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In the Spotlight
4 Male Actors Worth Hiring: Passion, Humor, Sensitivity, Class
By Jaden
Screenwriters and directors, note these fine actors with whom you would enjoy working.
PASSION
SENSITIVITY
HUMOR
CLASS
Who are your favorites for passion, sensitivity, humor, and class?
(We’ll get to the lady actors later.)
80 Years of Oscar Losers I Love
by Jaden
One time I had a dream that I won an Oscar, but no one was in the audience.
That was probably a premonition; by the time I win an Oscar, I will be such an old bag, I won’t be able to see the audience.
Winning awards can be a bonus that makes your sales skyrocket, but that is not the ultimate prize. You win by enjoying life and loving what you do.
To see some of the best Oscar winners of all time, go to Writing Forward.
For suckers like me who love the losers, here are some of my favorites.
1933, She Done Him Wrong
With a title like She Done Him Wrong and starring the notorious brazen sexpot actress Mae West, the Best Picture loser from the 1934 Oscars has got to be good! Lady Lou is a singer / nightclub owner in New York whose ex-con lover has come back for his unfaithful lover. Mae West wrote the theatrical play Diamond Lil; Harvey F. Thew and John Bright adapted it for the screen.
1948, The Snake Pit
Psychoanalysis was a popular movie theme during the World War II era. To make sane people go crazy, they put them in a snake pit. It was believed that a snake pit could shock a crazy person into being sane.
Magnificently shot in black and white, The Snake Pit is about a woman in an insane asylum. Olivia de Havilland, the actress, is phenomenal; she was also in Gone with the Wind. Mary Jane Ward wrote the autobiographical best-selling novel that stirred up talk about treatment in mental institutions. Frank Partos and Millen Brand adapted the novel to screen.
England added a script to the beginning of the film that stated their institutions were not anything like those depicted in the film. Why so defensive England, hmmmm?
The biggest loser of the 1949 Oscars and by far the best film was The Snake Pit. Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Music, it lost in all categories. Having a bunch of crazy broads screaming, it won the Oscar for Best Sound.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet won Best Picture in 1949 — yawn. How many times can a 444-year old guy win the Oscars? Geeze. Give the little people a chance. On IMDB Shakespeare is listed as the writer on 696 projects. There is something to aspire to my fellow screenwriters.
1956, Flesh Merchant: The Wild and Wicked
Flesh Merchant is the kind of low budget film that would never see the golden glimmer of an Oscar, but that doesn’t mean it is not good. Two sisters go to Hollywood to be big movie stars, only to end up enslaved in a remote country club prostitution ring. For the retro cars, hairdos, fashions and lingo, this film is smokin’ hot, innocent and naughty. Jay M. Kude and Peter Perry Jr. wrote the screenplay.
1966, Seconds
Starring Rock Hudson, directed by the great John Frankenheimer, with lots of unforeseen twists, Seconds is a psychological thriller about the heavy costs of taking on a new identity. David Ely wrote the novel that Lewis John Carlino adapted to screen. Not nominated for its superb acting or clever screenplay, it was nominated for Best Cinematography and lost. Seconds is a stunning loser not to be missed.
1970, Myra Breckinridge
If you are a stoner or any kind of freak, you have to get the Myra Breckinridge DVD and watch the extra footage on this movie written by David Giler and Michael Sarne who adapted the novel by Gore Vidal. Basically, the filmmakers were so high, they were lost in a purple haze of flower-painted buses and rainbow snakes. Whatever they were tokin’ on, this film is out there! Its bizarre scenes are referenced in many other modern films. Raquel Welch (just the most beautiful woman ever!) stars as a man. Need I say more?
1983, Valley Girl
Epitomizing the 80s, Valley Girl is, like, a totally awesome script written by Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane. Save yourself the pain of looking at their writing credits; I mean, where can you go from Valley Girl? Other titles for this movie that luckily didn’t stick were: Bad Boyz (gag me with a pitchfork), College Lovers (borrrrring), and Rebel Dreams (puuuhleeezzz).
The Valley Girl: Music From The Soundtrack
In more recent years, Valley Girl director Martha Coolidge directed episodes of Weeds, Sex and the City, CSI and Material Girls. Way to go woman!
The Directors’ Guild had a Valley Girl reunion, screened the film, and had a Q&A with the cast who were all holding up pretty good after 20 some-odd years, each with their own interesting life stories. Nicolas Cage was the only actor not present, hopefully due to a schedule conflict and not conceit.
Nick Cage, who plays a punk rocker, was my teenage heart-throb until a pigeon pooped Fire Birds on his head — a pro-army anti-drugs gawd-awful helicopter movie on the heels of the fighter plane hit Top Gun. Prior to that turd-bomb, Nick chose exciting unorthodox movies like: Wild at Heart, Moonstruck, Raising Arizona, Rumble Fish, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Cage, love him as I do, left his radness in the 80s and went into the 90s trying to be the tough guy with The Rock, ConAir, Face Off, and Snake Eyes.
