Ep 4: So You Want to Be An Actress?

For Isadora and Janine, their first stage was their living room rug.  At age seven, Isadora was writing stories and dreaming of living inside them.  By age eight. Janine was obsessed with Annie and had Broadway dreams.  Coming from families that didn’t know how actors became actors, both configured loose game plans as undergrads to get closer to careers.  When Isadora’s acceptance to Juilliard makes her mother worry about the financial toll, her insight allows her to press on. It wasn’t movie star dreams but a true love of the craft that anchored them both, for a while.

Isadora O’Boto (co-host) is a Juilliard Drama grad. Under the pen name Sephe Haven, she is the author of two award-winning memoirs: My Whorizontal Life and A Someday Courtesan, and playwright/performer of the solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” Isadora co-hosted the podcast My Index to Sex with Lynn Ferguson.  Find her at: isadoraoboto.com

Janine Noel (co-host) is creator and host of Bipolar She podcast, where guests share mental health stories to normalize illness. With an MFA in creative writing, she is a story consultant, helping others write down and speak up about the hard stuff. Between bumpy bipolar years, Janine has found time to act and produce. Have a Story? Tell it with Janine.

Michael David (producer) is a playwright with 17 full-length plays, more than 300 stage productions, and an unusually broad résumé that includes writing, directing, acting, designing, and producing. He is an original company member of Paul Stein’s THE CAR PLAYS and has written nine 10-minute plays for the project. MichaelDavidPlays.com...

Transcript

So, You Want to Be An Actress?

JANINE:  So I remember in college, or actually it might've been after college, during a Meisner training program, the first day there he said, call yourself an actor.  This is your career.  It has begun.  And so I went home.  I was at a pizza parlor with my mom and sister, and a friend from high school came up and said, Hey, what are you doing?  And I said, “I'm acting in New York.”  And my mom turned to me and she said.  “You're a temp.” 

ISADORA:  Hi. 

JANINE:  Hi. 

ISADORA:  Good morning. 

JANINE:  Good morning. 

ISADORA:  I had a thought about today. 

JANINE:  Oh, you did?

ISADORA:  I was thinking about how we both have, well we both have things that are not in common, but they seem like they're in common 'cause they're so far apart from each other. But also I was thinking we do have one thing really in common, which is we both were serious acting people and we were both actors.  We were acting people.  Like actors.  Yeah, like actors. And you know, we both grew up wanting to do that and then it, it shifted to studying it and then it shifted to doing it. And the love for acting, I think we both have in common the love for being artists, you know, which takes you outside of regular society.

Like even if you did have your thing and I didn't have my thing, we'd still be actors on the edge. So I don't know. When did you first dream about becoming an actor or being an actor or acting, which is kind of different, but the same. 

JANINE:  So I, I used to really hate saying this because I thought it was just rather trite, but I, it was Annie, like for so many women, it was Annie. I went to go see a production of it in San Francisco and we were in the back, you know, at the Golden Gate Theater in the very back row. And my mom and sister said that I was like on the edge of my seat the entire time. 

ISADORA:  Like how, how old were you? How old were you? 

JANINE:  I was little. I was like seven years old.

ISADORA:  So you were Annie in your, like you were Annie's age? 

JANINE:  I was Annie's age, yeah. And I watched these little girls run around on the stage with like buckets and barrels and. You know, mops and all this, and I was just like, I can do that. I gotta do that. And so I went home with the record. I sang it nonstop. She became basically an imaginary friend.  Like it was just all about Annie. I used to have a friend come over after school and I would dress up with Annie and I'd say, take me to the neighbors and tell them that the real Annie is here. 

ISADORA:  Okay. What's, can I just say right now? Yeah. And interestingly enough, 'cause I wouldn't have said this if I didn't know that you were struggling with.  When you sometimes, and you talk about, you know, I am the real Meg Ryan and I'm, but when you were seven you weren't yet, you didn't, this was not a delusion. This was a great imaginative fantasy that children have. Right, right. Yeah. So that's like an interesting thing to hold onto, I think too, you know?

JANINE:  Oh yeah, I loved her so much. I had like the orphan outfit, I had the red dress like for two years in a row. I dressed up for, for Halloween and then I auditioned for Annie. There was a, there was like a local production. It was actually quite a decent sized production and I got called back for an orphan.

ISADORA:  You must have been when you knew there was gonna be a production in town and it was like fantasy thing. 

JANINE:  Oh yeah, I remember it just so vividly waiting in this line with my dad and you know, they told us to sing to the back row and as loud as we could, and even my dad like patted me on my shoulder and said, Hey, sing as loud as you can.  And I did. I went up there. And I belted it and I did that arm move where you fan your arm out to the side at the end of tomorrow and you just, yeah. So I did that move. I was called back for an orphan, and these orphans were so good. They were being directed by a musical director. Right? And so then he put his finger, like towards me to start singing and I just couldn't keep up with them.  I didn't, I don't, didn't have that training. And that was like the first time that I can remember where I went. Maybe I'm not good enough. 

