful: confidence, stubbornness and stupidity,” says Rosalind Rubin, who has had small roles in major films like Cleaner and 12 Rounds. “Confident that you are right for the job, stubbornness to never quit, and stupidity to keep going back each time you fail. To me all that leads back to persistence.”

Rubin grew up in Baton Rouge, studied theater at Indiana University and has carved out a career with supporting roles in Hollywood productions that shoot in Shreveport. The 24-year-old says Louisiana’s relatively low cost of living makes it easier for her to support her film career in Shreveport than it would be in New York or Los Angeles. She has friends her age who spend so much time making ends meet in larger markets they have little time for acting classes and auditions. She prefers where she is, and to make ends meet she works part-time for an in-state casting company.

“(In Louisiana) you’re under the radar in a very good and cool way,” Rubin says. “It’s important to build your resume, and I can do that here without the stresses of those major cities. But the second someone wants me out there, I’m on a red eye!”