Anyone watch this on Showtime?

If you ever remember seeing some actor who appears in a movie but you can't recognize his name this is perfect viewing for you.

Some of these people I know like Bruce Davison and Zeljko Ivanek.




http://www.sho.com/sho/reality-docs/...t-thing#/index

Xander Berkeley is awesome.

Of all the great character actors they can cover, why do they pick so many absolute unknowns--people I've never even seen in anything, with the exception of four of them. And of those four, only Berkeley and Davison are at all distinguished--in my eyes, at least. And Davison doesn't really belong there because he was a leading man for a good stretch of his early career (LAST SUMMER, WILLARD, ULZANA'S RAID, SHORT EYES, etc.).

^ I agree. At least get actual character actors like Stephen Tobolowsky, James Rebhorn and Kevin Dunn.

I saw a doc on background actors that I found very interesting. This sounds like more of the same, only with people I actually recognize. I'll have to check it out.

I agree. What's Davison doing in there with the others? Almost everyone who is into film knows who he is.

Davidson does seem really out of place. I mean he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Longtime Companion.

Stanley Kamel died over 4 years ago. Was this doc in the making that long? I find that hard to believe. But if so, why is the pool of actors interviewed so small?

Is he in this? This dudes been around forever.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_LaSardo

There's another doc about character actors called The Face is Familiar http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1411582/ that covered Tobolowski and some more recognizable faces.

Bruce Davidson has no business being on that list.

His death was mentioned just before the closing credits.

Even if some of the people interviewed are questionable choices it was interesting to see the other side of Hollywood where you struggle for a paycheck and might go months without work.

They should do a whole movie just on Harry Dean Stanton, one of the longest-working character actors in the business. I was trying to think of someone who's worked longer and who isn't a former star (like Mickey Rooney and Lauren Bacall) and I came up with one: Peggy Stewart, whose career goes back to the 1930s and was in tons of B-westerns in the 1940s and was most recently in the Adam Sandler movie, THAT'S MY BOY, as Grandma...something.

He looks like that other guy who is in almost every gangster or urban movie



Titus Welliver should have been in it

A name you never guess but you see him in almost every movie or TV show.

I caught this on TV a few months ago and really liked it. Some of the actors stick mainly to TV, so if you don't watch much TV you won't recognize them.

That typecast gangster actor is Noel Gugliemi. He was in Dark Knight Rises, too. He's the one that tells Dagget's right hand man to walk slowly on the ice. His dad is Italian and mother is Mexican. Dude's local out here.

I watched this too and found it interesting. My only real issue with it was some of the complaining is a little much. Yes, it is hard to stay employed acting, so sometimes you probably have to get another job. The story the guys tells about having to work for a moving company while he was between acting gigs is ridiculous. He acts like had to do something really demeaning, or turn to a life of crime to support his family. I had trouble having any sort of sympathy for him and some of the "Struggles" kinds of scenes were easily solved with a "Get a job then idiot"

Oddly enough, I watched this over the weekend. It had been sitting on my DVR for months. Funny how several of them appeared in some version of Star Trek over the years.

Dick Miller

Saw this just now, liked it. Recognized most of them, knew a number of them by name. Glad to see Mark Ralston on there, even if I only know him from Rush Hour. He was great in that. I agree it was funny seeing most of them on Start Trek in one way or another, but was surprised they didn't talk about Law & Order, doesn't everybody go on that? Maybe not from this group, but that has such a huge amount of guest stars.

I also saw this on Netflix a few weeks ago. Good documentary.

Pretty much all of the actors in the documentary are best known for their work in TV. So if you don't watch a lot of TV, I wouldn't expect a lot of you here to recognize them.

I found it astonishing how an actor can work a job and make say $1500 for 1 episode of work, but after all the fees, payments they have to make to their agent, taxes etc., they are literally left with chump change.

I actually found Rick Worthy's comments quite compelling. He was the black actor interviewed in this documentary. He's a veteran actor, but usually only gets guest starring roles. It sucked to hear how badly he struggled for a long time, especially after 9/11, which he said the calls weren't coming in and he had to get rid of his place, sell his car and go back to getting in the bus.

They're doing an whole documentary about him:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...uy-dick-miller

Showtime now has the sequel but with female actresses

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^ wasn't nearly as good as the guys. little repetitive actually.