4 WAYS TO BREAK IN TO HOLLYWOOD

APPROACH 1
Find a time machine.  Travel back to the year where you can meet your 10 year old self.  Pray that meeting your 10 year old self does not cause the universe to self-destruct.  Assuming all is well, convince your 10 year old self that your future self wants to become a successful actor and the burden of this decision now rests solely on the actions of your 10 year old self.  Convince 10 year old self to turn mom into momager and have her move you to New York City so you can audition for Broadway musicals, which for 10 year olds, are open call castings.  Book a starring role in a Broadway musical at age 11 and win a Tony award at age 12.  Keep working in NY theatre as a darling of the NY theatre scene.  Secure the top agent with your statue.  Keep working in theatre, slumming it every once in awhile with a Recurring Guest Star arc on LAW & ORDER, whatever version of L&O happens to be on the air when you’re 14 years old.  If LAW & ORDER isn’t a thing yet, book the analogous role on NYPD BLUE.  At age 17 start booking network pilots from direct offers.  Don’t worry, most of these will go nowhere but since you’re already a Tony winner with a TV resume you’ll be swimming in these offers for several years.  At age 21 decide that you’re tired of living in a city that smells like a trash can in July and pack up and move to Burbank.  Since you’ve got the top agent, it doesn’t matter that you’ve changed coasts, nobody cares.  Book your tenth series at age 23 and ride its success to 100 episode syndication strip.  Because it’s in syndication it will be seen in almost every country in the world, never mind that your voice is dubbed in Arabic by a local movie star, it’s your face that matters and now the entire world knows your face.  With a hit show under your belt, make the transition from TV star to film star and occasionally do TV roles if you need an extra $100,000 in petty cash to buy a new Louis Vutton bag.

APPROACH 2
Buy a book on Buddhism.  Learn to meditate.  Discover that those crazy Tibetans say that time is an illusion and everything that will happen has already happened and vice versa.  Notice that quantum physicists are saying the same thing.  Use meditation to contact your 14 year old self.  Tell your 14 year old self to get on the internet and create a free account on Actor’s Access.  Further direct 14 year old you to upload a current yearbook photo and to login every day and check for open call castings from Disney and Nickelodeon.  Start auditioning using your Dad’s Mini-DV camera.  Since Dad won’t let you use the camera by yourself, turn him into a reader.  Now that Dad’s involved convince him to take you to Los Angeles for the summer, every summer, so you can take classes at Groundlings which is where your hero Will Ferrell or Kristin Wiig went to school.  While you’re in L.A. learn the phrase “It’s all good” just in case you don’t book one of your first 30 open call auditions.  Back in Omaha, take every dance and singing class available: you’ll tell Dad that you need to be a triple-threat and since he won’t know exactly what you mean he will nod his head in agreement while driving you to class.  Introduce Dad to a sexy actress in Los Angeles so he splits from mom and moves you both, at age 17, to L.A. to chase his girlfriend and "help" you realize your dream.  Tell your mom the “show must go on”.  Realize that sacrificing mom on your journey is a small price to pay for a starring role in a studio picture.  Ripping a page from Emma Stone’s playbook, book a starring role in a movie like House Bunny at age 17.  With this one breakout role continue to star in studio movies for the next 10 or 15 years while you’re still young enough to be considered the IT girl.  If it turns out that someone like Margot Robbie starts taking all the great roles when you’re 33 turn your attention to television where your vast film resume can get you any pilot you want.  Turn down 30 crappy television roles and take the two or three amazing jobs with Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel unless one of them is dead in which case pick an analogous critically acclaimed movie star that has transitioned to television in order to pay for the opulent lifestyle that was once financed by high paying movie roles.  Keep working in television until you win your Emmy and Golden Globe and then in the following year watch everyone realize you’re one of the greats of your generation and make the transition back into film acting and get nominated for an Oscar.

