Most readers of Back Stage are well aware of the challenges they confront in their daily battle to fulfill their dreams. Many of them have watched fellow actors and friends leave town embittered about their lack of accomplishments. To document the travails of thespians brave enough to move to Hollywood, Back Stage has created a new column to keep tabs on a handful of actors with diverse backgrounds and appearances as well as varying levels of experience and success. They will chat with us over the next 12 months about their careers -- the highs and the lows, the triumphs and trials, and, most important, why they keep up the fight.
Documenting their individual journeys are: a young mother, juggling the pursuit of the craft while trying to be there for her kids; a formerly plus-size actor who dropped 100 pounds and is in the process of reinventing and reintroducing herself to the industry; an African American from Tennessee who moved to Los Angeles on a whim and spent three days without food or water during his first year in town but who now pays the bills purely from acting; a New York transplant and former biochemistry major who didn't start acting until age 25 but now lands regular television roles; and a successful entrepreneur-stage actor who plans to write and direct a "political comedy horror classic" before the year is out. All started out as newbies to Los Angeles, most with a love of acting they had carried with them since childhood or adolescence. Each possesses a passion for the profession and a positive attitude about the upcoming year.
The Reinventor
Jen Levin grew up in Saratoga, Calif., outside of San JosĂŠ, and started acting at age 5, when she snagged her first role as Chair No. 3 in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. After appearing in middle and high school plays, Levin earned her Bachelor of Arts in theatre from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. To supplement her formal training, she studied sketch and improvisational comedy with acting coaches in the Los Angeles area. A plus-sized actor at the time, Levin appeared in many student and independent films and a commercial.
"I always was playing, like, 10 years older than I really am," says Levin of the roles offered to her because of her weight. "I would play someone's mother, and the person who played my kid, I was almost the same age as them." Most of Levin's quality roles came from friends who cast her in leading roles, but she didn't encounter the same level of ease when pursuing acting in the real world. Then, in 2005, she got into two major car accidents in one month, neither of which were her fault. She suffered severe whiplash, bruising, and torn cartilage in her hip, which left her with no option but to lose weight for a reparative surgery.
The actor entered the risk-factor obesity program at UCLA and drank supplement shakes; at times her diet totaled a mere 600 calories per day. She didn't eat solid food for eight and a half months and dropped 100 pounds. After her surgery and rehabilitation, Levin's headshots and reels no longer reflected her appearance. "I just got my new headshot, and it's weird because I feel like I've kind of paid my dues but as a different person. I really have to start all over again," she says. "It's exciting, though, because everything I've done in the past, yeah, it's great and all, but now I get to start almost completely fresh again. It's kind of cool that I get to almost, like, have two separate careers."
Levin's goals for this year include pursuing her craft full-time while working odds-and-ends jobs. With financial backing from her grandparents that will last a year, she looks forward to fully immersing herself in her career without monetary pressures. She says, "I don't want to make any more excuses for anything, because once you start making excuses for yourself, you're never going to do it. Like, as soon as you start debating, you know it's done. So I want to just get out there." As her first order of business, Levin plans to do mass mailings of her headshots and submit herself to "everything" to help casting directors get to know her as this different person. She's also seeking representation.
She adds with a laugh, "It sounds so weird to have absolutely nothing and be so excited about it, but that's really where I am right now."
The Renaissance Man
Tom Kiesche studied biochemistry in college with a business and communication emphasis. He took an elective course in acting for film and television his senior year and loved it, but after graduation he forgot about acting and moved to Connecticut to sell pharmaceuticals. Then he went to see a live improvisational comedy show -- and it changed his life. Kiesche chatted with the actors after the show; three weeks later he was performing alongside them. After that he acted in local theatre and improv shows, dabbled in standup comedy, and began writing plays. Kiesche started performing with a New York improvisational team and commuted to the city regularly for gigs. On his 25th birthday he gave notice to the pharmaceutical company and moved to New York to pursue acting full-time.
For the next five years he made about half of his income through small theatre roles, television commercials, and small co-star roles on television, including under-fives and bit parts in soap operas and prime-time shows. He earned the other half of his income by waiting tables, bartending, and catering. During his final year in New York, he lost his representation when a large talent agency fired his agent. "Having worked the majority of TV shows in New York City with small parts that year, I decided if I was to start all over again finding an agent, I might as well do it in Los Angeles, where there were a lot more TV shows -- and I hadn't worked any of them," Kiesche says. "I didn't know what I expected. I didn't know how long I'd be in L.A. I just packed up a little blue Honda Civic with my stuff and drove West." As he crossed the Midwest, he found himself couch surfing on sofas of people he had never met.
