The Unwitting Actor

My career in acting hasn't been totally intentional, it started out small. I reluctantly did the traditional school plays and student concerts. Later in high school when VHS camcorders became popular my friends and I would film cheesy rock videos of us lip syncing to our favorite songs, and the occasional skit or asinine daring stunt.

On day a local religious television station had an open call for guest video jockeys on their Christian pop/rock video show.

So being a bored teenager with nothing better to do I submitted for a guest video host spot not thinking anything more about it. A couple weeks later I received the call to schedule filming for my episode. This was a pretty low tech, small non profit station ran by volunteers, why was I so nervous, I stammered and stuttered all through my monologues between videos and so on. It was a learning experience though I got to see the basics of filming and editing.

Years went by as I pursued my first love of performing heavy metal and punk rock music in touring and studio recording bands. In retrospect every concert we put on was a form of acting. My role was the singer or guitar player and our fans expected a certain persona from us most of the time.

I worked odd jobs through the years to off set the starving musician income. Then while managing fried chicken restaurant a camera man and producer came to film a commercial for the restaurant. So on the fly the producer pulled me and other employees into bit roles for the commercial.

Again this happened at another job where I was a barista in a coffee shop and the owner hired the local CBS affiliate to film a commercial for the shop. The producer pulls me into a role as a waiter delivering sandwiches.

These where pretty small time acting gigs but living in the Midwest everybody who knew me thought it was a big deal.

Years later I was taking a couple months off from working a job, and doing music. I was searching through online employment listing to find my next gig and by curiosity I looked at the Casting calls and saw a producer looking for a 30 something male. So I figured hey why not, so I sent in my head shot. The next morning I received a call from the director to schedule a shoot time. This role was for an auto body repair shop and I was the man who wrecks his car.

Once again a small role on a local CBS affiliate station, but the role still gave me some local notoriety for the couple of years it ran daily on this local station.

All in all id say for a guy who never really intended on being an actor, acting gigs keep falling into my lap. I still occasionally glance over the Casting Calls and auditions ads. I often think about pursuing acting further, but still can't tear myself away from my first loves of music and writing. So only time will tell I guess.

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