A Confession

Ok, I am going to fess up. I haven't been completely honest with many of you. Yes, I am in New York, and yes, I am taking classes at the New York Film Academy. However, they aren't filmmaking classes like I told everyone. They are...please try not to laugh...acting classes. I was too embarassed to tell the truth because a 27 year-old leaving a perfectly good job to run off to New York and be an actor is quite laughable. And also, kind of against my personality. Not the running off to places part, obviously. But as a person with very few emotions to begin with, acting should never have even been on the radar. It's possible a reader who doesn't know me all that well might be thinking, 'What is this lack of emotions stuff all about?' It's true. I am mostly dead inside. It has become a long-running joke among those closest to me. In my first two days of class, it has been vocalized more than once that suppressing emotions is a defense mechanism. What I am defending against, I have no idea. But apparently, I have been screwed up from the very beginning. Mom told me that when I was a kid, I used to laugh when other kids got hurt. It mortified her. I'm sure she thought I was a tiny sociopath. I'll bet me cutting my own hair again wasn't the only reason she hid the scissors. And even today, when I am around someone who is openly crying, I feel a horrifying giggle bubbling up inside and I have to turn away so they won't see me grinning. Yes, I am sick. And I am here in New York to get better. And also to make lots of gay friends.

Two days of classes and I have already learned so much. Each day gets three classes. Yesterday my group, section C of the 8-week Acting for Film program, had Audition Technique in the morning, Acting for Film 1 in the afternoon, and Improvisation in the early evening. Today, we had two classes of Acting for Film 1, and then Scene Study. The teachers are mostly very cool, supportive, friendly, and very encouraging. We had one guy today though, the Scene Study teacher, who kept making inappropriate sexual innuendos and gave us all a scene about eating pie to read that definitely wasn’t about eating pie.

I have made a few friends in my classes so far. Section C has all the same classes together and we stay in a cluster the whole day. There are 15 of us, 5 of which are American. The others come from all over: 2 from China, 2 from Brazil, 1 from Australia, 1 from Cuba, 1 from Sweden, 1 from Russia, 1 from Switzerland, and 1 from Turkey. I talk mostly with the Australian girl, Clare, though everyone else is also very nice and interesting. The Chinese girls are- you guessed it- extremely quiet. The Brazilians and Cuban are bubbly. The Europeans are reserved. The Turkish guy didn't show up for class today, so we'll see about him.

The Americans are a varied group. Besides myself, there's a red-headed guy from Texas, Bailey, who's loud and friendly, but is the kind of person who feels the need to fill any silences with banter. The girl from Connecticut is...well...think Bella Swan from the Twilight movie. Actually, her name is Isabelle. She, too, is vampire-obsessed, though please don't compare her to Kristen Stewart, because she "f***ing hates that b***h." In addition, there’s Jay, who claims he's half Jersey/ half PA (which I guess means Pennsylvania) and is all tatted up, with a long black ponytail. And then there's Dean.

Dean is a conundrum. He's full-on Jersey Shore, for one thing. And his last name is Italian, so he is an actual guido. He has this aloof, too-cool-for-school vibe going on. He actually fell asleep in Improv class yesterday. And, bless his heart, he's dumb as a brick. Example: During one game in Improv, we had to give the person next to us the name of an animal that they were going to imitate. I give Dean, who is next to me, the word caribou. He looks at me blankly and says, "What's that?" Ok, so maybe he grew up between four walls in Jersey, sheltered from all influences of wildlife, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. I say, "It's like a big deer," but his face still doesn't change, so I say, "Never mind," and give him rooster instead. Everyone knows what a rooster is, right? So, in the improv scene, Dean has to portray his animal in a bar. A rooster in a bar. Absurdity is key to successful improv, you know. When the improv coach (who totally reminds me of a shorter Idina Menzel) asks him what a rooster's motive might be for going to a bar, he thinks real hard about it and finally proclaims to the whole class that he's at the bar to pick up lady roosters.

---I'll give you a second to think about that---

But in Dean's defense, the kid reads beautifully. Every time someone hands him a scene to read, it comes out like he's said those words a million times over, and won an Oscar for them already. He totally confounds me. He's my partner in the Scene Study class, and we were given a scene from Good Will Hunting, the one where Will and Skylar first meet in the college bar (how 'bout them apples?). It's a good scene, and it's gonna be really hard for me to not do it in a British accent, a la Minnie Driver. But with Dean, it should be ok. As long as he can be bothered to learn his lines.

Acting for Film 1 is my favorite class so far. Today, Bailey and I were picked to be the class guinea pigs (ok, I enthusiastically volunteered) and we spent two and a half hours up in front of the class doing a scene from Pulp Fiction in various ways, as the teacher showed us how to make decisions about our characters, how to move in front of the camera, and how to show the real meaning of the scene with our movements and emotions, rather than through the lines of dialogue. The scene is from the end of the movie, when Mia and Vincent are saying goodbye and Mia finally tells her tomato joke. Being up there and on camera for so long was both exhilarating and exhausting. Bailey and I were made to seduce each other with our eyes, flirt, hold hands, say the lines, and try to keep it from looking silly. I’m certainly no Uma Thurman, and I would have felt more comfortable holding hands with Tinky Winky the Teletubby at first. But as we went through it over and over again, it became easier and looser until finally, I think we kinda got it. I do feel a little bad that nobody else but us two got to act in that class. But I guess the teacher wanted everyone to watch us as we progressed from extremely uncomfortable to slightly less uncomfortable onscreen. I certainly think it was a successful day. Except now, every time Bailey looks at me, he keeps trying to seduce me with his eyes.

I am trying so hard to not be a volunteer hog. Every time a teacher asks for volunteers (and they do it a lot) my legs want to shoot me out of my desk to the front of the room and grab all the practice for myself. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that hardly anyone else ever wants to volunteer. The seconds tick by agonizingly as the teacher looks around the room, asking "Anybody at all?" It's that same feeling I used to get when a new Beanie Baby came out and I was worried my best friend Jami would get it first. I'm just afraid that if I push it too far, the teacher might wind up saying, "Ginny, sit back down. You've had three turns already."

The biggest project I have coming up is a scene for the Acting for Film 1 class, which will be filmed, edited, and then added to our class reel of finished work. This time my partner is Jay, the ponytailed tattoo canvas, and we will be performing a scene from When Harry Met Sally. As soon as the teacher mentioned our scene was gonna come from that movie, I started having a moment of whimpering wooziness. I’m sure you can guess why. What is the one scene that jumps into your head when you think of that movie? Well, thank the gods of fledgling actors, the teacher didn’t give us that scene. Hell, I had trouble making googly eyes at Bailey. There’s no way I’m ready to jump that far in yet. Instead, he gave us a scene about days-of-the-week underpants, which is slightly less impossible. And if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t have a clue about the infamous scene which threw me into a conniption fit, well, first of all, shame on you. Second of all, get thyself to YouTube speedy quick and type in “I’ll have what she’s having.” Just tuck the kiddos in bed first.