Cage — an action hero? Give it up already!
Quirky, funny, charming? Yes, Cage, yes! Awkward is sexy; don’t you know, Nick? Nerd is the new punk rocker. Think Napoleon Dynamite and the chair sex boy in Juno. Being a dork is cool. Adaptation is the only film I have loved from Cage in the last couple decades; Charlie Kaufman wrote it, so of course it’s a winner.
How did I get stuck in the 80s on a Nicolas Cage tangent? Shoot. Is my hair sprayed into a doughnut shape on my forehead? Are those purple leg-warmers over my Wrangler blue cords?
1992, Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me
Winning awards from everybody (Saturn, Brit, and Independent Spirit) except for the Academy of Motion Pictures, written by David Lynch, Robert Engels, and Mark Frost, Twin Peaks is one of David Lynch’s most famous psychedelic cult masterpieces. If you are the type of person who enjoys deciphering nightmares, you should get into David Lynch’s work. His characters are off the beaten path and yet more real to me than the bland stereotypes of common films. Lynch is the ultimate winner of losers. “Damn good coffee! And hot!”
2006, Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
This Oscar loser was nominated for Best Writing (Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, and Todd Phillips). Was it just too funny? Too controversial? Tell me why comedy is not award winning? What is harder than getting people to laugh? Sacha Baron Cohen did not even get nominated for acting when he had to embody his character night and day for months, getting real people on the street to believe his performance, so much so that they played right into their lines of bigotry.
What losers do you love?
(And don’t say me.)
For more information or reviews on any of the mentioned movies, click on the colored title heading or go to IMDB.
Do Trendspotting and Action = Success?
by Jaden
Inspired by reading “Punk Rock Your Life: The Simple Six-Letter Word That Determines Success” by Copyblogger Brian Clark as a guest writer for Zen Habits, my passion for punk rock and the pondering of success flared; I want to expand on the topic for screenwriters.
Brian ended his post with: “Why did I just tell you a story about punk rock and independent music? Well, lots of people can spot trends and have great ideas, but only some do anything about it. So, what’s the six-letter word that determines success in life? Action.”
On what one chooses to take action is a matter of opinion and preference. One does not have to like whatever is the latest trend — usually I don’t. Success can be found in any genre or any ground-breaking or old thing.
Action is one serious deciding factor that can lead to success, for without action, a person has nothing, but in and of itself action won’t ensure success. Nor is success founded on innovation.
Think about coffee and burgers… I mean how many more chains do we really need? Yet new ones start up all the time to the open arms of success. These new businesses take action, yes, but burgers and coffee are nothing new, rather it is the business model and marketing that earns their success.
Does jumping on the bandwagon of something cutting edge equal success? Definitely not!
Screenwriters, I would advise avoiding current trends because by the time your script is finished, sold, and made into a movie, it will be so passé that audiences may be turned off. If you are going to jump on the train du jour, you better have a quick route to the final product or you might be left in the dust with a big flop on your hands.
The risk-takers and those who are on the fringe earn my respect, but they are not the people raking in the dough, not at first anyway. Initially, there are more obstacles to breaking into the industry for them, but the reward and career longevity for ingenuity are greater.
There are millions of copycats (musicians, writers, filmmakers, painters) who spend their life in action, yet achieve little or no success. Action and trendspotting alone are not enough.
Whether your product or idea is new or not, ultimately, does not matter, it is whether you have a successful marketing and business plan. As an artist, often you will have a team of people who handle these things. Unless you are an artist like Picasso or Warhol, or even a person like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, your brain probably can’t handle the self-promoting part of the biz and it shouldn’t. You need to surround yourself with a strong team of agents, publicists, and people in your industry.
“The Future is Unwritten” is an excellent music 
documentary that illustrates these points. It is about the lead singer of The Clash and how he had to make some cutting choices along the way to achieve success by the orchestration of his manager.
When I was in college, I worked in a nightclub. The first time Korn played there, the only people in the huge place were a handful of my heavy metal friends who were always there and could dig on the new sound that until this point had never been heard (heavy bass with screaming angry vocals contrasted with gentle eerie vocals).
Several months later, Korn played the exact same show to a full house spilling over with 2,000 + people. Why? They did a publicity stunt with the local radio station announcing a cheap $3 entrance. Their song and this ad ran every day, many times a day for a month. Next thing I knew, Korn became a huge success.
A band called Far who played the same sound and shows as Korn, debatably with more talent, fell into obscurity. Why? No marketing. No strong representation.
Who else came through the joint? No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, and many more who also started out with nothing. What catapulted them to great success? It was not only the action of playing music, but rather great gimmicks, good managers and marketing angles.
It is often the people behind the scenes working their magick who hoist artists and entertainers to such heights. Success and fame are not accidents, they come from calculated plans created by hard-working driven intelligent business-minded people.
