On June 20th, in a Broadway Show League softball game, I injured my right knee. I had just finished pinch-running and sprinting home to score. I walked around a little bit just after it, sat down, got back up ... then something went crazy behind my knee. It felt like something had snapped! While I don't remember pain from it, it was quite a freaky sensation. I batted and ran the bases after it still, but limped home and I've been limping ever since! My doctor suspected a torn lateral meniscus--essentially, torn cartilage. An X-ray suggested an avulsion fracture--something tearing off a small piece of bone--but I have an MRI this Friday to determine the real problem.

I expect surgery, but I also expect a quick recovery. For now, I'm getting around with a cane, walking with a stiff leg, but I'm able to sit down and slowly, carefully bend my knee. I've also been getting around via Razor scooter, as my leg stiffens enough for me to plant it painlessly on my scooter and push myself. It has been a trying time dealing with my health plan; it first turned down my doctor's request for an MRI, a decision we had to appeal when the X-ray report recommended one. I can only hope for speedy closure to this injury, and maybe I can do the marathon this year ... I got into the NYC Marathon for the second year in a row!

ON THE ACTING FRONT . . .

My most standout experience of recent was auditioning in May to be the announcer on the talk show for Fergie, The Duchess of York. Paramount is taping the pilot this summer, and they wanted a really young, energetic announcer--20-24 years old. My audition was put on tape saying simply "It's Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York" in several different ways. They held the interview and audition in a small office at The Maury Povich Show.

Background work--aka "extra work"--has been plentiful over the last month, and I've been able to balance it well with my other commitments. Also, last week I went on a print ad "go-see" for AMD (the Intel rival). A "go-see" is an audition where they just want to see what you look like--they had me fill out a card and took my picture. I got that audition as the first through my agency, Agents for the Arts. I had an interview last Friday with another agency, Ingber & Associates, a talent agency that represents commercial actors. My taking a commercial intensive with Mary Egan & Brooke Thomas of Liz Lewis Casting Partners in May proved a great decision for me, as the agency knew from a mailing of mine that I had taken this highly-recommended class and called them for a referral.

Last Saturday, I had a long-awaited callback for the Full Stop Films project called Eurotrash, the trailer to which they're filming in October to generate interest for doing the feature-length. Summers are very slow in NYC, and there haven't been nearly as many auditions as I had in the winter. I have gone on nearly 50 Equity Principal Auditions so far this year, and those EPA's have dwindled to about one every couple weeks!

Classwise, this month I'm taking a dialect class at Verberations, LLC, to learn some new accents, and the Brain Upgrade Seminar at The Learning Annex to sharpen my comprehension and memory.

Here's a list of some of the sets I've worked on of recent:

5/14/02 Smack in the Kisser, or A Few Good Years (now called It Runs in the Family)
Old Kirk Douglas was there as I played a jogger in Central Park. I was paired with a nice blonde named Tasha, and we approach and pass from behind a disoriented Kirk Douglas as a guy almost slams into him and yells, "Outta the way, old man!" The whole shoot took one hour in the morning--a full day's pay for such little time! I was wearing all black--long-sleeved top and running tights, with an mp3 player mounted on my left hip.

6/14/02 The 25th Hour
This dreary shoot in the DUMBO part of Brooklyn (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) started at 6pm and didn't finish until 6am. I was one of many people in line for a popular nightclub, and we waited and waited outside in the cold and drizzle and rain--often without coats or umbrellas--as Spike Lee logged takes of Ed Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and some other notable actors I don't recognize. I was paired for much of the night with a brunette named Vera and a blonde named Tate, toward the back of the line which stretched around a block. I don't know what the scene being shot involved, so it's tough to say whether I was seen. Near the end of the shoot, they had a young actress with a camera strapped to her body walk the length of the line, talking into the camera--I may have been seen in those takes. I was one of the only people wearing a suit; the casting office designated I play a "VIP," so dark suit it was.


6/18/02 How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days
Walking side-by-side on the sidewalk for a few seconds with a tall redhead named Julie, she & I pass Kate Hudson flanked by two other actresses after they have crossed the street in Tribeca. I think they are talking about boys in the scene, which takes place at night. I am wearing a champagne-colored long-sleeved t-shirt with orange shoulder-trim and my sleeves pushed up. My back is to the camera.


