Industry Perspectives

J.K. Simmons and Edie Falco spend the first part of their talk chatting about auditioning. They talk about how it feels to go into an interview; what’s expected of you and how they were treated. To them it’s very light-hearted, but I believe it speaks to a bigger issue in the industry. The ‘what’s expected of you’ part of the talk is off-handed. Neither actor felt like they were the person the casting director wanted, so they tried to be someone else, which ultimately didn’t help at all. However, it’s the treatment they recieved that is more worrisome.

Edie Falco tells a ‘funny’ story about a time she auditioned and it didn’t go well. She started her monologue when the director got a phone call, but he told her to continue acting over his coversation. This was extremely unfair to Falco and took his attention away from the audition she probably worked very hard on.

Directors and Actors have always had an interesting relationship. They need each other, but they don’t act that way. Actors, obviously, are always very thankful of directors and appreciative of them publically, but that’s just part of the power dynamic. Directors on the other hand are less so. This could be blamed on a smaller public presence, but the way Edie and J.K. spoke it almost seems like Directors are careless with their actors, even though they need them just as much as the actors need the director.

After that, Falco and Simmons talk about their respective TV shows. Falco speaks on being asked to come to a show and that feeling of, as she calls it, ‘floating on to the set, because you know you’re trusted. It’s a luxurious feeling.”

However, when it comes to their current roles, both actors speak on the hardships that they bring.

Simmons comments on the struggle of playing two characters in one show and how much work it was filming like that. Falco on the other hand talks about the struggle of playing a real person and trying to portray her accurately without any help from the person herself.

Overall, the interview sort of opened up my perspective on the real life of an actor. There is more work and tact involved than any budding ingenue would have you believe. There is more to it than meets the public eye.