Ted Danson still goes to an acting coach

I love it when I hear how a big name actor still goes to an acting coach when he’s having questions.

This is from a Washington Post interview:

You’ve said you went to an acting coach before you started “Damages.” Did you need to learn how to be evil?

In drama — and I’m exaggerating — you can show up drunk, divorced and in a bad mood and the camera goes, “Oh, wow, that’s interesting.” All you have to do is be real and have fun in the moment . . . and here I am about to go play a billionaire narcissist. [Acting coach] Harold Guskin got me to stop being a nice actor. . . . There was an arrogance that he gave me to the acting process that was fun to play with.

Sally Steiner/Barbie Block Pilot

The pilot is called, Two Dollar Beer, and it centers around Luke Stelter and his friends – a bunch of blue collar guys in their 20’s living in Detroit.

Sally Stiner/Barbie Block
20th Century Fox
10201 W. Pico Blvd
Bldg 1, Room 138
Los Angeles, CA 90035

Alan Rosenberg sings the blues. Literally!

This is a must listen!

What do you think?

Read the lyrics after the jump
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Pilots: Send your stuff!

Donna Rosenstein Casting has a new pilot, “Happy Town.”

DONNA ROSENSTEIN CASTING
800 S. MAIN ST.
#202
BURBANK, CA 91506

Cami Patton has a new as yet untitled pilot, Untitled Reincarnation Project.

Click here for the address

SAG & AMPTP meet next week

Screen Actors Guild and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to Meet Tuesday

Los Angeles (January 28, 2009) —  Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will meet February 3 and 4, at the AMPTP offices in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

We will have no further comment about the meeting.

Strike talk at the SAG Awards

It’s nice to see some people actually talked about the strike at last Sunday’s awards. Although, some of them didn’t really say either way what they really wanted to happen.

Interview with former SAG President Richard Masur

Blog Stage has an interview with former SAG president Richard Masur.

It’s a good, timely interview regarding the recent ousting of Doug Allen and the state of SAG.

The firing of Doug [Allen] seems to be a pretty aggressive and antagonistic move. How can SAG stop the cycle of recrimination and retribution?

I would like to disagree with your characterization of the move. It is a culmination of months and months of patient requests, exhortations and, finally, demands that a change be made and that sanity be returned to the organization, which began with the September election of 19 people to the Hollywood board of directors. Doug Allen has never acknowledged that a shift happened and Alan Rosenberg has never [acknowledged it], and Anne-Marie Johnson—the quote unquote vice president from Hollywood who is supposed to be representing all of Hollywood and not just Membership First—has never acknowledged that a shift took place. Quietly and with tremendous patience requests have been made to change course, to get sane, to come up with a solution for what’s been going on and repeatedly these requests have been denied, ignored, or just thrown out. Finally, when this group of people was no longer willing to sit there and remain silent and remain patient, they went into this board meeting and said, ‘Now we must take action.’ Power was abused, rules were broken, and I believe the law was broken. This is a moderate response, which is a culmination of months of patience and thoughtful attention to handle a difficult situation. To describe it as confrontational and aggressive— If we wanted to be aggressive, we would have walked at the October plenary and we would have fired this guy, which we had the votes to do, we would have changed the committee, which we had the votes to do, but we didn’t.

Read the rest here

Kate Winslet has a conversation about "The Reader"

I haven’t seen “The Reader” yet even though the DVD has been sitting on my TV stand for a while now. I just can’t seem to put it in the Blu-Ray player.

But, after watching this it’s made me want to watch it now.

Here, Kate Winslet talks to Charlie Rose (along with the director, Stephen Daldry, and the other star of the film, David Kross) about the film.

SAG e-mail from Alan Rosenberg

My Fellow Screen Actors Guild Members,

Yesterday, on January 26th, a slim majority of our National Board voted to fire our National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, Doug Allen. This was not accomplished  in a face-to-face Board meeting, where the significant minority would have had an opportunity to voice its opinion and where Mr. Allen would have had a chance to face his accusers and address their concerns. Instead, this drastic action was accomplished by “written assent”, the most undemocratic provision allowed by our Constitution.

As your twice-elected National President, I feel that it is my responsibility to give you my perspective on yesterday’s events, although my ability to do so is somewhat limited. The same majority, 52.52%,  that fired Mr. Allen also voted to change our Board policy that designated the National President to be one of the official spokespeople for the Guild. As of yesterday, the only two people who are permitted to officially speak for Screen Actors Guild are our newly appointed interim NED, David White, and John McGuire, our Senior Advisor from New York. The members now have no official voice. I appreciate the fact that Mr. White thinks it is preposterous to silence a duly elected national officer, and so has permitted me this forum, provided I inform you that what I am about to write represents my opinion. However, although I am not writing on behalf of the Guild, I believe I do speak for the nearly 48% percent of the Board who are deeply concerned about what was done yesterday and about how these changes were accomplished.

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James Franco: "When I saw Spicoli, I wanted to make out with him"

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