Check that – I can always count on my friends. Especially the actors, like my friend Ariel. He and I run lines and use an iPad to diagnose each other whenever we have an audition, and Ariel never lets me down. He once got up 5:30 a.m. to help me, after he flew back into town at midnight the night before, because that was the only time I could meet him. In return, last week I coached him into booking a role on the new show “Bosch.”
My friends Bru and Aina drove out to where I was in West Hollywood before an audition. Aina read lines opposite me in the back seat of their car, while Bru directed me from the the driver’s seat. Then they dropped me off at the doorstep of the casting office.
I often think about a quote from the series finale of the British version of “The Office,” in which Tim (the precursor to the American version’s Jim) says, “The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean, you don’t know them. It wasn’t your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family. But probably all you have in common is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day.”
The difference for actors is that we all made the choice to come out here. To leave our comfort zones and pursue one of the riskiest businesses together. We pull for each other because we all get it, and that’s one of the hidden gems of a life in show business. These are my coworkers. I can’t think of a better bunch to spend more time with.