In regards to screenwriters specifically, you can be in the action of writing for your entire life. You can even write stories of better quality than any Oscar winning screenplay. You can go to every single movie and gripe about how much better you write. Without the right direction, without the right representation, without the right filmmakers, and without the right marketing strategy, you could easily remain in writer obscurity for all eternity.
No one is going to pound down your door and say: Look world, I have found the greatest writer of all time! Those sorts of success stories are myths. Your success relies on some talent, lots of work, staunch determination, and intelligent alliances with people who are masters of marketing, publicity, and the business. Oh… and how could I forget, you’ll need a lot of LUCK!
Interview with Actress Azita Ghanizada
by Jaden
You have goose bumps on your legs; you want to go somewhere else?
“No. It’s ok. My sports bra is wet with sweat; it’s making me cold.”
Where are you coming from right now?
“Yoga.”
What else did you do today?
“I went hiking through the canyon.”
Is this your regiment everyday or just for your current role?
“I exercise five to six days a week. It is part of the job to stay emotionally sound and physically fit — that’s what we are paid for. Basically we are the product, our bodies are the tool.”
How is your character described in the screenplay of your current film project Blood Shot?
“She’s in a desert in the Middle East and she is sitting on a sofa in a traditional love tent. She is modeled after Princess Jasmine from the famous Disney movie Aladdin, except she shows more skin.”
Is it horror?
“It’s a Sci-Fi comedy.”
What’s the pitch?
“It’s about a vampire and a stressed out cop chasing a terrorist cell.”
Your character is very sexy isn’t she?
“She’s sexy. This genre is usually sexually overt; here, it’s more what you can’t have. This is why I like this script because this genre can be very campy or purely sexual, but in this case, there aren’t loads of sex scenes, it’s really about the action and the plot. It’s all about the visuals and the vampire.”
I have heard you have been turned away for being too sexy? Does it hurt?
“Stop it! I think it is hard for the animal that is the business to see women as both smart and sexy, or funny and sexy, or believable and a sexual being. Independent filmmakers and independent thinkers can see past that. They have friends in their real lives who are artsy and intelligent and vivaciously sexy. When they say things like you’re too short, or too pretty, or too sexy, they’re just arbitrary reasons to explain why you aren’t the right fit for the role.”
What are you doing specifically to prepare for this role?
“I have to work on dialect. Zahra speaks with a slight Arabian accent and I am learning a little Arabic. So I am working on language skills and dialect and breaking down the scenes line by line to understand what she is going through and where the humor is. I think when you look at any scene as an actor, you want to figure out what you want, what are you trying to achieve, so you understand completely what you’re doing.”
The character you mean?
“You have to become the character.”
What character have you most enjoyed becoming?
“I’m working on a collaborative film project with filmmaker April Shih. It’s a mockumentary about life coaches, it’s titled: You, Only Better. It’s completely unscripted. I’ve gotten to build my character Kali Parker from the ground up with April’s direction. Kali’s a riot — the uber LA life coach to celebutantes — she’s hot and she means business.” (laughs)
What role have you liked playing least?
“I began my career doing TV hosting which I liked the least because, ultimately, I prefer taking parts where I can expose my feelings through other characters. With hosting you have to be the bubbly effervescent you all the time. I prefer slipping into character as someone else. Hosting for me felt limiting to what I want to do right now.”
What line from a script was the hardest to deliver?
“’Huh?’ ‘Huh’ doesn’t sound truthful coming out of me. ‘Huh’ is not something natural for me to say. Something as little as that can be difficult.”
How about a fun line?
“One of the most graphic things — I was screen-testing for a film; I had to ask him to f*ck me and ask how he wanted to do it. It was fantastic. It wasn’t perverse or campy, it was an honest encounter between two people — one who wanted to take it to the next level.”
Tell me about a line that was difficult to remember?
“I don’t remember the line, but it was in an audition to play a famous Indian Queen, I had to speak in an ancient Hindi accent and command an army in a strong, vulnerable, militaristic, sensual, and powerful way. It was a lot to embody at once. A writer has to get in a certain place in their head to write and an actor has to do everything in order to speak those words truthfully.”
Do you like getting exotic roles like this or do you feel limited by being type-cast?
“Luckily, because I have such an interesting past, having been born out of the country and raised in an all-American community with an International perspective, it allows me to be both the all-American and still the exotic stranger from another country. I get to audition for both, but do I think it limits me? Yes. Is it exciting to be both? Absolutely.”
What is the best advice you can give a screenwriter that would most enhance your experience as an actor?
“Dialog the material with someone who resonates the character. If it is a female character and you are a male writer, have a woman read your dialog out loud. What we hear in our head when we write is very different than how people actually talk. By reading it out loud, you can catch a lot of dialog that ultimately won’t work. It needs to feel right. If it is a teenager speaking, have a teenager read the dialog. It needs to be real.”
That is excellent advice. Thank you.
More info:
Azita Ghanizada at IMDB
Blood Shot the film short on which the feature is based
A Bloody Disgusting article on Blood Shot the feature
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