TurboFool (Neither, really)

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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