They call it background....

....because you're in the background.

Recently, I believe that I have been slightly drunk on a false sense of importance relating to the fact that I can be seen in flashes standing behind principle actors on the magical light box in your living room called the television.


So when there was a nasty rumor going around Glee that production was going to replace all of their regular background actors after the holidays due to annoyance and misbehavior, I experienced about twenty minutes of devastation.  They were sick of yelling at all of the loud people, and didn't want to deal with the weeding so had plans to just clearcut everyone and start over.

I was so sad because Glee is so fun, the cast and crew are mostly spectacular humans, and I just liked the summer camp morale of the set.

I gave it a few minutes of mourning, and then I forced myself to be mature.  After all, I came here to learn the art of acting, and I certainly am not doing much of that walking hallways and 'reacting' to slushy bombs.

Turns out, the rumor was just that and I have still been booked on America's favorite weekly guilty pleasure.  I cant deny that I was tickled by and and joyfully put on my sneakers to prance the halls of William McKinley High School.

But despite the fun and industry knowledge I get from working background, I am going to start backing off, and going to get serious about classes and real scene study.  I've already discovered that it's easy to relax into background work.  It's brainless, and you convince yourself that youre making progress just because you're on set in the presence of cameras and actors.  Even so, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not here to just hang out at Paramount Studios.

Sounds scary, right?  Let me tell you, it's terrifying.  I'm contracted at the hospital through the beginning of February, and after that, it's gonna be less day job distraction.