Well, it’s official. I now have over 2,000,000 views of my videos on YouTube. That’s million! 2,007,081 to be exact. My first video was uploaded December 03, 2006, 11:01 AM, which means my two year anniversary as a YouTuber is coming up in less than two weeks. A million views a year… not bad!
Most of those views are thanks to “Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual“, a feat I’d certainly love to replicate at some point in the future, but we have other fish to fry at the moment. All I can say is, hang on to your hats because there’s more to come!
Just got in from shooting my closeup in Elliot London’s “Boulevard”, a cool short film in which I play the glamorous celebrity friend of the lead character. My scene is short, but I get some good face time with the camera. There were several photographer friends on set, so thankfully I got some nice pix from on set!
Come see photographer Eric Schwabel’s glorious photography, alongside the work of other artists, at the Hot For Winter show on Sunday, December 14th. His nude photo of yours truly (taken for the Advocate’s body image issue) will be on display, along with his other work.
Calpernia Addams and Brian Pera on the set of "Not For You"
Brian Pera, director of the upcoming short film tenatively titled “Not For You”, has written a very kind essay about working with me on our recent shoot in Memphis. Check it out:
Recently, I filmed a short here in Memphis, a week-long production with a cast of three and a crew of four. One of the actors was Calpernia Addams, whom I’d first seen on TV, subsequently contacted by email, and eventually met at Outfest in LA. Like many people who meet at film-related events in Los Angeles, we exchanged compliments and expressed what seemed like a genuine interest in working with each other. Following the template, it might have ended there.
Yesterday, as I was filming a video blog about my hobby of building model ships in a bottle, I got a call from my new agent Carol. It was a screen test for a major contemporary national brand! Here’s the footage, plus my screen test!
I had the privilege of speaking on trans issues for actors at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) building in Los Angeles tonight. The panel consisted of some really cool people (other than myself, ha ha):
Calpernia Addams, Transamerica
Jill Bennett, Dante’s Cove
Peter Paige, Queer as Folk
Jonathan Slavin, Better Off Ted
Doug Spearman, Noah’s Arc
Jason Stuart, Drop Dead Gorgeous
We talked about various issues related to being a professional actor who was gay, lesbian or bisexual, and I interjected as much information about the trans side of things as I could. I think it went well, and we had a great time.
Wow, I just got back from a week in Memphis yesterday, where I was shooting the new short film “Not For You”, written/co-starring/directed by Brian Pera. It was quite an experience… the first time I’ve gone on an extended “on location” shoot that was more than a short drive from home.
Brian wrote, directed and starred in the film ”The Way I See Things”, which I saw at this year’s OutFest and by which I was very moved. Knowing that he was from Tennessee, I sought him out at one of the parties and we had a great conversation. It seems almost surreal that only three months later I have now made a movie with him and become friends.
He contacted me not long after OutFest was over to share the script for “Not For You”, an emotional and nuanced story set in Memphis. We discussed it at length, and eventually made arrangements for me to come to Memphis for a week and shoot it. I left LA last Monday, October 6th.
We had an all straight crew, which I think is nice because by interacting up close and personal with as many filmmakers as possible, I can help more people become more normalized to the idea of a trans actress. The DP, Ryan Parker, was incredibly talented, and also an absolutely hilarious cutup. He had some amazing dance moves, which he was ready to bust out at a moment’s notice. Our sound man, known as “Hunk” due to his last name being Huncley, regaled us with hot stories involving a “whole team full of dudes” despite being 100% heterosexual. Shelly was the cutie-pie PA, along with the hilarious Bard. We all got along almost instantly. My co-star, Sally Stover, was delightful.
This movie allowed me to explore some new ground as an actress, since I had some strong emotional scenes with all the characters. Up to now, I’ve done comedic things, but haven’t had to deal with real emotions directly face-to-face with another character. Casting Pearls had a broad emotional range, but my co-star was offscreen due to the unique setup of that film. I liked exploring these emotions in “Not For You”, but the real challenge is learning to jump back and forth from “in character I’m crossing boundaries with you” to hanging out between scenes in real life with the actors. It’s totally standard Acting 101, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the reality of awkwardness to overcome between scenes. Thankfully, we were all professionals and everyone was so cool that this was not hard to work through within the first few scenes.
As my faithful readers are learning, there is a long gap between the planning and the making of a film, and another long gap between the making of a film and the day when an audience actually gets to see it. So I don’t know when “Not For You” will be available for viewing, but if it follows the usual life cycle of an indie film, it will first go to film festivals and then play somewhere like Logo, Bravo, the Sundance Channel or other media outlet that favors independent voices.
You may notice a certain Southern actress whose initials are CA in the role of “Cracksy” the crackhead. I’m a big fan of satire when it comes from inside the community, I just don’t like it when “Straighty McNonTrans” takes jabs at the GLBT community.
