HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May 2007 bring everyone many wonderful things!

Check back for more blogs when I get back to Los Angeles on January 2nd.

New Years Resolutions

Rather than making a list of elaborate resolutions that I know I will stop doing by the beginning of February, I made mine much easier to keep this year:

RESOLUTIONS:
1. Go to the gym every day (at least until January 12th)

2. Finish (a couple more pages of) the screenplay I'm writing

3. Don't start smoking

4. Learn something new this year

5. Save more money (don't you have to make a lot of money to save money?! This one may be a bit harder. Hopefully I will get my BIG BREAK this year!)

If anyone has resolutions they want to share, post 'em in my comments section!

My Grandparents

Move over cops, these senior citizen police academy
graduates are about to take your job!

This is an article featuring my grandparents from the "Beachwood Buzz". They are the two with the green arrows pointing to them.

Small World

My friend Allyson Morgan and I met in New York City while interning in a casting office. We had been on a television show together years before that was on CBS in Ohio and West Virginia called "The KidsNews Network" but we didn't become close until we were interning.

Turns out, she's back in Ohio to visit her family too right now and we met up for coffee. It was SOOOO nice to see her and yesterday was one of the first truly relaxing days I've had in a long time:)

Panic Ended!

Phone saga part 3:

I went with my mom to a Verizon kiosk in a mall in Ohio today to get a new phone, since my battery life after dropping my phone in water is about 30 minutes of talk time per day.

While I was in line waiting to speak with an employee, I noticed a woman was exchanging her phone, my exact model, for a razor phone. I asked her what was wrong with her old phone and she said that she was upgrading. I asked what she was doing with her old phone, and she said that she was getting rid of it and I was welcome to it!

I offered her money in exchange for the phone and she just said "Merry Christmas!"

Don't you just love the holiday spirit?!?!

Thank you, Becky Sullivan, for my new phone! :)

Flying to Ohio

A simple 5 hour flight turned into a 16 hour travel day from Los Angeles to Ohio. Why? Because of mechanical problems on the airplane we were supposed to board.

We were 4 hours delayed, and then they announced that our plane was in maintenance due to mechanical problems and as soon as it was fix we would take off.

RED FLAG! Mechanical problems? I decided to investigate. The flight crew got to the gate and so I casually strolled over to the pilot to find out what was "mechanically wrong" with the plane I was about to get on.

The pilot said, "Oh last night we were supposed to land at a different airport but one of the engines froze so we had to make an emergency landing here."

Wonderful! I thought. "So how fixed is fixed?" I asked, to which he replied, "I have a baby at home. If the plane isn't fixed, I'm not getting on it either!" That made me feel a lot better.

The pilot walked back over to the crew and I stood watching the two men behind the counter at the gate. A woman walked up and asked what time another flight going to the same destination was going to board.
"Oh," said the man behind the counter, "that flight has been moved to gate 50. It's just down the terminal to the left." To which this woman replied "what? I can't believe they switched the gates! Where is gate 50 again?" This simple question was followed up by a good 5 minutes of her questioning and being exasperated.

I just started laughing to myself. Clearly her flight switching gates was the worst possible thing that could happen on of the busiest travel days of the year when so many flights were being cancelled due to bad weather and plane malfunctions!

All in all it was a LONG interesting trip, but I'm safely in Ohio for a few days and I will keep posting from here!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Check back on December 26th for a new blog:)

City Girl Rides a Horse

These pictures were taken on the set of a movie for the Hallmark channel that I worked on for ten days. I saw some of the daily playback and I am in the opening scene of the movie as well as the third one. It is called 'Love's Unfolding Dream' and I will put up a post when it comes out!

Very "Little House on the Prairie".

Panic Cont...

Okay, so I did call the phone company and it turns out that my phone is so old that it doesn't have a Sim card! I let it dry out and it came on FINALLY! The keys were locked and I had no idea what the "code" was to unlock it.

My service provider told me how to get into it and luckily it works and my numbers are safe. The battery is pretty much dead. I get about 15 minutes out of it before I have to charge it again. The ear piece is a good idea.

My advice: Transfer ALL of your numbers onto paper and don't drop your phone in water.

Panic

After working a 14 hour day on set, I got home and had to return a business call, so I decided to multi-task and make dinner at the same time. While putting water in a pot to steam vegetables, my phone slipped off my shoulder into a bowl of water that my roomate left in the sink. Now my phone won't even turn on. All my numbers are stuck in there. HELP!

Cold in California

Just becasue there is a palm tree in my backyard doesn't mean that it's always warm. After dark when Shannon has to swim in a pool that is "heated" to 85 degrees, I have to be in the water too. BURRRRRR. (Like I said before, as her stand-in, I have to do everything she does, only for way less money).

Yesterday morning on my way to work, I knew it was going to be a long cold one, when I put on the windshield wiper fluid, it froze. I thought that there was a rule that if the state was known for beaches and palm trees, and warm-weather vacations, it was suppose to be warm year round.

Here I am putting on my sweater, jacket, and gloves, in "sunny" Southern California.

WE ARE MARSHALL

I went to a SAG screening of "We are Marshall" and it was a wonderful movie.

McG, the director spoke after the screening and he said that they shot a lot of it in West Virginia and embraced the people who wanted to have their stories told, but not exploited for Hollywood. It was really touching.

