The Actor Unprepared

The Cupcake is Half-Full

So the last couple of posts have been me bitching about being screwed over from an MFA program about 6 years ago.  And while I’m sure that you’re all riveted hearing about that over and over, I thought it might be time to either share some good news.  

Last month I booked a movie.  It’s an exciting, action filled movie with the word “Operation” in it.  I play a character who has “Enemy” in the title.  Intrigued?  Of course you’re not!  Because you know there’s always an other shoe to drop on these teases and so here it is: I landed a role in the Hallmark movie “Operation: Cupcake,” playing the character “Enemy Baker.”

Takes a little steam out of my badassness, huh?

I have to say, all jokes aside, that this was really a wonderful early Christmas present.  I auditioned for it about 2 weeks before Christmas and didn’t think much about it.  Roles like “Enemy Baker” are usually dayplayer in variety and have about as many lines as words in the character name.  To be honest, I was more focused on the Taco Bell commercial I had just tried out for earlier in the day.  These days, it’s about the money, you feeling me, yo?

So when I got the call that I booked the role, I was expecting one or two days shooting.  My bad, it turns out it was going to be 8 days of shooting.  Two in December, 6 in January.  I was standing in the Best Buy in Sherman Oaks with a 19” LCD TV I was going to by for my video gaming.  After I heard how many days I was working, I put the TV down and bought a 32” TV, then told Sarah to buy all the gifts we were thinking about for the kids.  Merry Christmas, indeed.

But even more exciting than the money (cause that’s what it’s all about, cuz) was the billing.  The casting director had managed to get me opening credits billing for the movie.  That’s something I haven’t had for quite some time, going all the way back to Invisible Man days.  It’s a status symbol both on camera and on set that you’re important enough to NOT be squished into a 1” cube at the end of the show while they plug the next movie about a girl and a Christmas wish about her parents.  Opening or “Top of Show means that you’re an important enough ingredient in the show to be featured at the beginning.  While I try not to ascribe value to the size of the role anymore, this was, as we say in the biz, “nice.”

So not to ruin the plot or anything, but the show is about cupcakes and I do play an enemy baker to the protagonist.  *** SPOILERS *** Beyond that, you’ll have to watch on Father’s Day to see how this all shakes out.

Below is a picture of me and my bakery.  In the script, I’m always referred to as “Enemy Baker.”  On the last two days of filming I got a name, “Ned.”  I feel like that sign might have already been on the studio lot and they reverse engineered the name for me. 

Honestly, I was hoping for another name.  Knowing that Dean Cain once played Superman in The Adventures of Lois and Clark, and I was his enemy, I was really pushing for “General Zod.”  Here’s my storyboard of the plot:

“Son of Jor-el!  Frost before Zod!”