Who's Now SAG-Eligible? THIS GUY!

On Wednesday, October 20th, 2010, I received my 3rd SAG waiver for working on the new Jonah Hill film, "The Sitter." What does that mean? I'm now eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild, or "the most distinguished performers union in the world"! I have to admit, I got EXTREMELY lucky for getting my SAG waivers all in a very short amount of time, my first one in July and my two others in October. For me, it was all because everything happened due to me taking the time out to fit these different actors events into my life. If you get the opportunity to attend one, such as Actorfest or Showbiz Expo, just DO IT! I have Grant Wilfley Casting to thank!

And when it comes to "perfect timing," honestly, the casting gods have timed it all right for me. The week after I received 3rd waiver, I started my SAG OK 30, where I get 30 days to work as SAG without joining yet. I was booked on a two-day shoot for the HBO film "Too Big to Fail," and was cast as James Woods' character's executive assistant. It was still background work, but a very specific background character.

The next day, I worked on a SAG indie filmed titled "That's What She Said," starring Anne Heche and directed by Carrie Preston (actress from "True Blood"), and I was working it as non-union, but I was going to receive screen credit (and who wouldn't mind seeing their name at the ending credits of a feature film???). I had gotten lucky again that day on set, because Carrie had not only changed my role at the shoot to a more featured one, but she GAVE ME A LINE, upgrading me to my very first PRINCIPAL ROLE in a SAG feature film! Folks, this rarely EVER happens to actors (lines are a background actor's DREAM), but the universe was with me, and I couldn't have been more grateful!

Since then, I've been booking more SAG work as background in movies, and SAG gave me more time to work SAG jobs, in which I am COMPLETELY grateful for (since I need $2,335 to join! OUCH!). But I'm also working on that "next step" in my career, and researching more principal work.

2011 will be my time to really step it up. There's no stopping me now!!!

Getting My 1st SAG Waiver: China, Rain & Illegal Smuggling

On July 16th, 2010, I got to work on Day 1 of filming for the new Joseph Gordon-Levitt feature film, "Premium Rush." It's an action/thriller, and here's the plot according to IMDB:

An action story set in New York City, where a bike messenger picks up a package at Columbia University and subsequently catches the attention of a dirty cop.

The scene that I worked on takes place in China, and I played a Chinese person who was trying to get illegally smuggled into the U.S. Since filming takes place in NYC, we had to act in front of a green screen, which will most likely be projecting the image of a China port.

Since having lost a lot of weight in the past few months, none of my old clothes fit, so I had to purchase new clothes for wardrobe options. However, I'm now small enough to fit into the wardrobe that they have, and actually wore a top picked out for me from wardrobe. It resembled something my grandmother wore, and I got to wear some huge very 80's-looking glasses. I was quite a fashion fiend on set, and actually, the 2nd Assistant Director loved my ensemble the most out of all the other background actors!

One really cool thing about being a part of these film shoots is the "movie magic" that happens on set. For this shoot, they created "rain," and we basically got drenched. It was actually very nice and quite welcoming, considering that it was 90 degrees out. We all wanted them to bring on the rain!

What made this shoot special was for me was that I RECEIVED MY VERY FIRST SAG WAIVER!!! I had never received one before, so needless to say, I was SUPER PSYCHED when I saw that this was a gig that was waivering non-SAG. It was really nice to be treated/paid as Union talent, and even though I still need 2 more SAG waivers to earn my SAG card, it feels AWESOME to know that I'm now on their radar!