Fernanda Romero is a multi-talented woman, an influencer, a favorite of Spanish language TV, a model, a host and a fun person to talk to. Check out my conversation with her for Domain of Horror. She’s an avid horror movie fan and a champion of diversity in movies and TV.
Listen to her discuss her love of horror movies & more!
Catch it YouTube too!
My friend Ace Michaels has been slaying with his online talk show on Facebook. During my recent trip to Las Vegas, I got the chance to sit down and catch up with Ace.
This week, I got to have a fun part in The Litch, directed by James Balsalmo of Acid Bath Productions. It was a high-spirited, improvisational shoot. Coming out later this year, the film also stars Tom Sizemore, the legendary Lloyd Kaufman and fellow scream queen Genoveva Rossi. James is creative, collaborative and fun and I told our manager Matt Chassin that he was like the “Christopher Guest of horror”. This is sure to be a fun horror comedy.
Armin Nasseri of Seeking Valentina fame was also on-hand helping with our scene. It was great to have his positive energy there. I can’t wait to see it debut on the big screen later this year!
There’s some cool promo art coming out for The Spirit Room, which I worked on last October.
Here’s me as the character Peggy Wiley! Can’t wait to share this amazing short with you!
Seriously, the Ghost Busters jingle was echoing through my head all through our latest What Women Want Radio Show broadcast. We’ve all had blocks. We’ve all been stuck. We’ve all had that same issue come back over and over again and smack us in the face (or rear).
Listen to Dr. Colleen Mullen, celebrity therapist, and Jennifer Longmore, intuitive healer, discuss the many facets of being blocked, and most importantly, how to overcome it on this week’s installment What Women Want Talk Radio.
Once upon a time, in a summer stock theater troupe in a galaxy far far away, I was assigned to play one of those obscure Shakespearean characters. This was one of those comedic relief characters in the heavy drama right before the king gets killed. If you are an actor, you know these characters exist in the Bard’s work and they are hard to nail. Mine was the Duchess of York in Richard II. In many productions of the play, this scene and this character are cut.
Weeks of rehearsal and the director’s input were more about purging the bad choices than discovering the good. It was trial-and-error and both trial-by-fire AND error at the same time, almost all the weeks of working the scene on stage. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this quirky character in this equally off-the-wall scene. People wanted to get to the poetic and tragic death of the king, right? I was frustrated.
It wasn’t until I owned the character’s block as my block that I did finally break through.
Here’s how.
The group I was working with paid special attention to the meter of the verse and had a process of using the verse as the momentum of the emotion. My meter was irregular. Great. Irregular scene, quirky character with irregular meter. Awesome. So reading the scene for the umpteenth time, I decided to make her obstacles my obstacles and my thoughts about those obstacles hers.
What was her obstacle?
Getting in the door-literally. In the scene, the character was locked out of a room.
I decided to improvise using a make-shift battering ram. Using the sound effect value of the battering ram helped me focus my intentions, beat (literally) the pesky meters and own it. I made a big, bold choice and it worked for me.
So, not of all of us are going to have to delve into weird characters in the Bard’s world, but we may get handed a sort of surreal set of circumstances.
Tips:
Own the block—cautiously. Don’t make harsh judgments about yourself. There’s a language difference between “I am blocked,” and “I am experiencing a block”. Verbs move you through. Adjectives might weigh you down.
Identify the most basic part of the obstacle. What’s your basic objective or intention? Start there and get specific. If it’s a conceptual block, try externalizing (mind-mapping, modeling). Perhaps it needs to get out of the head and into the body or on paper.
What is not working? Keep discarding the things that are not yielding the results you want. Keep at it. Keep moving. Don’t let the block weigh you down spiritually or emotionally.
Make a big, bold choice when it makes sense. If it doesn’t work, discard.
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.” HENRY VI, PART III
It’s true that actors suffer for their art. We go to countless auditions, get told no more often than yes, among many other grievances. Actors are bettors. They gamble on themselves constantly, each day, in the name of their art and their talent.
As someone who’s experienced this twice, there may come a time in your acting life where you may be on stage or on set and someone you love dies. The thespian’s motto is “The show must go on.” Yes, it does, but sometimes it may not be in your long-term best interest for it to go on with you. Sometimes, though, the time on stage or on set may be healing.
The first time this happened to me, I was 17 years old and performing in a community production of Othello Though it wasn’t a professional production, I treated acting as my profession. My grandfather died a week before opening night. My mother spoke to director on my behalf and his response to her was, “Is she still going to be in the show? She’s really talented.” It was about the show for that director, not necessarily what could be done to keep me in a safer space. When I came back to rehearsal, it was weird. Fellow cast members didn’t know what to say to me or how to act. I didn’t hold that against them. It’s hard to know what to say when someone close to you has someone die. I was very close to my grandfather and though legally almost an adult, I had a hard time coping with all the feelings.
The second time this happened to me was six months ago. My godfather, whom I held in high regard, died unexpectedly. We had been talking on the phone a lot in the six months prior. He was going through stuff. He was in mourning himself and then took a sudden turn for the worse. I was in the middle of filming a short film when I heard the news of his death. I let my director know what was going on via email and he was very kind and compassionate. He let the cast and crew know that I had a death. Everyone was very kind. He worked around my schedule so that I could leave the state to go to the funeral. He was a true professional.
Both times, at least to me, there was no discernible impact to my performance. I got on stage and set and executed the director’s vision to the best of my ability. However, I can tell you that the earlier experience with the death of my grandfather has followed me in some not-so-healthy ways. When I saw another production of Othello five years after my grandfather’s death, I was in tears most of the play. I had this deep association of Othello with my grandfather’s death. I saw Othello two years later and I was just angry the whole time. I had to go because of the drama academy I was enrolled in required me to go. I am hoping time will help me shed my baggage with Othello.
Here’s some advice to you if you are acting and lose a loved one:
As actors, we constantly search for emotion. We study emotion. There will be times when our life on stage and screen may be impacted by a death or other tragedy. Above all else, “…to thine own self be true,” and care for yourself in your time of loss. As an actor, you are your instrument, you are your truth and you owe it to yourself to care for yourself as best you can in your time of loss.
Here’s a recap of my recent adventure to Idyllwild via PR LOG.
