Smoked and AVAIL for Home Depot!!!

Posted on April 29, 2010

Hi all-

Been pretty busy lately.  I booked a webisode series called “Smoked” with some guys from Dreamworks.  Webisodes are short TV-style programs that are created for use on the internet.  Many producers are using this vehicle to launch their own shows in the hopes that it will gain a following on the web, and then become viable as a program on either a cable or a broadcast station.  There are a number of shows that started out this way on Comedy Central.  The most famous one probably being “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” on FX.

“Smoked” takes place in a marijuana dispensary, for the most part.  I’ve never been in one of those places before, but it’s totally surreal.  There is weed EVERYWHERE!  It totally smells like a college dorm room.  The story revolves around me, my sister, and our childhood friend, Ben.  There’s a ton of crazy characters that come in and out of the shop, and in the first few episodes, a proposed tax on our “product” leads to some pretty hilarious misadventures.  Jenn Gaw was the casting director, and her, my other actors, and the crew have become really good friends in a short amount of time.  5 shoot days, and 3 of them are night shoots.  That means my call time is around 8pm and we shoot til around 7 am.  Crazy, right?

Not to mention that on Wednesday morning I got home around 7am, slept for 4 hours, went to a Sears callback at 1pm, then a Home Depot callback at 3pm, then a short nap, then back to set at 8pm Wednesday night.

Hard to believe that under all that delirium I’m on AVAIL for the HOME DEPOT spot!!!  WooHoo!  Hope it works out.  It would shoot later next week.  I’m just kind of drilling and painting in the spot.  It doesn’t really call for my acting prowess, but the cash is green either way!   Prayers are totally welcomed!

Tonight is the last night of shooting for “Smoked”, then I go and record some more VO for Medal of Honor from 12-1pm tomorrow (Friday), and then I’m probably going to sleep all weekend.  Rip van Winkle style.

And not to beat a dead horse, but if you’re reading this and didn’t get a chance to see my Ghost Whisperer scenes, you can watch them here.

Thanks everyone!  Hope all is well with you guys!

Overwhelmed…in a great way.

Posted on April 11, 2010

“I just spent the night in the woods, is all.”

Well, the airing of Ghost Whisperer has come and gone.  I was truly overwhelmed by the response from everyone!  So many people contacted me…through this site and on facebook, to say hello and that they enjoyed the show, were proud of me, and to congratulate me.  It was really an amazing blessing to hear from so many people.  It was a dream come true to do this role, and to hear that family and friends were proud and happy…well, in a world full of a lot of disappointments and rejections…it made up for all of them!

As for myself, I was really happy with my work!  Being theatrically trained, I always have a concern that I’m going to give too “big” of a performance.  Big facial expressions, gestures, vocal projection.  But I thought the performance rang really true and honest.  I remember shooting it, and I had some real moments where the character just clicked.  I had amazing fellow actors, and the director established a really safe environment where we could try some different stuff and be free to create.

I think all of these things came through in the final product.

I will say that I thought some of the music and scoring was a bit distracting at times.  I realized that I hardly ever notice scoring on other shows, but it pulled my attention  from some of the scenes in the episode.

If you were unable to watch or record the episode, you can see it on a number of websites if you Google it.  The episode is called “Dead Eye”.  I’ll put it up on the site here in a couple of days.

Thank you all again for being such great supporters of me.  I’m really thankful for all of my family, and to the Johnson City Press and WJHL for getting the word out.

Blessings to you!  Keep checking back, I auditioned for some commercials this past week, and had 2 callbacks for feature films!!!

Drive-By Truckers and Friday fun!

Posted on April 6, 2010

Hey everyone!

I’m shooting a music video for the Drive-By Truckers today!  The song is called This F*#%ing Job, and they played it on Letterman on March 13th.  Scott Teems will be directing it, and the lead guy in it is Ray McKinnon!  Ray is kind of a hero of mine.  I actually auditioned for him a few years back for a film he did called Chrystal with Billy Bob Thorton.  The guy who went into the audition before me….Rainn Wilson AKA Dwight Schrute from the Office!  Neither of us got the part, but Ray is an incredibly talented actor, writer, and director, and I can’t wait to work with him.  He’s actually going to throw a garbage can at me, apparently….so that’ll be fun.

Last week I came pretty close to booking another Guest Star.  It would have been for the season finale of The Mentalist.  I went into the first audition for Eric Dawson (this casting office is one of the best, most working offices in L.A.) who asked me to stay around for producers!  At the first audition there were about 20 of us up for the part…an hour later there were 3.  Later, I heard from my agent that I was one of their choices….which I kind of already knew I was one of 3, but nevertheless I got pretty excited.  Well, it didn’t pan out and I got released from the hold, daggummit.  It would have been nice, but being able to read for that casting office…and going that far in the process, was a huge win!

And this Friday steadily approaches!  I’m really excited to see Ghost Whisperer and I hope you all are too!  It comes on at 8/7C on CBS this Friday, April 9th.  I made an event page on facebook for it. I’d love to hear what you think…..I think…HA!

I mailed out about 150 postcards telling casting directors and other industry people to tune in or tivo it.  Hopefully some of them will get to see my work and it will lead to some other opportunities.  But, I’m really just thankful to have been able to do this role, and that you all will get a chance to see it.  Of course I hope more comes from it!  But, I’m just going to give that to God, and sit back and enjoy what I’ve been given.  I hope you do too!

Thanks for reading!!!

© Copyright www.mattloweactor.com • Developed by LightsOn Web Solutions • Theme by Brian Gardner.