The acting was great and it was very well done. I highly recommend it.

It's Electric

Party #3 was the best. It was at a bar on Sunset Blvd. thrown by the girl I stand-in for. David Gallagher from 7th Heaven was there and so was one of the guys from the TV show Grounded for Life. Shannon had a pinata for her birthday and the highlight of the night was watching Eddie Izzard learn the electric slide.

PARTY!

Today seems to be the official holiday/birthday party day in Los Angeles. I have four parties to "make an appearance" at. Check back tomorrow to see how they were.

Sleeping on the Job

Call time yesterday morning was 11:00 AM. I got to work, read my book until 1:00 PM got broken for lunch for an hour, read my book for another hour, and then Shannon had to "sleep" in a scene so I held her spot on a soft matress for 45 minutes while they set up the shot. It took them 20 minutes to shoot the scene and I got wrapped at 4:00PM. What a good Friday!:) :) :)

GAS!

$2.67 a gallon for gas AND I have to pump it myself?

Plane Ticket = Acting Job

In this town without fail, if you buy a plane ticket to go on a trip or go visit family, you will absolutely be offered an audition or an acting job of some kind. It doesn't matter if you haven't worked for six months, all you have to do is plan a vacation, and boom, suddenly you're the only actor in town.

This happened to me at Thanksgiving and it has already happened to two of my friends for their December holiday trips.

MY MASTER PLAN: Buy 365 plane tickets for next year so I am constantly in demand:)

Minnie Driver

I just got a job as a stand-in on a television show that will be on FX starting in March! It is called "The Riches" and it stars Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard. Whenever I tell people I'm a stand-in they question what that means. Basically I stand-in for a girl named Shannon Woodward and I do everything she does on the TV show only I do it for way less money.

For example: She has to ride a bicycle up a hill while saying lines to Minnie Driver, the girl standing in for Minnie Driver and I have to ride up the hill and say their lines as many times as it takes to get the camera angles and lighting right. Then they call "First team" and shoot the scene with Minnie and Shannon. Once they have it the way they want it, the director says "Cut. Print. Second Team". Second team is my cue to go back where Shannon just was while they set up the next shot. Meanwhile Shannon and Minnie go and get their hair and makeup fixed for the next scene.

I almost got my big break on set yesterday. Shannon announced that she quit and said "don't I have a stand-in? Let's just give her my part!" I was like "sweet! did everybody hear that?" Turns out, she was only kidding. :)

Dodgeball

OUCH!!!

I went to play dodgeball with my roommate. When I got there I was afraid to get hit by the speeding balls so I sat on the sidelines to watch. I got hit in the head by a ball anyway.

OUCH!!!

When you say, "I'm an actor ..."

When you say "I'm an actor" out here, people normally ask "so where do you wait tables?"

I'm lucky enough to be coaching and choreographing a junior high dance team when I'm not working on a set. The girls are really into it and they keep me on my toes.

I teach jazz and my teaching partner, Jade, teaches hip-hop. The girls just had a talent show and did really well. Now they are working on shooting a music video.

Play gets good reviews

I was the lead in a play in North Hollywood that got a good review. It was a wonderful experience because it was a play that the director also wrote. I got to originate the role since the play had never been done before.

The play was about two couples who go to Las Vegas for the weekend as one couple decides if they should get married while the other couple works on their divorce.

The cast party was supposed to be in Las Vegas to go with the theme of the show since Vegas is only a four-hour drive from the theater, but it ended up being at the house where I rent a room. We listened to an Elton John CD.

Not quite Vegas but close enough.

CSI: Miami

Can you hold your breath for two minutes? Acting job number two was being a dead body on CSI: Miami. I woke up at 3:45 AM to wash my hair and drive to set. I got there at 5:00AM and they immediately put grease and powder in my clean hair to make me look dead. So much for planning. They didn't stop there. They powdered my skin white, painted my lips white and they traced all of my veins deep blue, I shouldn't have even bothered to shower!
Shooting was a lot of fun. I had to hold my breath while the camera was rolling because the camera picks up the slightest movement. I was lying on a metal gurney "dead" for several hours and I had a conversation with David Caruso about skim milk.

Diamond Dallas Page

After things settled down from my car accident I went straight to work. I hung out on a set where WWF wrestler Diamond Dallas Page was shooting an exercise video. Did you know he was born in Point Pleasant New Jersey? And here I went all the way to LA to meet him!

My new blog

I'm Jaclyn Friedlander and I'm a graduate of Randolph high school.

While I was a student there I was the President of the coolest club they had there: The Drama Club. (okay so maybe it wasn't the coolest club but I enjoyed it) I played Mary Warren in the "Crucible" my freshman year, I was a featured dancer in "Hello Dolly!" as a sophomore, and by the time I was a senior I directed the fall production of "Female Version of the "Odd Couple" by Neil Simon My true self came out senior year when I was in "Hair" at the Bickford Theater in Morristown, playing a drug using hippie. (Well, it was my true self minus the drug using hippie part.) I graduated from a two year acting conservatory program in New York City. Then I took a scenic tour of the country as I drove 2800 miles across the country to Los Angeles.

I managed to drive 2800 miles no problem but then once I was in LA my car got totaled by a metro city bus. Talk about irony.