Lydia's Journey BEYOND Hollywood

It's been a crazy past couple of weeks! Aside from my moving, which is keeping me busy enough, I still had my acting class with Howard Fine going all of June. I had a great month in class doing Neil Simon with a new scene partner. We challenged ourselves and although we had a rough start with our critiques, we ended June on a high note. We get a few weeks off, but we will be back and working on it again in August. :) This past weekend, I was on set of the new webseries The Best Friend . I came on as one of the producers for my friends who created it, Marilyn Anne Michaels and Allie Smith . This was my first foray into producing but because of my business sense, love of numbers, love of communicating with people, experience on TONS of different kinds of sets, and problem solving skills, I felt like producing may just be my cup of tea. It was a rough start on Friday, trying to figure out everything and managing a slew of different personalities - but by the end of the weekend,...

Ah, Friday was pretty amazing! I worked on the Untitled Ivan Reitman Film on Friday of last week. I had a great time, and everyone I worked with was really awesome! :) But let me just say... Natalie Portman is probably the lovliest actress I have ever worked with! She is just so physically beautiful of course, but she is also the sweetest person ever! :) I did get to see Ashton Kutcher for a bit...he was pretty nice and funny as well. The biggest treat was meeting and chatting with Cary Elwes !. Ah, I remember him fondly from The Princess Bride and Robin Hood, Men in Tights . He was a joy to work with. And Ivan Reitman was AWESOME! Love that man! It was an honor to be alongside a great cast and crew and such an incredible director! I'm truly humbled!

I had a very long vacation and am happy to be back home. I missed an audition while I was in Texas, for a TV movie. :( Oh well...next time. I'm trying to get back into my routine now, but I still feel like I'm on vacation! I will post pictures of my work on the set of Little Birds. And of course, I'm not allowed to take pics of my next job - nor talk about it, so I guess there's nothing to say about that - except I'm working on June 18th... hehe :) The short film I was casting, Scratcher, has been put on hold until we find the star of the movie that the director and executive producer feel is right. So I will keep an eye out wherever I go. Maybe at Starbucks... I should be back teaching acting to my students over at Actorsite next week, which I'm looking forward to. And I'm dying to do a play. A good one. A really good role in a really good theater with really good people... Any leads??

I am so sorry! I made a new year's resolution to make this blog a regular item on my "to-do" list. I have been slacking. I'll try to be better. Ok, so update - I booked yet another feature film! YAY!!! I had a last minute audition for a film called " Goodnight Moon ", starring Kate Bosworth , Leslie Mann , and Juno Temple . And directed by the lovely Elgin James . It all happened so fast! I got the call at 1pm on Thursday to make a 3pm audition in SANTA MONICA the same day! I rushed over, had a great audition, and found out the next day I booked it and would be working on Mother's Day. Wow! I play a cashier whose store the two teen leads shoplift from and get busted. I had a prety fun scene where they get to douse me with grape soda and salsa. fun fun fun! :) I'm officially on vacation now, taking a roadtrip to Vegas, through Albuquerque, then all over Texas, and a week in Cancun before I head back and look for a new place in Hollywood. ...

Director Ivan Reitman (on the right) with his son, director of Up in the Air Jason Reitman YAY!!! I booked my next feature film! I'm playing a nurse in Ivan Reitman's next film, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman! I tell you, the worst thing about being an actor is, you never know if you will get another job. The next job is never promised to you, so its a nice surprise when you book something. Actually, its more than a nice surprise - its peace of mind. You will no longer be "out of work" - well, at least for a day. :) Then its back to being unemployed. But, let's not focus on that now. I got a job!!!! I work in June and I can't wait! It makes it easier to travel and move during the summer knowing I have some income coming in! :) YAY! I needed my next big movie because The Holiday and The Terminal residual checks were starting to dry up. I can't wait until I start collecting the residuals on this film! Is that too premature? To t...

Friday we had a new casting session and callbacks for Scratcher . We have had some really good talent come in for this film. We have been really lucky. We had top three favorites from last week, and have replaced two of those three with a new favorite. So now we are down to two actors who could play this role. We just have to make a decision. This is so hard!!!!! Because your film is only as good as your lead actor. If he can't carry this film, then there goes the film! Now, Friday, before I stepped into my casting shoes for these sessions, I had on my actor shoes and headed to a callback with Ivan Reitman . In case some of you who don't know, Ivan is the man behind such classics like Animal House, Ghostbusters, Stripes , and Twins ! :) I had a good audition and he said I was good - that was nice... Now we will have to wait and see if I will be playing a nurse in his next movie starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman! Fingers crossed!

Friday was our first official casting session for SCRATCHER. We started at 10:30am and saw about 17 actors. It was a very productive and interesting day! We ended the day with about three actors we felt strongly about. All for different reasons. The funny thing was I picked one, the writer picked another, and the director picked another! Depending on which kid we cast, the movie could be three different films! It was pretty exciting! I'm loving this process! We're not entirely finished. We're still seeing people and possibly setting up callbacks soon. We're shooting in just two short months. Saturday I took a UCLA Extensions course called Careers in Entertainment: How to go from Assistant/Intern to Studio Executive. It was very informative! We met lots of big executives and had the opportunity to ask them how they got to where they are now. It sparked an interest in maybe TV development in myself. Maybe my next internship will be in a development office t...