"Just Play"

Well, my tweets didn't do the trick.  Lone Star fell even more in ratings on Monday and was officially yanked off the schedule - the first casualty of the fall season.  It doesn't bode well, my friends.

Other than that....I have improv today.  And I don't have much more to report.  So instead of reporting, I'll leave you with a clip from Hilary Swank's Inside the Actor's Studio.  I love hearing other actors' stories of how they got the opportunities they got, the sometimes rocky road that brings them there and how our work, as storytellers, can make a difference.  There is also some great advice from Al Pacino at the end...it might have something to do with the title of this post.  Enjoy.

*9/30/10* Not sure when it happened but between yesterday and today, the video was removed from youtube "due to terms of use violation".  When I just tried to watch again, I was notified of that.  The cliff notes version of what was in the clip:

- Hilary was on the 8th season of 90210 and after being on for several episodes, she was told that "it wasn't working out" and she was written out of the show.  She thought, I'm not even good enough for the 8th season of 90210!  And then, 3 months later, she got Boys Don't Cry.

- Gosh, I wish you could have seen the rest of the interview - her audition process for that role and the preparation that she put into it was fascinating to hear about and she had a very emotional moment talking about how hard it was sometimes to shoot and the reactions she got from fan mail.  One of the things that moved her was the way people who had so much hate changed their perspective after seeing this movie.  She said (I'm paraphrasing) that she doesn't do roles to change the world but if a by-product of the work she does helps facilitate that, that is a blessing.

-  The interview then moved on to her role in Insomnia with Al Pacino.  Al said to her, "Play.  Just play."  And it was liberating for her.

A few posts back I talked about how I just want to play again - and that is why I'm taking an improv class now.  And we "just play."  Hilary's interview was great - seriously, when are they coming out with the Inside the Actors Studio box set???  I signed up for an Amazon alert years ago and no alerts yet.  I just looked it up though and there seems to be a select few on DVD.  I think I'm doing a little shopping later today.