Say What?

I have never thought of myself as a model, I am five foot three for crying out loud! Last week I recieved a call that made me laugh - a faaaamous photographer was in Australia and had requested that I attend her casting for a global brand.
I had never attended a real model casting before with a vogue front cover photographer, I attend acting and presenting auditions... and that's where it all began.

I am an actor, I am an actor, I am an actor, is what was going through my head.
How the heck will I maximise this opportunity?
Of course, ill be an actor!
So, I walked into the casting as an actor playing the role of a model.

"25 clicks whenever you're ready" Bronwyn Kidd said.
Well, thank the lucky stars I had watched Next Top Model the week prior and from only that I knew what she meant and what I had to do.
Stand still and slightly change my expression and stature at each click. Dont forget to relax the jaw - something I remembered Alex Perry telling girls off about with steam coming out of his talented little ears.

With the hard part out of the way we chatted happily about wedding dresses and Bronwyn told me all about hers and the famous Australian designer that made it for her as a wedding gift.

What a pleasure it was to have my first BIG model casting with such a down to earth and friendly person.
What's strange, yet so fabulous, is that I have been shortlisted for another model assignment this week too!

I will forever hear the following being played in my head whenever I attend these model castings and jobs...

I'm a model ya know what I mean when I shake my little toosh on the catwalk...on the catwalk...

Back on TV screens

Today was just a bit exciting..hugely exciting actually! I just love being on a TV set - the people, the lights, the cameras - being in the midst of it all and working at a fast pace is what does it for me!

A nice and early call of 6am started the day, makeup and wardrobe was a breeze thanks to some very kind and talented ladies and it was all 'quiet on set, rolling, action' from there on.

We filmed inside Northland shopping centre mainly on the escalators just before the cinema. It's funny because the night before I told my sister I was a bit worried as I wasn't sure I remembered what I needed to do when in front of a camera (silly nerves). My sis reminded me that I do what I do because it comes naturally to me, and because I'm good at it. She was right, at the end of the shoot I realized something - there was a camera, entire crew, huge lights and booms right before me. Sure, I was aware and conscious of the where-abouts of all this but at the same time.. i wasn't. Some things just become second nature and this must be one of those things. You just learn how to move, position yourself and deal with cameras, people and light, so much so that you do all of these things on auto pilot.

This was my first job booked through Chameleon  Casting! Woo hoo! I've been auditioning at this casting office for more than five years now and FINALLY I broke through. I look very forward to many more auditions with the lovely Chameleon ladies, and hopefully a job or two!

Keep checking back as i'll upload the commercial once it has aired.

Time is of the essence

Last minute auditions have always been my favorite, when I find out about an audition on the day my stress levels seem to be a lot lower and I generally have a more successful audition. I think it's due to the fact that I am aware that I haven't had a great amount of time to prepare and thus I tend to just "let it all go" and present a lot more naturally. I tend to trust myself and my ability a lot more and it's this trust that allows my natural, creative and personable personality to shine through without anything blocking (aka over compensation) my talent or ability. 

For me, the actual shoot is the easy part where I am easily who and what I need to be - minus the nerves.

In the case of my latest audition the "last minuteness" helped me a great deal... As my natural and stress-free self booked the job. 

See you on the TV x

The truth about acting #1

They say the best actors, or the more employable actors, are those with the most life experience to draw upon.
In other words: actors who have experienced life; is this even true; is this what a casting director or director considers?

Here's a question that would surely cause a stir at your next dinner party;

At what stage have you actually 'experienced life'? Like hell I'm waiting until age eighty to book a decent acting or presenting role, man.

For me personally; I went to primary school, got a sister, started acting classes, went on loads of family holidays, rode my bike until all hours, played under the sprinkler, played softball, did karate, regularly collected & sold my neighbors mail back to them, my favorite movie was The Wedding Singer and My Best Friends Wedding (i was eight or ten), lost my grandfather, went to high school, still doing acting classes, got severely bullied, spent my summers waterskiing and winters snow skiing, changed high schools from public to private, stopped getting bullied, dabbled in modeling, travelled with my family, had my first boyfriend, learnt to ride a horse, sucked at maths but got an A in drama, got bullied by a teacher, became part of a social scene, graduated high school, started university, still acting, travelled, met my 'now' fiancé, partied, made new friends, travelled again, started working in Human resources, went through social traumas, grew up a whole heap, started a business in fashion, got a new more advanced job in Human Resources, had lots of money, wore the miss corporate crown and rocked, graduated, decided I couldn't let go of my acting aspirations, moved to LA, lived on my own & had not many friends, worked twelve hours a day 7 days a week, discovered I was a good presenter, got accepted into Chubbucks classes, continued to travel around and work hard, missed my man decided to head home, started a new business in recruitment, finally confident and comfortable with who I am, channel 7 discovered me, started caring for my grandmother, worked hard on producing my own work, got booked to play the lead in an Aussie-Viet film, hello world this is me, picked up a whole lot of presenting work, kicking goals, booked my first TVC, started producing & writing, bought a house, got an agent, welcome to Korean food was born, still working on my own stuff, lost my other grandfather, renovated my house, became a voice over artist, he proposed, still acting and presenting, still running my own business, organizing a wedding, busting my ass to be prepared for when the right person calls me with the right role for the right project, still training, still acting.

