Todd: OK, now Matt, you used to work in Hollywood as an actor. Can
you talk about what kind of actor you were?
Matt: Sure. I acted mainly incommercial work and that is Iauditioned for commercials and basically in Los Angeles it's unlike any
other city in the world for acting and it's just so heavily centered around
Hollywood and television and screen work that there isn't really a lot of work
in theater so I didn't have a ton
of training going in to the acting
world when I entered L.A. so like many others I opted just for commercial work
and tried to get experience that way.
Todd: Oh, cool. So how do you actually get a gig? Tell me about the
process.
Matt: It actually... It's a lot more complicated than I thought
when I first got there and competitive. Basically, there are two types of
actors in Los Angeles. There's union
actors and non-union. And to really progress you need to be a union actor which
takes getting a speaking part or doing commercial work, which took me about six
months and from there becoming a SAG member, screen actor's guild member.
You're in the union which looks a lot better on your resume to go after agents
so that was my next step and after I got an agent then I was able to be sent
out on auditions and look for work that way.
Todd: So how did you get your first big break?
Matt: It was just by chance really. I was acting and I was doing a
lot of non-speaking work on television and movies and really not progressing as
fast as I wanted to and I was on a commercial for I think it was Pepsi and they
liked my look and they needed an extra guy in the scene in a library and they
put me in and from that thirty second spot which was shown all the East Coast
of the United States I has half of my income for my first year because you get
royalty checks every time a commercial is shown on television. You get paid,
so...
Todd: Nice.
Matt: Yeah... But from there I went back to television and movies.
Todd: Cool.
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