Riding the Hollywood Glacier 2

By Denny Dormody

You'll be behind the scenes of movie sets like Spiderman 2012 in 3-D, Ayn Rand's long-awaited epic
Atlas Shrugged, Public Enemies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Angels & Demons, and on TV sets like Law & Order LA, NCIS-Los Angeles, Dexter, Justified, Entourage, The Office, HBO's Luck with Dustin Hoffman, Mad Men, TNT's The Closer, CSI-New York with Emmy and Golden Globe winner Gary Sinese and on the world's most popular TV drama, CSI-Miami with David Caruso.

Take your shot at Hollywood! Here's some practical anecdotal advice! Go the distance! Make it! Be a working actor! Survive Hollywood! You couldn't buy this education! Until Now!


This is the second best book ever written on background acting. This dude, Denny, knows his stuff! Don't hold that against him. Read Dennys book!
Cullen Chambers, Author of Award Winning #1 Bestseller: 'Back To One, The Movie Extras Guidebook'
Denny Dormody, I hope you become a much better writer. Kirk Douglas
Comedy scribes Denny Dormody & Michael Conley have inked with Loeb & Loeb for literary representation.
The Hollywood Reporter

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463435844

Denny Dormody

Comedy writer Denny Dormody, an active member of the Screen Actors Guild, has been on more movie sets thatn you've had hot lunches. He's spoken with the Best of the Best. Al Pacino. David Fincher. George Clooney. Clint Eastwood. Kevin Costner. Conrad Hall. Lawrence Felinghetti. Jeff Corey. Paul McCartney. Lew Wasserman. Sylvester Stallone. Gregory Peck. Kirk Douglas and many more. "I needed a Starbucl's Latte. I needed a lot of Headshots. I needed an office on a backlot. I needed a part in a Rom-Com. What I had was: Uber Credit, an audition and a smile. I put my game face and went out of the room. . . "

Book preview

Riding the

Hollywood Glacier 2

Denny Dormody

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 Denny Dormody. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 8/11/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3583-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3584-4 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

No background extras were harmed during

the production of this book.

Well, maybe a few.

This book is dedicated to my greatest inspirations:

Our son Michael at the University of California at Santa Cruz and

our daughter Diane in Heaven.

In Loving Memory

Tom Koba

1946-2007

What do you call an actor without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

What is the difference between a DP* and God?

There is no difference.

*Director of Photography

Contents

Angels in America

Call me Denny.

Heidi & I

Brad & I Do Lunch

Acting Addendum

Saying No to Yes Men

We the Applauding

One Night in Fresno

One Day in San Bernardino

One Saturday at USC

The L-Word

Misinformed on The Informers

Dexter

LOLA

Mean Streets

CSI-Miami

Man of a Thousand Voices

LOL

I Do Brain Surgery

I Do Cannes

I Do Sundance

I Get Lines

I, The Background

Transforming LA

Lieutenant Dan

The Curious Case

Plastics

Going the Distance

Yo Apollo

A Day at the Races

A Crowded Hallway

A Place in the Sun

Help, Help Me Wanda

Felony on a Freeway

Good Morning Long Beach

Dirty, Sexy, Monet

NOHO Arts Center Blues

Blades of Dummies

Shakespeare in the Rain

City Lights

Out of the Loop

Entourage Dogs:

Season 6, Episode 1&2

Deja vu with Denzel

Happy Happy Joy Joy

The Office

‘Don’t Tase Me Bro’

On the Day

NCIS: Los Angeles

Marisa & I

Return to Piru

Justified

The Palm

The Last ER

The Gilmore Guys

Ten Million Little Indians

Smokers on a Plane

The Closer

Cold Case

Right Out of Central Casting

Simple Stuff Really

Acknowledgements

Angels in America

Angels tell you to keep on trying. Keep punching. Keep at it. Don’t give up!

Angels loan you a few bucks till payday.

Angels loan you an umbrella and when the rain turns into a monsoon, they don’t demand the umbrella back. They patiently wait.

Angels keep you going.

Angels, to all of you, thank you.

Call me Denny.

A lot has happened since the publication of my original book, Riding The Hollywood Glacier. You Tube and iPhones and iPads and Facebook have chronicled the mayhem: The political upheavals, the beach frontage in Malibu, the mud wrestling gig with Betty White on the Super Bowl commercial, the LAPD line-up shot of me in the Hawaiian shirt, the alleged Cayman Islands money laundering scandal and those career-stopping larger than life photos on the front page of The Onion.

