I know it’s not quite the end of the year but so far 2019 has been a year of near misses. I have been on hold for 6 US commercials, 1 commercial in Europe and 1 film in Europe and I have been released from every single project.
It makes it hard to keep going sometimes but I just have to believe that these are not wasted opportunities and casting directors will remember me and continue to call me in as they know my work and were close to casting me.
However, I did get to work on a huge franchise that, of course, I can’t talk about until the project is released, but it almost made up for every other disappointment so far this year. Watch this space.
At the beginning of October, I managed to get away for a few days and drove down to Mexico with my sister, Maria. Virtually everyone I talked to, told us not to go but we had a great time with wonderful food and wine and with everything at a quarter of the price that it would cost in the States. We went to Tijuana and Ensenada. Both hotels we stayed at had pools so I got to swim A LOT and there were wonderful restaurants and local wines to discover along with museums and preparations for the Day of the Dead to visit. It was so good to get away and just relax.
After Mexico, I worked on the short film, Ember, which looks at the strain that is placed on a family after a missing daughter is returned. Most people would probably believe that after having a child go missing, their return would be a welcome relief but it can cause its own set of problems between family members.
The Lost Recursion and Extra Ordinary, projects I worked on earlier in the year, have both been completed and are trying to push on. We made a pilot for, The Lost Recursion, a sci-fi, TV show and production is now trying to find a buyer for the series. And Extra Ordinary is a proof of concept for a feature film and now the production team are looking for investors to move forward and make the full-length version.
As for my book, Surviving Hollywood, I now have an editor and a designer for the cover and layout and I’m hopeful that I will be able to release the book at the beginning of January.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’m very much looking forward to a few days of downtime as the last two weeks have been filled with auditions as everyone tries to get casting sorted before the Thanksgiving break.
My film recommendation of the month is the documentary, Tell Me Who I Am, which is an extraordinary story of two brothers, Alex and Marcus. “Alex trusts his twin, Marcus, to tell him about his past after he loses his memory. But Marcus is hiding a dark family secret.” Available on Netflix.