TurboFool (Neither, really)

All right, new episode of Mr. Deity is up, and I’m in it again! Woohoo, go me, living the dream, etc. Check it out (and stick around for the begging segment at the end):

Another good episode, and I loved the PZ references. Definitely some good, subtle stuff in there, and as usual plenty of ad-libbing (the Dagon reference was something I was especially proud of).

Anyway, the season’s nearly wrapped up, then there’ll be a small hiatus and for the first time ever, a Mr. Deity DVD release of the entire third season! Hopefully there’ll be a bunch of bonus content like outtakes (we have, on some very, very rare occasions, botched a line, or done something else mildly unplanned) and extended scenes to make it extra worth it, but just having it without the GoDaddy ads is enough for me. That and maybe no begging, although I find the begging bits nearly as funny (and, admittedly, occasionally funnier) than the episodes themselves, so hopefully they’ll be on the DVDs in one form or another.

Btw, if you were at all confused by the beginning, you may want to check out this Super Bowl commercial after the break to clear things up a bit:

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All right, finally getting around to posting this on my own blog since it went up yesterday. The latest episode of Mr. Deity is up, and it features yours truly. Check it out:

As the head of R&D for the entire universe, I think you can understand why I’ve been too busy to blog much.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to more coming soon. We’re filming another one later this week!

Over the many years I spent as an actor, I accrued a pretty darn near decent list of credits to my name. If you’d like to see the entire list, please feel free to visit my IMDb page, but I warn you, it’s long and listy. My wife even noticed once that I actually had more credits than Julia Roberts (unfortunately for me, Julia kept working, while I… didn’t). While I did my best to collect video tapes (remember those?) of all of my work, this was mostly for the sake of posterity. Over time, though, the need to make a reel from those became more apparent. For most of my career it was pretty much unnecessary.  I was a cute kid who could act, so I gained a reputation quickly, and got cast frequently. As I got older, the cuteness wore off, and I had to fall back more and more on the acting skills, which are harder to prove via a headshot.

So, my manager helped me put together a reel which was then sent out to various people. If  memory serves me, the reel was wildly successful, spawning dozens of major film roles, multiple sequel reels, and became one of the very first viral Internet memes. But it was fun to put together, and during the editing process we actually managed to take a scene from a show I won’t name (I loved the job, so don’t wish to put anyone’s work down) and drastically improve the editing of one of my scenes. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, during an email conversation the other day, I was asked if I had a reel. I had to laugh at the above memory, as while sure enough, I’ve got one, it’s basically useless, what with it now being over ten years old (am I even ALLOWED to feel old at the age of 27?). I’ve changed drastically since then, and television has to some degree, too. Of course I also haven’t worked in the last four years, so I suppose it couldn’t be THAT bad. Still, it struck me that I should probably track down what I could that’s most recent, and edit together some clips.

Of course now, in this age of web 2.0, interactivity, YouTube, and the like, there’s no reason for me to put excessive time into editing together a single, classic-style reel. I can just as easily clip out my scenes from various jobs, put them in individual videos, and upload them. Then the viewer can pick and choose what they want to watch, and I can even make notes. So that’s what I did. Right here. See? I did have a point to this rambling.

