The Actor's Vow

I stumbled across this after watching PBS' and Martin Scorsese's documentary about Elia Kazan. Both of these things have inspired me deeply.

Here's The Actor's Vow that Elia Kazan wrote:

I will take my rightful place on stage
and I will be myself.
I am not a cosmic orphan.
I have no reason to be timid.
I will respond as I feel;
awkwardly, vulgarly,
but respond.

I will have my throat open,
I will have my heart open,
I will be vulnerable.
I may have anything or everything
the world has to offer, but the thing
I need most, and want most,
is to be myself.

I will admit rejection, admit pain,
admit frustration, admit even pettiness,
admit shame, admit outrage,
admit anything and everything
that happens to me.

The best and most human parts of
me are those I have inhabited
and hidden from the world.
I will work on it.
I will raise my voice.
I will be heard.


And here is the link to PBS' American Masters : Elia Kazan
http://video.pbs.org/video/1947064818

I have something to say, so I choose to say it silently.

This summer I have been so happy and grateful to the Academy (as in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) for having Silent Movie Mondays. As a lover and creator of silent films it has been so refreshing to see large audiences coming out to see these screenings.

Most of my exposure, up until this summer, has been to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and a little bit of Harold Lloyd. But now I am so happy to add to my list Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks, Ronald Colman, Richard Barthelmess, and a handful of others. This summer's selection has been the Photoplay winners of the 1920s and like most awards winners - few, if any, are comedies. I love watching these dramatic 2 hour long films. I'll admit, after the films are done I feel quite drained. I'm assuming it's due to a few factors. One being that since it is a silent you can't take your focus off the screen for a moment or you'll miss something important, and the other because emotionally you are so connected to these actors and the story. You have to be in order to follow along.

So much is said and not a word heard. I love it. I'm in heaven. In this day in age where so many words are said at a mile and a half pace - and yet rarely is anything said or communicated it is amazing to see what happens when all your efforts to reach out and communicate have to be done in other forms.

For my own silent films I sometimes wonder if I'm leaning more towards cutesy/adorable/funny or if I am really trying to say something. I want to be. As an artist I think it is my duty to say something. Isn't that one of the main points of art? I want my films to say something about this world we live in. The society we let rule us. To cry out of my broken heart to see such a lazy world. And to celebrate those times when love reaches out beyond the safety of self and touches a friend or stranger.

But these are just words. I hope to make them fewer. Let my eyes and ears be bigger. And my films be louder - in heart.

My First Oscars

For those of you who have been asking how my night was:

I remember as a kid always watching the Academy Awards and trying to figure out what year I would realistically get to go. I think I had figured by the 80th year- I made it to the 83rd. Not too bad for calling it when I was in high school. Even last year I had said I would be at the Oscars in a year. I was right but I wish I would have been more specific in my statement. I wasn't expecting to be working at the Oscars. Still, it was a lovely, interesting, and entertaining experience.
I was unsure of my exact duties before I went. All I knew is that my fellow Kodak tour guide co-workers and I were to be helping the ushers. Even when I showed up the day of I still didn't quite know what I was doing. At least I was at the Kodak and knew my way around, this theatre is kind of another home, so I wasn't too nervous.
I got to the theatre at about 11am, watched some of the tech rehearsal for the evening show and just observed the hustle and bustle of the lively theatre getting ready for show time. At 1pm we had a meeting going over all the things we needed to know - knowing who went to which floor by looking at the guest's tickets, who was allowed on to the Orchestra level, when people could be seated, what to do with wheelchairs...I got a little overwhelmed with all the information but figured a) I'm good at just pretending I know what to do and b) I could always just ask if I get really confused. Thankfully to start the evening off I was given the duty of handing out programs to all who came through the front doors. The doors were opened at 2:30 and I stood in the cold draft for about 3 hours. People started to slowly trickle in and then for the last hour the masses came. I was handing out programs so fast I almost missed noticing Colin Firth was standing in front of me. There I was with plenty of funny witty wisecracking things to say to all the people coming in and then there was Colin Firth. I don't get star struck, but there was this moment of having two worlds sort of collide. There is the Hollywood world where you see these people on the big screen and they seem somewhat bigger than life and far removed from you, and then here they are standing right in front of you as just another friendly human being giving you a big smile.
I didn't see all the "big stars" come through the front doors but every person I handed a program too I gave a big smile and warm welcome. My tour guide mode turned on and I had a ball just joking with everyone.
Throughout the evening I was all over the theatre except for inside. They are very very strict about who goes into the "chamber" during the show, but running around the lobbies on all the floors and taking people up and down the elevator had it's perks too. Joined Geoffrey Rush in the elevator at one point.
I wish I was better at explaining how I felt that evening. Part of me felt like it was just another job, the other part took everything in and fantasized about the day I would be there as a guest and perhaps even as a nominee. It's a funny thing to admit that. You know so many people wish and think that but for some odd reason if you say it out loud you are scoffed at or just given the "ya, sure you will" followed by a pressed smile. But I don't think any of those people there that night ever let that really get to them. Even when a lot of them started off completely broke, about to give up and go home, living in their cars, or trying desperately to just get a foot in somewhere, did they truly listen to the cynical and jaded voices of "You're wasting your time." "Who do you think you are?". Sure those voices are there...but there is a drive, a passion, a hunger that will not let you go. You have to push on because you know that you weren't meant to do anything else.
So, as I left the theatre that night with my tour guide friends, we walked down the red carpet to go home. Passing Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and his Oscar, and Jeremy Renner, I headed to my car that would take me back to my little studio apartment in North Hollywood. Back to the little place I call my own and where I'm writing out my own journey and dream.
This won't be my last Oscars night.