ISADORA:  You just weren't trained yet, you know, and so, but it was kind of cool. Could you sing? Like at all Sing. 

JANINE:  Yeah, I could carry a tune. Oh, okay. I cannot, yeah, no, I could And that's like a belted out, you know, song, but, so I didn't get anything there.  But the kind of cool thing was I did get sent for an audition for the Miracle Worker, and then I was cast as young Helen Keller. That's pretty amazing. I did two productions of it when I was a kid, and they took me to like a school for the deaf and the blind to learn how they sound and move. And I like.  I did that on stage and I remember I went to school and these kids came up to me that had seen it and they said, make those sounds you made last night. Why? They just, they're like, deaf girl sounds right. Yeah. I was very, very much into it. So I mean, I was a pretty serious little actor. I was probably eight by that time, so I used to be embarrassed to say the Annie thing, but not anymore because it gave me like a lot of life. It protected me in ways she was a friend. 

ISADORA:  Why were you embarrassed to say it? 

JANINE:  Well, just because so many girls like fell in love with Annie and went through the Annie phase. Right. But mine was really big. I did not actually ever have that for any his little redhead. Yeah.  Yeah, so that's kind of, so I did act as a kid and I took it pretty seriously as a kid, and that's when I, that's when I fell in love with it. I mean, I didn't go very far with it. My parents were stressed. Like my mom could take me to the swim club to swim, and that's about all, there would be no singing lessons.

[00:06:25] There'd be no dance or very little, you know, so. that's—

ISADORA:  But did you, did, did, did they support, like as you got older and said, I still wanna be an actor, did they, were they supportive of that they knew that you really loved that or no? 

JANINE:  No. And I remember even as a kid listening after production of Annie, 'cause I did it, I was Annie in sixth grade and I remember listening to another parent say to my mom, you could really get her some singing lessons and. Yeah. Like, you should do this. And so I heard that. I was like, oh my God. And then this other girl that I was alternating the role with, she was getting shuttled down to LA for commercials and, and so I was like, damnit, all these other kids are, are getting, you know, are, are actually. I would just say it just wasn't, my family didn't have the bandwidth for that, but I was not encouraged.  My mom, when I declared a drama major at Dartmouth, she told everybody I was majoring in English. 

ISADORA:  No. 

JANINE:  Yeah. 

ISADORA:  Why? 

JANINE:  Because she didn't like the idea of a drama major. 

ISADORA:  Wow. What did she say to you about it? You're just being upset. But I mean like you're obviously majoring in it. Right? And even though she doesn't like it and she tells everybody else for her own, I guess protection of guess her ego or whatever it was that was bothering her.  So, but she didn't say to you anything about.

JANINE:  It was kind of one of these topics that wasn't talked about that much. Or even when I said I'm going to New York to do this, it was all negative feedback. I did not get any support. Ugh. So hard. The business of acting is so hard anyway, and it's hard in the world to be an actor. 'cause people, they think anybody with a headshot can do it, you know? And they don't realize that people spend decades studying. Becoming so good that they could, you know, they watch TV now and they see these great actors and they don't even realize how great these actors actually are, you know? And what it took to become so good.

[00:08:34] And now it's like, well, I have a headshot and I kind of look apart, you know? So I just need an agent, right? I just need to get an agent and then I'll just be doing, and sometimes that works. I mean, for commercials it does work sometimes, but I think that's hard. In general, if you're studying to be an actor, because you take it seriously and it means something to who you are and to what you're to.

ISADORA:  It's an art form, you know? So to be so negatively discouraged when that's living inside you, since you're, you know, any age, that's really, yeah. 

JANINE:  Yeah. So I remember in college, or actually it might've been after college, during a Meisner training program, the first day there he said, call yourself an actor. This is your career. It has begun. And so I went home. I was at a pizza parlor with my mom and sister, and a friend from high school came up and said, Hey, what are you doing? And I said, I'm acting in New York. And my mom turned to me and she said, you're a temp. Ah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

ISADORA:  That's just such a heartbreak right there. I'm sorry. 

JANINE:Yeah. So that's kind of the attitude in my family. Wow, that's a hard obstacle. But what about yours and when you were.