Of course the above paragraph is totally made up. Hopefully this feeble attempt at saving you from leading your life of quiet desperation, has given you a smile or two. That’s my goal. It’s been such a buzz on-set to see people read and enjoy my first book. I hope you’ll find these stories also entertaining and inspiring. And cool. Miles Davis cool.

This is a very hip digital age and one of the unique realities of self-publishing is that, in spite of dozens of tireless friends acting as surrogate proofreaders and other checks and balances, typos and spelling errors will occur. Thanks for looking past them.

I can imagine other self-publishers like Mark Twain, John Grisham and Deepak Chopra, thumbing through their newly printed book copies, all frantically rechecking their spelling. Go figure.

Whether it’s painting The Sistine Chapel, crafting Picasso’s Guernica or writing a book about the art of the movies, nothing is perfect this side of heaven. It’s a lesson in the arts for all of us.

This book does not contain cut-and-paste lists of casting directors. You can get those names on-line or when you get to LA. But get here.

You can’t be a player living in Cleveland. In Boston. In Devil’s Elbow, Missouri.

Thanks for being on board for Riding The Hollywood Glacier 2.

Want to be a player in the new Hollywood?

Read on.

Heidi & I

I’m watching the Oscars. The booming-voice announcer says Live from The Kodak Theater, located at Highland and Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles, It’s the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Once again I’m not nominated. Not for Best Actor. Not for Best Supporting Actor. Not even for Best Dog Catcher. Doesn’t the Academy know who I am? I’ve appeared in over 100 movies and TV shows. What does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences know anyway? My revenge is at hand. I’ve ordered a Little Caesar’s $5 pizza.

Will I always be on the wrong side of the red carpet? Why can’t the Academy show a clip from one of my pivotal roles as a background extra? This year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is nominated for Best Picture. I worked on that show.

I’m seated in the theater audience as Brad Pitt sneaks in to watch Cate Blanchett’s New York ballet debut. Unfortunately, I was off-frame. About 30 feet off-frame. My whole life has been off-frame. Well, maybe next year. As another category is announced I reach for another slice of hot, drippy pizza. I wash it down with a can of icy cold Diet Coke.

It’s a cast of thousands in the audience and a cast of millions watching on TV and on-line. Moviegoers from 180 countries are watching, estimated to be a viewing audience of 2 billion. In America alone, the audience is around 70 million.

Imagine appearing on the Oscars telecast. That would be my ultimate revenge. My ultimate payback to those bullies in grade school. To those bullies in high school. To those bullies in college. To those bullies in the military. To those bullies at my wedding.

I guess it’s time to move on. I reach for another slice of pizza. Revenge is at hand and I don’t even know it.

Across town super model and fashion icon Heidi Klum is probably also watching the Oscars. My date for the evening is Little Caesar’s Best. Heidi is probably watching the Academy telecast with 300 of her closest friends. Friends probably with names like Armani, Versace, Boss, Gucci, Canali, Prada and Zegna. By now she has probably forgotten that she and I worked together a couple of months ago.

It was a soft drink commercial. It was just another blur in my Blackberry-rushed schedule of background extra gigs as we hustle around LA waiting for the suits to buy one of our comedy screenplays. It was somewhere between playing a convention goer on the second-to-the-last episode of Prison Break and playing a smiling cocktail party guest mingling with Rob Lowe and Sally Field on Brothers & Sisters. It was just another rent-paying gig for me. Yes, it was nice to work with a $100,000 an hour model like Heidi Klum. Yes, it was nicer to receive my $175 check.

Hail Caesar, I’m down to my last slice of pizza. The final awards are waiting in the wings. Best Director. Best Picture. I’m gulping down the last few drops of my Diet Coke. Suddenly, Heidi struts her stuff along a cat walk. I take a deep breath. Our soft drink commercial is now airing across America. On the Oscars telecast. This is it.

America, my revenge is at hand. Heidi is on a catwalk wearing a hip fashion outfit. Behind her is a regal old theater. Quickly she turns and is now performing on a modern catwalk. She now has on a new outfit and she looks great. I play a fashion reporter on the edge of the runway. Behind me the paparazzi flash their cameras. I close my eyes. I open one eye.

I’m off-frame. By about an inch. The commercial is still rolling as Heidi turns and walks off frame and near the fashion podium, grabs a can of sweaty Diet Coke. She joins a group of hot-looking women all dressed in red dresses, matching the red ribbon on the can of Diet Coke.

