© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Actor for Hire

With the explosion of cable TV, Netflix and the DVD market, there are more opportunities than ever for actors, but movie-making remains a competitive business – a point underscored with humor by a Fredericksburg native in the new film Actor for Hire.  It was selected to show at 22 film festivals including Virginia’s, where it sold out.  Sandy Hausman reports on the man and the movie. 

Actor for Hire is the story of a balding young man struggling to find work and an agent in Hollywood. In the course of the film he also loses his girlfriend, his best friend and his apartment -- but he keeps on auditioning.

It’s a familiar scene for Fredericksburg actor Greg Perrow, who caught the show biz bug when he was  just 16. 

“I had a friend who did work as an extra on a Tom Cruise movie that filmed in Virginia," he recalls. 

"After doing some research I found out Michael Douglas was shooting The Sentinel in Washington, D.C., and I got on in the background, and it was just the most incredible experience -- the cameras, the lights, the crews, standing next to Michael Douglas.  They fed us filet mignon.  I mean it was a wonderful, mystical experience, and I said to myself, ‘I am going to do film and television.’”

He took acting classes at James Madison University, got an agent in Wilmington, North Carolina – a lively regional center for film & TV production.  There he landed parts in One Tree Hill, Revenge, and Drop Dead Diva.  Then it was on to California, where he was cast in Anger Management, started a business helping fellow actors make demo reels and – when necessary – worked a day job.

“There’s plenty of opportunities to make money In Los Angeles.  You can get a bartending job where in all honesty you make as much as a starting accountant.”

But he always makes time for auditions.

“We don’t think you’re right for the part.  Thanks for coming in.” 

As Actor for Hire illustrates, over and over again, being a performer means being rejected.

“The ups and downs are very real.  I mean on the same day that I booked The Originals, I spent seven hours preparing for an audition for a producer session.  I got to the session, and the producers literally said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. There must have been a misunderstanding.  You’re clearly too old for the part. We’re not going to read you.”

Perrow copes with the stress in three ways. First, he works to ensure his life is happy when he’s not working.  He takes time for the mountains and the beach.  Second, he reminds himself that rejection isn’t personal, and that many things are out of his control. And he holds onto a note written to him by one of his professors.

“It said, ‘When you go to an audition, it’s like this is your theater and your final performance.  Everything before was a rehearsal… and when you’re finished you take your bow, and the show’s over.”

Perrow is 28 and still waiting for his big break, and that’s okay.  He’s been happy with the roles he’s played – the lead in an Indy Film called Texas Rain due out soon, and smaller roles in the Originals and in Actor for Hire, which was released this year. 

Related Content