Now I must preface this by stating that to call this a “work in progress” would be an insult to the word “work,” a slap in the face to the word “progress,” and actually a slight compliment to “in.” As of now this is made up primarily of a combination of my most recent work, and the low-hanging fruit of what I was able to piece together from easy-to-access resources. Over time I hope to delve into my older work (I DEFINITELY need to clip out my work from Freaks and Geeks), and put up additional posts, and maybe even an entire page dedicated to my digital reel. But laziness and impatience have won out at the moment, so I’m starting here. The following clips are in chronological order, which just happens to place some real fan favorites at the beginning and end. Lucky how that worked out, isn’t it?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This job was a real treat on multiple levels. I had recently become a HUGE fan of the show, so getting to actually cement myself as part of it couldn’t have made me happier. Also seeing the sets and various cast members was a rare chance to geek out over something I was normally quite jaded over. As for my scene, as you saw, it was a one-on-one with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Now, when I met her, I can honestly say I wasn’t half as excited as I was by everything else that day. The show, to me, has always been more about the supporting cast, so I was left feeling like I was SUPPOSED to be excited to meet her, but was easily twice as excited just to see Alyson Hannigan drive up in her Jaugar XK8. Still, I have to say she (SMG) was one of the most professional actors I’ve ever worked with. She made a lot of her own staging decisions, lighting, camera angles, and simply did her job flawlessly. I had a reputation for being especially professional, as well, so we knocked the scene out in two hours, which is pretty quick. And for what my daily rate at the time was, it was one of the best-paying two hours of my life. At first I got the vague impression that she was kind of rude, but as I worked with her I began to realize she was simply comfortable. She had no need to put on airs, and put most of her focus on the work. She cracked occasional jokes to crew members who seemed at ease with her, and everything ran smoothly. Overall, great experience.

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I did some pretty cool things during my time as an actor, and it’s hard not to reminisce. Life has forced me to shift directions in recent years, but that doesn’t stop me from looking back at what I did and using a combination of nostalgia and confirmation bias to exclusively remember how awesome it was. The extremely long hours, the stressful interviews, the egotistical celebrities, the asshole directors (speaking ONLY of the assholes and not the truly awesome ones), the honeywagons, the unpleasant and sometimes dangerous locations, the best parts of the scenes being edited out, the bad craft service (again, not speaking of the times it kicked ass [Orion, your sandwiches were legendary]), Southwest airlines, being sick on location, roller skating while strapped to your “conjoined twin,” and all the other awful and unpleasant memories have been completely driven from my mind in favor of the good times.

So it was this extremely jaded trip down memory lane that got me searching for some of the more unique side-steps during my career: My roles in music videos.

As you’re all surely aware, I’m highly-regarded for my musical and dancing skills, having enjoyed brief superstardom in Kyrgyzstan in the early ‘90s until… well, I’m sure you all remember the dreadful events of April, 1994 enough to guess what happened next. However, as my musical talents were never as appreciated in the states, or Europe, Australia, the rest of Asia, or, well, anywhere else outside my own head, I had to settle for appearing in several music videos for lesser-known groups such as The Devlins, Live, and The Rolling Stones (I know, I was scratching my head when they told me the names of the bands, too). So, in the spirit of sharing and shameless self-promotion, I now present you my music video collection:

This one was pretty fun to film. It was done in an incredibly old house that was in such bad shape you could see through the gaps in the boards that made up the floors and walls. The filming style and characters were extremely creative, and the experience was great. It was a very long day, and at one point it became clear to the production that they weren’t going to get to me any time soon. Budgets on music videos are relatively tight, and overtime for kids is illegal, so they picked another option that also wasn’t technically kosher and offered to let me work a split day. They sent me home for half the day, paying for whatever I wanted to do in that time period (I rented Donkey Kong Country for the SNES on their expense), and then I came back much later only to sit in a very cold trailer until they finally got around to working with me.

In case you’re unclear, I’m the little boy standing at the head of his dying mother (first appearing at 1:14). One interesting note was that I swear to this day they never filmed me removing the coins from her eyes. I remember placing them ON her eyes, but I don’t remember ever being directed to remove them. My motions look natural enough that I’m unconvinced they reversed the footage, but I’m just not sure. I suppose it’s possible they were still rolling when I removed the coins to do a retake, but I don’t think I would have stayed in-character in doing so. A personal mystery.

I did get to meet the band over lunch, although I wasn’t specifically a fan at the time, so it wasn’t THAT big a deal. I did receive, over time, three separate copies of the album (two of which had the red jewel-case side), and at least one of them was signed by the band. I listened to the album like crazy after that and it quickly became a favorite. It’s only in recent years that I’ve learned they’re considered Christian Rock, at least in some circles, and their lyrics began to fall into place for me with that in mind. Regardless, I still recognize that they write some damn good music, and our clashing beliefs don’t prevent me from enjoying it. Two more videos after the break…

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