He landed an agent in L.A. after three references steered him to the same agency, the Judy Schoen & Associates Talent Agency. Kiesche took a copy of the NYU student film he appeared in to his meeting with the potential agent; the footage helped seal the deal. That was seven years ago. During his first six months in Los Angeles, Kiesche worked catering, waiting, and bartending jobs, but since then he has worked as an actor "pretty nonstop," including roles on CSI: Miami, Weeds, and Without a Trace. He starred in Desolation Canyon, a Hallmark television movie, among many other credits, and has appeared in about 25 commercials. After nabbing guest-star parts for his last five roles, Kiesche has big plans for this coming year. "The next logical step is series regular or major recurring character with a long arc. That's my acting goal this year," he says. "I'm also at UCLA's screenwriting program, and I optioned my first screenplay last year."
This jack-of-all-trades hopes to land a literary agent this year for his screenwriting pursuits, option one or two more of his scripts, and see one of his scripts get made. He also plans to pursue his third passion: photography. He currently shoots clip art for YMCA publications, which has led to work shooting actors' headshots. "I also shoot a lot of landscapes and flowers and churches and playgrounds. I'm building a collection for possibly calendars in the future," he says, warning Back Stage that following his pursuits might be more complicated than we expected. "I'm not just an actor who's going to tell you that I had two auditions."
To read more about Kiesche, actors can read his weblogs on "Unscripted," Back Stage's new blog written by actors for actors, set to launch in mid-February on BackStage.com.
The Juggler
Evelyn Elam got the acting bug as a freshman in high school. She acted in plays throughout high school and double-majored in acting-directing and technical design at Huntington University in Indiana. She worked several seasons as a costume tech and actor at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, where she met her husband, who is also an actor. The couple lived in Utah for a couple of years and had a daughter, then moved to the Bay Area. When Elam decided she wanted to pursue film and television acting, she and her husband, who was landing quite a bit of commercial and stage work in the Bay Area, discussed their acting goals. They considered Chicago for stage acting but ultimately decided on Los Angeles because they felt it would be easier to make a living acting for film and television. "Not to mention," adds Elam, "we were both interested in cultivating a new skill set as actors and not limiting ourselves to stage acting." With a 19-month-old daughter in tow, they headed to the Southland.
Elam and her family have lived in Los Angeles for six months. "It's been good," says the actor, who has come to rely on the Actors' Network, a business information and educational resource for performers. To pay the bills, she works part-time as a Pilates instructor, while her husband works as a part-time massage therapist. "I had always been a stage actress in the past. So for me, when I finally realized when I was living in the Bay Area that [I wanted] to become a film and TV actress and make the switch, I hadn't had a lot of training," she explains. "So I started the training there in S.F., and I'm continuing it here in L.A." She is enrolled in an eight-week acting intensive that started this month; she has also appeared in student films at the Los Angeles Film School. She will pursue her other creative interest -- writing -- by blogging about her experiences for BackStage.com.
"I feel very much like I'm in a positive, motivated place right now, and I also really want to encourage other actors who are parents out there, because I feel like that's a demographic that's not covered enough. It's definitely harder," Elam says. "If I were a single woman, I would be able to go out on the town a lot more often and have much more networking opportunities. I think you're limited with kids because they keep you home, and you can't get to know people if you're staying at home. But if you're not at home, then you feel like you're cheating on your kids, so that's the big struggle as a parent in Hollywood."
Elam's goals this year include finding representation, landing many auditions, and booking as many jobs as possible. She plans to continue practicing her craft through the auditioning process and the classes she's taking. She also hopes to inspire other mothers who act not to quit pursuing the field. "I want to be the voice of hope and find other [actor-moms] who are out there," she says.
The Guru
For a solid year, one of Derek Shaun's friends in Tennessee nagged him to join his acting class. Shaun brushed him off each time but kept running into the guy. Finally he succumbed and checked out the class. And he loved it. Really loved it. "Not even a month later, I was moving to L.A., and I didn't think about it," Shaun says. "I didn't plan it. I didn't do anything. I just said, 'You know, if I don't go, I won't go.' I had a great job. I had a nice apartment. But I just gave everything up." His family, with the exception of his mother, called him insane. Shaun had never even visited Los Angeles before. He had no acquaintances in the city or family in the area, but he felt an intense calling to move here and act.
In 1998, Shaun and his actor friend from the Tennessee class packed up a U-Haul and headed West. They arrived with no place to live and took turns driving around the city nonstop for three days because they couldn't find a place to park the vehicle. Sleep-deprived, one night they stopped outside of a property. The owner told them they couldn't stay, but they begged her to let them park there. She agreed, and the exhausted pair rented a motel room and passed out.