I’m crushed. I slump into my chair. My eyes stare straight ahead. The Oscars telecast, reflected in my eye glasses, announces the winner for Best Picture.

Heidi doesn’t know me or remember me from a bar of soap. I need to at least toast Heidi with a Diet Coke. As the Oscar show-credits roll on the TV screen in my humble apartment and across America, I forage through the fridge searching for a Diet Coke. I’m fresh out.

Brad & I Do Lunch

Brad Pitt and I go way back. I mean way back. We’ve broken bread a couple of times. Actually today will be our third time.

The first time we worked together was Mr. & Mrs. Smith, shooting at a restaurant in downtown LA. I was one of the ballroom dancers as Brad and Angelina Jolie flirted over drinks and daggers.

The second time was Benjamin Button, an all-night shoot, filming at the historic Orpheum Theater. I was sitting in the audience watching Cate Blanchett pirouetting around as a ballerina. Today is our third time breaking bread, so to speak.

Yes, I’m eating with the rest of the background coolies and Brad is eating lunch in his trailer. But we are breaking the same bread from the same movie caterer; we’re just not face to face. Brad actually doesn’t know me from a box of corn flakes. But Brad and I have something in common. We are both actors. He’s arrived. I’m aspiring. Well, perspiring.

Beverly Hills. A synagogue. A Bar Mitzvah. I was raised a Catholic. Today I’m Jewish.

I realize to be an actor you have to be able to adapt to changing roles. I realize that to be an actor you have to also pay the rent. So here I am adapting. Acting. Paying the rent.

Yes, I’m playing Jewish. The whole nine yards. To get into character, I’m reciting Henny Youngman jokes in my head. Take my wife…please! Another classic: My wife put a mud pack on her face. For three days she looked great…then the mud fell off! I have even brought a yarmulke. Hey, I’m a Method background actor. I’m ready for my close up.

A cast of thousands. Parking at the Beverly Center. Breakfast on the side of the road in the pre-dawn LA morning. Someone in the shadows remembers that this location is the very place that they worked a couple of all-nighters with Tommy Lee Jones. Volcano. Tons of paper lava crisps rained down on all the extras playing LAPD officers, LAFD firefighters, Red Cross workers, and fleeing Beverly Hills refugees.

We board a bus. We arrive. Pay vouchers. Hair. Makeup. Does anybody know what this movie is all about? I reach out and touch my iPhone. I Google Moneyball.

This is the story of Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. The story is based on the bestselling book Moneyball. Beane used computer number crunching and his gut instincts to build his kick-ass baseball team. It’s about smoking out the best in people that are sitting in the dugouts of life. It’s a story of faith. A story of believing in the best in people. Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Wright are along for the storytelling. Yes, I’m also along for the ride, not in my usual role as celebrity ballast but as an extra.

We background extras are watching the Bar Mitzvah rituals inside the synagogue. We are chanting our Hebrew prayers on cue. I’m working from my own phonetic crib sheet. Brad, playing Billy Beane, arrives and sits in one of the back rows and watches the proceedings. I recognize that the assistant to the Rabbi in the scene is a guy who hired me a few months ago, to play in a talking-head interview scene for his new website. Hollywood really is a small town.

It’s later. Cameras are rolling as Brad corrals a guy and is talking with him about joining his baseball team. We cross in front of the cameras. Brad must have been focused on his lines and failed to recognize me. I’m sure he wanted to say hello. Maybe I was doing such a professional job that Brad didn’t want to break my concentration. What a guy!

More crosses in front of the two cameras. New deal. A different camera angle on the same shot and dialogue. I’m paired up with Susan, another background or ‘BG’ extra. The shot is wider now so we can be seen greeting other party goers. Each take, I can hear Brad reciting his dialogue; something about …I don’t pay that much for my infield.

Brad has an 80’s style haircut and is wearing a brown baseball jacket. Between takes, Brad evaporates into the crew holding area and reappears just before cameras start to roll.

Brad Pitt seems like a nice guy on set and off set. Star power seems intimidating to a lot of people. This morning, seconds before the cameras rolled on a rehearsal, Brad sat down to study the Bar Mitzvah set-up. He looked over and said Good morning to the BG lady in the adjoining seat. She almost fainted.

I take my star power in stride. Millions worldwide have seen my background work and hundreds, okay; dozens of people approach me all the time. Okay, I have only one real fan. I would call him a fan; you might call him a stalker. Whatever. I always say hello. Sometimes I give him a ride home if the shoot is running late and the city buses have stopped running. Whatever.

I’m anxious to see how Moneyball is all put together. Brad