QUITTERS CAN'T WIN

During the time of frustration young Actors face they should know a story about the Hollywood sign.

A urban legend says that at the beginnings of 1900 an enthusiastic young lady moved to her uncle's place in Los Angeles to get in the film industry and become a successful Actress.

But things didnt't go the way she figured: after about a hundred castings she didn't get a single call back, and getting more and more depressed, a night she climbed the H of the famous Hollywood sign and threw herself.

If she just waited a few hours more she would have recived a letter her uncle took instead, saying an important Studio had casted her for a role in a film.

Moral of this story: quitters can't win.

HOW TO REACH ACTORS

Unlike their agents, Actors are usually good people.

I guess this is because in their lives they suffered from failures and lack of opportunities, they felt frustrated, have been poor and close to give up, and the most of them know what means to receive an unexpected Yes that changes your life, or at least gives you the strenght and the optimism to continue.

This is why Actors in general are nice and willing to take part on your project if they like it, even if there is little or no money involved.

But how can you reach them?

On the internet it's plenty of sites with the agent's contact details, but they focus just on money: how can you skip the agents?

You know the theory of the 6 steps that separate us from anyone in the World.

What usually people do is thinking on someone they know, that could know someone, that could know someone that could know an Actor.

This is a quiet easy way to reach an Actor (not the best Actor for the role: just an Actor).

But I suggest to do the opposite.

A while ago I was interested in the most famous Italian Actor, and there was no way I could pay for his usual salary.

So I made a research on his life and found out his family came from a small town.

Then I took the phone and started calling all the people with his family name and the one of his mother.

After a while I reached his aunt.

Well, I'm not sure this is completely legal, but you know, The purpose justifies the action...

THE BIG SECRET OF THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

People usually ask me if I met some actors in Cannes during the Festival. Yes I did, but that’s not the most juicy part of the tale.
The really interesting thing that no journalist tells is that it’s all fake: all this inaccessibility is actually just a way the Cannes Council uses to let people talk about this event on which they spend a lot of money.

If people knew Actors are around, make shopping and go to restaurants it would all become something usual, like in London and Los Angeles.

Cannes is a nice little town that lives on tourism and for 10 days a year earns the attention of the World: they can’t afford an actor to walk alone the 200 meters that separate the Hotel Martinez from the Palais.

So at a certain time of the afternoon the main street is closed and the police start bottle up the pedestrians.
All of a sudden you can’t walk freely anymore: you’re stopped to let pass cars of the Festival that care VIPs.
Policemen force passers by to press themselves against the barriers of the Hotel Martinez (from where the cars of the Festival pull off), and this increases the mess.
Then start to come passers by who are attracted by all this concentration of people.

Confusion becomes frenzy to see and take pictures of someone known passing in the cars.
From a balcony of the hotel a young lady waves her arm to the people like a goddess, and all of us take pictures of her enthusiastically, even thought she’s too far to understand who she is.

The black cars of the Festival come and go from the hotel, all now, but who’s inside them? Hard to say, because the wind shields are darkened.
Isn’t it strange? This event is based on the opportunity for normal people to see some actors just a few meters from them: darkening the screens doesn’t make any sense.

Unless…

I bend a little, in an uncomfortable position and the Sun on my face. From there, I can see the inside of the cars that slowly pass by in front of me, and…
they’re empty.

All this people are jubilant and fight to take pictures of empty cars.
So there aren’t any actors at all? No, they’re in the not obscured screen cars.

It’s the idea of the inaccessibility of these people that makes them fascinating: the guy who until a few minutes ago was just getting an ice cream in the main street now is surrounded by bodyguards to protect him.
But is the Festival itself that made up this need for security.

It’s all fake: last year I was cueing for the screening of a film, and behind me there was the Actress of Notte Prima degli Esami Oggi. I didn’t remember what her name was, so I didn’t say anything.

I get into the cinema, I sit down and I have a mega screen where they show in real time what happens outside, and here is the Actress who a few minutes ago was cueing with me, now on the red carpet, to let the photographers take pictures of her, and all of a sudden inaccessible.

And here’s another news: what happens when an Artist hasn’t time to go to the Hotel Martinez and for any reason is already at the Palais, without doing his crowd bath?

Then there’s a secondary entrance that leads them in a reserved area, where one of the official cars takes them, does roughly 150 meters to circle the Palais and leaves them in front of the photographers and the crowd.