Shaun describes his first year in Los Angeles as the hardest year of his life. At one point he ran out of money. "There was actually no food and no water for literally three days," he says. "And when you're in a situation like that, you tell yourself you have two choices: You [can] say, 'Okay, I'm going to fall apart and just let it break me,' or 'I'm going to use this as motivation to remember that if you don't work hard, this is where you'll be.' And I made a choice right then and there."
Though Shaun faced other complications, he always found a solution, and doors seemed to open for him. He found a house-sitting gig when he couldn't afford rent, which led to an available apartment across the hall. "Once I moved into the apartment, I felt like God was saying, 'Okay, now I've got you settled. Now let's work,'" Shaun says.
Soon after, Shaun booked a voiceover gig for K-Swiss, for which he thought he was going to be paid a total buyout of $4,000. But he received a second check for $6,500 when the commercial went international. Just days after that voiceover gig ended, someone who happened to be at the studio where Shaun taped the gig heard the demo and booked him, without an audition, for an AT&T voiceover. Shaun then began to audition for the stage, earning a role in each play he tried out for, including his very first lead, in a production titled Peeled, mounted by Rising Wolf Productions at the Chelsey Playhouse. Since then, he has landed at least two or three roles per year in local stage productions; appeared in music videos for Madonna, Seal, and Jamie Foxx; and performed in several short films. Shaun attributes his success to his positive attitude. "I'm that person that always looks for the light. I know that there's darkness all around us, but let's look for the light," he says. "We know all the obstacles that are in front of us. We know all the things that are going to hold us back. But we should focus on the solutions and not the problems, and that's always my theory. That's always my outlook."
Shaun's aspirations this year include becoming a series regular, booking an unlimited number of feature films, and finding more opportunities to work. His run in The Awakening at the Dorie Theatre at the Complex ends Jan. 28. "For me personally, it's always been about the work," he says. "I always feel like if I got a chance to showcase and show people what I can do, then my work would speak for itself, because I feel like all you need in this industry is a chance for someone to see you."
The Entrepreneur
In the 1980s, stage actor Jim LeFave moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television. When he arrived, he found a very different Hollywood than exists today. "It was a lot more open then; there wasn't the proliferation of channels that you have now," LeFave says. "There were different contracts. If you did a TV show, you were pretty much guaranteed a rerun on it. Also, the actors' salaries were more maneuverable, not like scale plus 10 which you see a lot of today. There was probably more of a middle-class of actor that existed back then. Today, it's very difficult."
Back then, he appeared in television programs such as M*A*S*H and St. Elsewhere. When his wife became pregnant with their first child, LeFave realized he had a family to support. "As you get older, it gets less romantic to be living with your friend in an apartment," he says. LeFave took a phone sales job for eight months, then another career fell in his lap. Film critic David Sheehan called LeFave and told him that Sheehan's television show had sold in two markets and he needed a salesperson to sell it to other television affiliates across the nation. Suddenly, LeFave found himself selling a product that he not only knew something about but also loved. And he had a natural aptitude for it: He sold the show to 204 other markets across the country in two weeks. Today, LeFave is the president of Hollywood Close-Ups Syndication and has worked with Sheehan for the past 10 years.
That's not to say he loves acting any less. He continues to act in productions at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, playing roles in theatre classics such as The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing. "I'm addicted to that," he says. "I love that classic-type, big-type theatre where you're outdoors and you've got 500 people crammed in there, it's nighttime; it's a magic, magic place to play that I can't really trade off for any TV or film experience I've ever had." To expand this love, LeFave is currently performing in a one-man show in which he plays villains from Shakespearean classics. "I started doing an outcall Shakespeare, where I go into homes and I do Shakespeare's bad guys. It's a 45-minute set of Shakespearean characters. It's a trip," he says. He plans to shoot the production, which he performs at dinner parties, as a television show and use his connections through his television syndication career to get the production aired at Halloween. "If I didn't have that [job], I'd just be somebody with an idea, not necessarily the ability to facilitate it," he notes. He also would love to make more money through his acting.
He has a production deal with Pretty Dangerous Films to write, direct, and act in what he calls a "political comedy horror classic." He adds, "I'm more excited about getting this project going. Creatively, that's what I'm really focusing on."
What the year will hold for our actors, we cannot predict. But we are confident that their ambitions, passion, and devotion to their crafts will result in many interesting tales and outcomes. The next column is scheduled to appear March 15.