Austin's funniest villain? Find out Dec. 14!

I had a blast doing my comedy debut at Cap City Comedy Club back in November. Now, I'm ready to go back for seconds. Come join me and several dozen of my closest friends on Monday, December 14, at 8 p.m., for a great lineup of some 20 rookies, and a veteran headline act. It's a fun night out. Besides, after all the fiscal doom and gloom this year, who couldn't use a good laugh?

Choose your rut

There is a sign on an muddy dirt road: "Choose your rut carefully. You'll be in it for the next 26 miles."

Mary and I chose Austin, Texas. As ruts go, it's pretty awesome. As major movie projects go, well, we're kind of in a rut.

Other actor friends of mine chose L.A. As big studio movie projects go, it has been, and still is, the place to be. As a place of business, L.A. looks like it's becoming a pretty big rut, according to this op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Casting director and actor Mark Sikes, along with millions of other people, think L.A. is the bee's knees. Mary and I thought it was pretty cool, too, though with all the usual caveats- too expensive, traffic sucks (REALLY sucks, not like Austin traffic sucks), and smog, though it's gotten better. As a young single person, I think it would be great. As an old married couple with kids looking for a house and good schools, not so much. Especially not as a struggling actor. But Sikes is quick to note "[Y]ou'll be here ten years minimum. If that sounds like a prison sentence then you might want to get out now. "

Hey, every place has it's good and bad.

The Texas legislature recently passed historic incentives to lure productions back to Texas. I was in Shreveport for an audition last week, and a fellow actor mentioned that the Louisiana just passed higher incentives to keep productions there. More rut for us? *Sigh...*

One attraction of states like Texas or Louisiana is the absence of city and state income taxes, like the ones that Newcombe's WSJ article rails against. You also get a lot of quality life for your money. Summer is hotter, but we don't have earthquakes. Shreveport is nice, but basically a gambling town. My agent once offered my wife and I the chance to run her New Orleans office years ago, but I'm opposed to drowning in hurricanes. A well-known movie and television star once confided to me: "Hell, yes, I'd prefer to live in Austin. What actor wouldn't? But L.A. is where the work is."

With so much capability in the hands of independent filmmakers, and the old studio model changing under our feet, it is important to look at TQL- the Total Quality of Life package for whichever rut you choose.

For us, Texas, and Austin in particular, is pretty hard to beat. Forbes Magazine agrees, with Texas claiming the top five spots for Best Big Cities for Jobs in 2009. Austin is usually near the top of most such lists, whether it's CNN, Kiplinger, U.S. News and World Report, or acting colleagues. Most actors are unemployed most of the time, so we need other jobs to make ends meet. Those jobs are getting harder to find in L.A., even waitstaff jobs, the actor's bread-and-butter gig!

So when you're considering where to hang out your filmmaker shingle, choose your rut carefully. You'll be in it a long time.

Sonny Castillo gets busy, 02-style

Love this clip from my friend Sonny, who was one of the thugs menacing my character in Kat Candler's Ninja James and the Beast Boy shoot. Funny stuff!

ATX is jumpin'

Winter is a traditionally slow time for acting work here in Austin, but I have had about 5 auditions in the last couple of weeks! Three were commercials, true, but it is nice to get the calls.

In the bigger picture, though, Texas is losing the battle for film incentives to other states. The Texas Motion Picture Alliance is trying to change that, lobbying the state legislature to boost incentives to lure production back to Texas, which once swallowed up runaway Hollywood productions left and right.

Photo: Curtis Wayne hard at work answering fan mail. Keep it coming! :-)

That's a wrap!

Director Kat Candler declared a wrap on the shooting of Ninja James & The Beast Boy yesterday, and producer Leslie Langee celebrates here by popping open champagne (a surprise gift from Scott Colquitt).

The day started cold as Hades, about 30' Farenheit, from the 6 a.m. call time until about 8 a.m. But by noon it was a beautiful, cool, sunny, fall day, perfect for filming. The sun fell pretty quickly starting about 4:00 p.m., but by that time, we were all done except for some quick audio and close-ups of Savanah's character, my wife "Jane".  The cast and crew have been absolutely fabulous. Everybody worked so hard to make this a success.  

There is still the grueling post-production 

remaining, but from my vantage point, it 

was waaaaay smooth. I am sure that it was not that smooth from Kat and Leslie's view, but that's what makes them pros: they kept all that hidden from us meat puppets. 

There was absolutely no whining on this set at all (except maybe by me, when I was freezing my nipples off!). It was a wonderful esprit de corps, and my hat is off to the entire cast and crew, 

starting with Kat.

I hope to work with these talented filmmakers again.

Photo by Larry Furnace

Starz exec Rob Markovich reception

The Austin Screenwriters Group held a pretty swanky reception tonight for Rob Markovich, Director of Original Programming for the Starz movie channel network. Rob has been the driving force behind such Starz series as Crash, Head Case, and Hollywood Residential.

At the ASG meeting, he talked about where his network, and the industry in general are heading (episodic TV, not movies), and how aspiring writers could get their scripts read. He was a great guest, very informative and gracious with his time, and I really appreciate him speaking to ASG.

I pitched Rob some of my own TV and film ideas, and he liked them. Hopefully we can discuss them more when I'm in L.A. In the meantime, I'm going to try and connect him with my friend Mike Alvarez, who might have an animation co-production deal that Rob would like.

Curtain call

The final performance of Shards concluded on Saturday evening, May 29. Several friends came out to the show, and we had a great after-party over the weekend, at the conclusion of Kuka, one of the other plays in The Love Sonatas series of plays by Manuel Zarate.

I had a great time doing the play, and really enjoyed the character of Rololpho. Pictured above are the four actors who played Rodolpho in the various plays. I hope to work with these great folks again sometime.

Many, many hugs and thanks to:
Liz Atherton (for the call), Paula Russell, Beth Burroughs, Jon Boatwright, Christina Childress, Chase Wooldridge, Chris Doubek, Bethany Perkins, Amanda Garfield, Glenda Barnes, and all the other wonderful cast and crew of The Love Sonatas, plus all of my friends who came out to support me, including Vicki, Shirley, Russell Harding, Bob Russell, Cynthia Gonzales, and many others.

Much love, y'all!!! See you on Broadway.

B-Boys gettin' it done

This Wednesday (October 4), I spotted my buddy Frank Brantley doing a cameo spot on ABC TV’s “Ugly Betty”.

Frank played a sidewalk cafe patron who is accosted by America Ferrera (Betty).

Well done, Frank. Keep on representing that Texas talent!

Go to Prison, do not pass "Go"

My wife sent me to prison.

Sort of. Actually, my agent Liz Atherton sent me. But my wife kicked my ass to go, when I was about to wuss out. You know, these auditions are long shots, and it’s hard to get motivated, especially when your life is hectic, work is slamming, and you’re driving 4 hours each way just for the opportunity to be rejected.

Or, in this case, sent to the Big House.

I landed on the set of Fox TV’s hugely popular hit show ‘Prison Break’, and spent two 16-hour days baking in rock-hard clay in the center of a steaming prison set in a former, uh, prison in downtown Dallas, Texas, with 150 of my newest friends and fellow inmates. By night, when the temperature dropped a bit, we were soaked under industrial-strength rain sticks perched about 4 stories above us. It was, I have to say, pretty fucking miserable.

But oh, what a great look for that scene.

As the pic shows, even the sun glaring in my eyes kicks my butt, not to mention the two toughs on either side of me! (Nice guys, though- really.)