APPROACH 3
Nurture a secret dream of becoming an actor but in order to appease the parental units who have agreed to finance a post-secondary education in law or medicine, attend a top school and get a college degree.  With your useless college degree in hand, move to Los Angeles and take a job as a nanny or, if you’re lucky a job at Starbucks with full benefits.  Don’t tell your boss that you’re an actor otherwise you’ll be looking for work again shortly.  Drive for Uber to pay for headshots.  Drive for Lyft to pay for on-camera training.  Using your critical thinking skills realize that you need a great foundation if you’re going to be a serious contended and discover Playhouse West is a legendary school that few know about and almost anyone can attend.  Spend 3 or 4 years training at Playhouse and then book their student production Welcome Home Soldier.  After graduating get cast in a stage production directed by Jeff Goldblum who happens to be an alumni.  Struggle for 10 years with conventional wisdom and conventional everything.  In the waiting room for some non-union low budget movie that you don’t really want to audition for, hear about an actress with tattoos and blue hair that accidentally got an agent at CAA after serving him coffee at The Coffee Bean which is 100m from the front door of the main CAA offices near the Fox lot.  Realize that you’ve been serving coffee to agents for 10 years and never gotten anything except creepy glances.  Decide to cogitate on this blue hair/tattoos concept for a minute.  Realize that you don’t need blue hair or tattoos you just need to have a unique look that TV and film casting directors always need.  Get the look.  Almost immediately get the agent that has refused to respond to your emails for the past 7 years.  Get the first major audition you always dreamed of.  Get the producer callback as a result of 7 years woodshedding in the on-camera technique class that you were really starting to doubt.  Start booking work as a character actor.  Experience mild abuse on set almost as if the rest of the cast thinks of you as a piece of furniture.  Realize that you’re a piece of furniture that’s working 3-6 times per year and making fans in every casting office in L.A.  Notice that your fans are increasingly giving you better and better auditions.  Continue to book the small roles while the big roles elude you.  Spend another 30 or 40 years in this grind.  Wake up one morning and realize that ever actress from your Groundlings class 25 years ago has quit acting and moved to Iowa City, IA to work in city government.  Notice that your resume has so many credits you can delete all the furniture roles and have 30 great guest stars remaining.  Be in demand on the low budget film circuit, booking 5 or more great supporting roles in the sub $500,000 movies that can never afford more than one movie star.  Accidentally be a supporting actor in a movie that wins the Jury award at Sundance or god forbid, is nominated for an Oscar.  With the award winner under your belt notice that your television career undergoes a renaissance even though you haven’t shot new headshots in 5 years.  Decide to take Lesly Kahn after hearing about how great she was 20 years earlier.  Notice that everyone in the class is like the 23 year old clueless version of you.  Have Lesly become one of your biggest fans such that she recommends you for a Series role that a friend of hers is casting.  Book the series on your 63rd birthday.  Notice how the casting directors that used to ignore you now are all friending you on IG or whatever worthless social media site happens to be in vogue on your 63rd birthday.  Drink a toast to your late, dead manager who once told you to stop trying to look like everyone else.

APPROACH 4
At 23, along with 3000 other young people that look just like you, move to Los Angeles with a college degree in acting.  Naive, spend 5 or 6 years chasing down a multitude of scams aimed at draining your savings while simultaneously feeding your fantasy that you are one audition away from being a movie star, as per La La Land, your favorite movie.  Get dumped by your college boyfriend or girlfriend whose parting words (based on your time together in pre-med) says “you used to have potential.”  Rip up his or her photo and use the energy to pimp out your tinder and OK cupid profiles.  Go on dates hoping the other person will pay while you’re secretly hoping they don’t discover you’re broke after 3 consecutive agents and managers all asked you to shoot photos with their special photographer, before dropping you with shrugs.  On a random date with an odd looking person who really doesn’t look anything like his/her profile picture, have an epiphany that you’re on a date with the Next Kathryn Bigelow or Next Judd Apatow (hereafter NEXJA).  They might be married currently but whatevs, it’s L.A. after all.  At home that night burn the last picture of your ex in a trash can and accidentally set the apartment building on fire.  Flirt with the fireman who resuscitates you but keep the flame burning for Nexja who is now on your “most wanted list”.  Shoot headshots with the good photographer after Nexja drops a hint that he’s going to be shooting a movie for Universal that fall and “there’s a role for you.”  Furiously date Nexja as you watch his/her career blow up and hope that he’s not a douche bag like everyone else in Hollywood.  Tie the nuptials as Nexja’s summer blockbuster sets a new summer record for July 4th popcorn movies.  Don’t care that your part in the movie got cut because now you’re married to the director and (s)he just signed a 10-year overall deal with Fox/Disney.  Book a major supporting role in Nexja’s next movie because you know the director, like in a biblical sense.  Watch the kids at home as Nexja travels the world shooting movies with every major movie star who also happen to be having play dates with your kids because everyone’s kids are the same age.  Get a supporting role in Nexja’s first serious movie after his 6 consecutive “fart joke” blockbusters in a row.  Sit at the Oscars next to Reese Witherspoon who wants to get lunch with you next week to talk about that screenplay you wrote in college about a bunch of medical students who cure cancer.

Sipping a glass of Chardonnay as you look out of Los Angeles from your view of the city from Mulholland Drive, say a quiet “thank you” to your college-ex for breaking up with you at just the right time.