Voice recordings

This week I was in the studio to do my first three voice recordings for the Marco Polo Project.
We were at Salt Studios in Brighton for the most part of the day and even though I have done some VO work previously I still felt a little nervous as I walked into the sound booth. Our sound engineer Matt Hadley is such a lovely guy, as soon as I heard his voice filter through the speaker I immediately felt at ease.
Two days prior Matt, Nghi and I had gotten together over brunch in Brighton to discuss the recording and run through the readings, in between that I had worked on the material myself familiarizing myself with difficult vocabulary, learning to how to pronounce many chinese words and of course finding the meaning and objective to assist me in driving the material.
Even though I had practiced my Chinese I still fumbled on many of the words but there were lots that I actually pronounced very well too.
There were no real hiccups on the day, apart from the lighting in the sound booth not being completely adequate, which of course poses as a slight problem when you are required to read in order to perform your role! As they say, the show must go on and we all made do with the light we had, it just meant a little more concentration and emphasis on attention to detail - and a splitting headache on the way home!

I'll be back in the sound studio in coming weeks to record more!

The truth about acting

As an actor I find that my performances almost always need to be pulled back for tv.
I began studying acting when I was 5 and continued with theatre studies until 18 and I find that I struggle just a bit with bringing my performances back down to reality. I don't need to hit the back row when on a tv or film set and it would be wise of me to keep that in mind.

My most recent audition was for a speaking role on a TV commercial and again I got the 'pull it back, make it smaller'. I can do this perfectly well but I can't help but wonder - does my tendency to begin with all guns blazing hinder my chances of booking a job? Or, does my ability to take direction and give the director what they've asked for during my audition overshadow my blazing gun and work in my favor?

I need to remember to keep things small. While studying in LA I really mastered this and was never really told to pull things back, in fact, in LA the overall reaction to me as an actress was so much more positive compared to here in Australia. Someone once told me that could be due to me being a minority in LA - but really - the place is literally crawling with kids from Oz!

What I need is a role similar to Elaine from Seinfeld, Fran from The Nanny, Rachel from Friends, or even Penny from The Big Bang Theory.

R is for radish

I've been slack on the cooking band wagon of recent and I have no shame in admitting that I have thoroughly enjoyed dining out during this wonderful summer period. I don't really know anyone who actually enjoys turning the oven on and standing over a stove in this heat, and if you told me that you do I'm sorry but I would just have to call your bluff!

It's no secret that I would prefer to spend my time baking cakes, however I was recently told by the man that I live with that we just cannot survive on cake. What planet is he from?

So here you go Michael, my darling non cake surviving fiancé, these are radishes and we will be eating them tonight.
No cake.
Just pork, sautéed raddish and a fresh cucumber and chicory salad.

Running the race

Everyone has a goal, right? Well here's a little snippet of mine.

Marco Polo

I am working as a voice over artist for the Marco Polo Project - an initiative to assist in language exchange between Oz and the West. It's worthy, wordy, and beneficial to our many friends who seek to learn a language, or gain valuable insight into people's literary contributions from other countries as users are encouraged to translate featured articles.
Interested in finding out more about this not for profit project?
www.marcopoloproject.org

We had our first production meeting and lesson 101 in Mandarin. Upon arriving I was presented with this; a very fitting 'door of opportunity' ..and what a door!

Turn off the lights

Sunday lunch was delicious, although not a big lunch we shared lots of little Vietnamese hawker style dishes, my fav was the porkbelly sliders - wholly molly they were incredible but agreed, not very hawker like.
So lets recap, Saturday nights dinner was really impressive, Sunday breaky with just us was as lovely as ever, Sunday lunch with porkbelly was delish and Michael's nonnas homemade pasta for dinner - win win win.

There was one other bonus, the Vietnamese restaurant had great lights - I love design!!