Actors in Los Angeles

In the City of Angels, actors line up to audtion for a role in our humble TV campaign. Outside the room we sit in, 100 actors wait on benches memorizing our scripts, hoping they have the look, the smile, the vibe that will get them the part. If you're the one out of 100, you work for a day and make a couple of months wages.

We see those who have been on television forever, and those young faces who moved here hoping to make the dream become reality. The work-a-day, commercial actors are eager to please, smiling, joking, trying to get an edge on their comrades.

At our hotel, we see a few bona fide stars. When the elevator door opens, they look around like scared animals and practically run. They don't want to talk to fans, they don't want their picture taken, they don't want to have some germ fall upon them that will ruin their day, their week, their good karma.

With the sole exception of Wall Street, nowhere is the separation of rich and poor so dramatic as in Los Angeles. The few make so much, the many make so little. For every star, there are 10,000 writer-director-waiters hoping for a break.

There goes Kiefer Sutherland down the elevator and he is much more fit than he looks on TV. Mel Gibson scurries down the street to his Lexus, before he can be made. Little Stephen of the Soprano's bolts across the lobby in an outfit that looks like it was made from a discarded drapery.

Maybe the thing that drives the stars is fear, the fear that if they make a mistake, slip up, or just blink, they'll be back in the cattle call with all the others, kicking and scratching and clawing to get a commercial, a shot at a soap, or maybe even an infommercial that will run forever and provide a lifetime of income.

If we give you the part, will you dye your hair? No problem.

If we give you the part, will you cut your hair? No problem.

If we give you the part, will you cut your head off? No problem.