6/19/02 The Chicken Club (now called Porn 'n Chicken)
This is the first movie that Comedy Central is putting out. I was expecting it to be yet another day working background, but I was immediately upgraded to stand-in for one of the film's leads, Ebon Moss-Bachrach. A stand-in serves as "second team" when shooting--essentially, stand-ins are placeholders for the principals when setting up shots. While I didn't do any background work that day, it was a fun day spent at a coffeeshop called Bean on the Upper West Side, and later at Columbia for a night shoot. It was a great time because I got to do some acting in running the sides when they were settling on the timing for shots.


6/25/02 The Woody Allen Spring Project 2002, aka Anything Else
Woody Allen, Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs ... We, the crew, and about 50 extras were packed into a hot loft space in the East Village, filming an actors' party scene. Woody was very quiet, talking mostly to just one or two people who followed him around. Christina Ricci has really big eyes. There was another beautiful girl in the scene, I believe named Erika Thompson--a cross between Sharon Stone and Sigourney Weaver to my eyes, but like 20. The camera panned across me while far in the background, but it proved relatively all for naught ... read on ...


6/28/02 Maybelline "Wrap 'Em" Commercial
Commercial background is substantially more lucrative than working background on film. And for this day, I believe I will be paid twice--they were doing a 30-second and 15-second spot, and the background get paid for each spot. (The check's in the mail...) This was just a lot of honest background work of walking around really close to the camera or off in the distance. I was wearing a black buttondown shirt for the day. The first part of the day was outdoors, then we went indoors into a vacated shoe store with wavy walls for a party scene. One little bit of controversy that may lead to additional pay is that during the party scene, the director had the actress do her lines at first in English, but then in French. If they were filming a third, French version of the commercial in this shoot, we get compensated appropriately. I have alerted the union, SAG, to what happened.


7/5/02 W.A.S.P. '02 Reshoot
... Kee Casting called to check my availability for re-shooting the loft party. I'm standing in the same place I as in the first day--by the glass table near the staircase in the back, clutching my cane. I'm dressed in a brown t-shirt and gray cargo pants. Same people were there: Woody Allen, Christina Ricci, Jason Biggs, and that "Erika Thompson" person. They changed the camera angle for this re-shoot, and Christina Ricci's outfit--from a nice black dress the first day, to something more casual and bright this day.


7/8/02 The Chambermaid, aka Uptown Girl (now called Maid in Manhattan)
I can say that worlds collided this day, as Jennifer Lopez brushed her world-famous rump across my finger! I was standing near a potted tree at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (in this film called the "Beresford Hotel") with J.Lo sitting behind me between takes. She suddenly got up and walked between the tree and me, her butt making contact with my finger! It was very sudden and she didn't even notice the contact--she was wearing a long sweater. But it did happen, I guarantee!

I was in three different setups. The first, I had my cane and I walked into the doors on the far left (if you were facing the hotel). I'm wearing black slacks and a light-red buttondown, a heavy black jacket over me. J.Lo is saying something about emeralds, maybe rubies. They did alternate takes with her talking into a cell phone. The second, I was wearing more of a long sportcoat, walking without my cane into the doors that Ralph Fiennes and J.Lo walk out of and into paparazzi. Just as Stanley Tucci with a gray dog mentions someone named Maddox, in most takes I was entering through those doors. The third, I never made it into, but I was prepped to walk through a scene that has Ralph Fiennes signing an autograph for a blonde (who was upgraded from background to principal because they gave her a line!) just before he gets into his car.


7/9/02 Molly Gunn (now called Uptown Girls)
I didn't know who Brittany Murphy or Dakota Fanning were, but they star in this film. (Hey, I bet they don't know me, either!) I worked background in Coney Island, Brooklyn, a day that was interrupted by a downpour. I didn't get used in a shot (most likely because I was wearing a bright shirt, even though they didn't say anything about bright colors) until late at night, walking through Astroland far in the background for a scene between Brittany & Dakota. When we were wrapped, 8-year-old Dakota let me have the last slice of pizza in a box craft services left. Here I was, humbling myself to an 8-year-old movie star whose resume already kicks my butt, and I've been doing this for twice as long! I was wearing a white, striped short-sleeve shirt, gray cargo pants, black shoes, and featuring my prominent awkward walk because of my knee injury.


I'm still going strong despite my injury, and my career investments this year are slowly paying off. I hope they continue to. Now, do you have a project for me?