ISADORA:  I had, um, I didn't do Annie, I, I, that wasn't, but I did the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for sure. And we had, in the olden days, these record players, you know, where you put the album on like a vinyl and you drop the needle? And we had a living room in which there was almost no furniture, which was fantastic because, you know, it's like a stage, it can be anything. Cha cha, you know? So we had a round rug and that was the stage to me. And I would put on the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang record and sing all the songs, even though I have absolutely no voice.  But I didn't know that. I just thought, yeah, this is, you know, but it wasn't so much the singing and the thing, it was more living into the story. I just wanted to be in every story. And I liked Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 'cause it had music to it, but I also was in other stories that I saw or read about. You know, I would just do that and also.  I am by nature, very sensitive and dramatic, so everything had to be magical, and I hated the mundaneness of life. You know, I saw my parents super happy being. So mundane like grocery store and being parents. And I thought, well, that's no life for a real, you know, for a person I wanna be like special and I want my life to be extraordinary. And it usually was inside of stories, like if you climbed inside a story. So I thought, well, if my life was like a novel, you know, so I'm gonna start creating that. So I started writing. Diary and creating the drama of my life, you know, chapter, this chapter. And if something bad happened, for instance, that would be okay because it would be really good in the novel. 'cause bad things happen to happen in novels, or they're not good novels, you know. 

JANINE: But how old were you when you could reason like that? 

ISADORA:  Oh, I was super young. I started pretty young about doing, doing that kinda stuff. I think my first diary was when I was in first grade and so when, and you know, all the acting stuff. But it wasn't until a little bit later where they asked you, I don't know whether it was junior high or high school, they said, what do you want to be or do? And I didn't know how to express that. I don't know what to do with all this stuff that I am. Inside of me. Like I could pretend in a second that I'm somebody or something else, but I don't know how to put that into real life.  And so somebody said, well, I think that's acting. And I was like, oh, well that's a career then, but is it a career? 'cause, Like how do you go from being nobody to being somebody? And there wasn't really a talk about how this existed. As an in real life, like as a career or anything else. It was either you were nobody or a star. And if you were a star, you got to be in movies and tv, and then you were living inside of stories. Right? But I didn't know how to make it into a career, so I guess I thought, well, I guess I go to school for the theater and they will. You know, teach you. And so that's what I did thinking the whole time. You have to be really special. You get, you go through the school training and then you come out and one or two chosen people look to these stars. 

ISADORA:  Was this from undergrad? 

JANINE:  I guess so, yeah. I mean, there was, there was never to me, or maybe I missed it 'cause my head was in the clouds. There was never a sense of talking about a career, a, a long-term acting career. There was always like, you do this play or you get cast in that play. You know what I mean? 

ISADORA:  And, and then after that, you get out and you get an agent, and then you get into stuff, and then hopefully you get the role of a lifetime, and then you're known, and then you're a star, then you.  And so there wasn't this long-term kind of understanding of how to make this into an actual career. And my parents, by the way, weren't the same as yours, but it was similar. Like when I went to go to school for it, my mother said, why don't you take a take journalism since you like to write, and that way you could fall back on it. And I thought, fall back. How dare you fall back, you know, I won't need to fall back on anything. That's not how the world works. I shall be a star, you know, which was ridiculous. But you know, I was young and then when I got into Julliard, I managed to do that. When I first got in, I was so excited and my, I called my mom first. And I said, 'cause I was thinking, well now, I mean, I got into Juilliard. 

JANINE:  Yeah. How did you get into Juilliard? 

ISADORA:  Well, lemme tell this part first and I'll tell you, but first thing I did is call my parents because I thought, well, now that I'm in Julliard. They'll be like really supportive. 'cause not that many people get in and they'll see that I'm serious and they'll see I have talent and Julliard accepted me.

JANINE: That's pretty big. 

So I called them, this was after five years of undergrad. I called them and I said, Hey, I was accepted to Julliard Wall, you know? And my mother said, I'm sure she didn't mean it in a bad way, but she said. Oh, well that's nice. And how are you gonna pay for it? And I was sort of like, my shoulders kind of slumped and I thought, I hadn't thought about that angle. I, how am I gonna pay for it? Had no clue how I was going to pay for it, but it didn't occur to me. And I guess part of me thought, well, maybe they'll help me out a little bit this time. You know? But like your parents. It wasn't, I don't know if I'd call it bandwidth, but it was that they, we really were very poor and we were very lower middle class and we really didn't have any extra money. My parents couldn't put any of the kids through college. You know, we took out huge student loans, so they just didn't have the money to do it, even if they wanted to. And I know they wanted to. They were, they loved us so much, but yeah, so. Along with like, there's just this great desire and I couldn't imagine being or doing anything else with my life. And I think from what I know from you, from how I know you, you know, you're in your writing and who you are. I think our shared identities as actors to me really weighed into this. 

JANINE: What happened next? 

ISADORA: You know, for me, I know that I might not have become an escort if I didn't wanna be an actor because there was no other way to pay for an independent acting life. You know, if I went into corporate or if I went into something else, it would be a whole different, whole different story. And for you. I mean, I think you said at one point, and maybe we can take this up at a the next, the next talk we have, but you know, I know that your identity as an actor was pretty tied into your first challenges with mental health. You know, or am I just saying that that's not true? 

JANINE: No, I think you're right. I think all of my depression, mania, psychosis, it was always acting or theater related. There was always that thread in any, in all my mental illness. Wow. I mean, you know. Well, let's talk about that next.

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