My Official Website!

I finally have an official website. So very happy - despite the fact that it is a work in progress....but then, isn't everything?

Here ya go:

www.julisalyn.com

Mainstage Sketch

I love performing with the iO West's Mainstage Sketch team. Love that marriage of improvising with a script. Here are 2 of the sketches from this last Sunday.

A Cloudy L.A

I find I get the hankering for updating and writing on my blog on overcast days. Thankfully, today, LA is providing it's version of an early fall day and I couldn't be happier.
Since my last post so much has happened. First, I moved into my very first studio apartment. I am finally living by myself. After having 20 housemates in Ireland, 10 housemates in Camarillo, 2 roommates in Sherman Oaks, 1 roommate in East Hollywood, 2 roommates in Studio City, it is now "me time" in NoHo. Basically living in a studio apartment makes me feel like I'm just living in a really big bedroom that happens to have a kitchen and it's own bathroom - but I am truly happy (and I moved in the first of July- honeymoon's not over!).
In other news my short silent film, Dear Hollywood, is coming along nicely. We are pretty much to the final cut in editing and the music composition is going swonderfully. I love it and I am very excited to start submitting it to festivals. As soon as we have a trailer version ready I will be sure to post it here.
The acting biz is going...well, it's going. There are times, like today, when I get flustered and frustrated with all the business and administration side of acting as a profession (or in my case, turning it into a profession). I really hope the cynical and jaded side effects of living in LA are not trying to seep in. I don't want to be that way, but it gets exhausting and a little disheartening when it seems like every which way you turn you have to be thinking 3 steps ahead and is your resume up to date, are your headshots working for you? Have you been keeping up on Actors Access, LA Casting, Backstage West, and all the other sites to submit to? Bumping into acquaintances in the grocery store or the bank the conversations consist of "What have you been doing? What's next?" I'm constantly trying to find that balance of nurturing the artist I am by soaking in art and inspiration and then turning around and putting my nose to the grind and getting myself out there. It's easy to lose sight of who you are as a person and as a human being - which is so essential to being an artist.
I miss waiting in the wings for my entrance, walking the boards, rehearsing for hours in a dark dusty old theatre. Living and breathing an imagined life in front of an audience. I'm giving LA a couple more years I think and then I may have my next adventure in New York. Theatre is what I love to my very heart and soul, but I'm not done trying out acting in front of the camera. I haven't really gotten the chance to give it a go. So, let's wait and see. Learn more on the art of storytelling through film, acting in front of a camera, understand more of the industry and marketing...and then I'll go from there. Make a few more silent shorts along the way.
Perhaps I'll get a chance to do a little theatre while I'm here too. That would be quite nice.

April 14th

On April 14th it will be 2 years since I stepped on a plane to leave my small town in the Pacific Northwest to find out what happens when you act on the question "What if...?"
And on April 14th I will begin shooting the short film I wrote, am co-directing, producing, and starring in. 2 years exactly.
Although I arrived pretty fresh faced and pretty green behind the ears (when it comes to "Hollywood stuff"), the more I learn and experience the more I see how green I still am.
It's a constant education through trial and error to find the right acting classes/studio, learning what are considered "good headshots", who to trust, who to walk away from. Who is sincere and who is just a lot of hot air. I think overall the biggest learning experience is discovering who to take as sincere. I am thankful everyday for having such a lovely wonderful core group of friends that I know care for my best interest.
It's a funny place, this town of tinsel. So many of us are in the midst of a handful of projects (myself included) that it becomes too easy to miss out on taking time aside and just make sure you know where your focus is. I've caught myself doing this all too often. I'm in mid meeting when I remember I need to send an e-mail to someone about another project, or I'm on the phone with one person discussing a writers meeting while on my way to rehearsal for my improv group, or shooting something. I love it. I do. But there comes a point when you need to put everything aside and do something that is just for you. Not something to add to your resume, or to increase the depth of your networking, or whatever else.
I spent 7 hours at LACMA a couple weeks ago and I felt like I got to peer deeper into myself. All was quiet and it was just me and these artist's work (although I was with a dear friend- we enjoy museum going together but alone).
I don't know where I was going with this. But just that I've learned the importance to take a moment to slow down. Living out my dreams is great, but I don't want to get swept away by the crowd or the current because I think it will get me further ahead. What keeps you on track is having a strong hold on who you are.
And knowing who you are and living it out is what gets you ahead in the end.
And that "end" may be somewhere you never dreamed of. But you'll be happy.
I just know it.

So.
Happy 2 year anniversary! It's been a close call to having to pack up and move home a couple times...but somehow, I'm still here.
Thank you.