Tag Archives: agent

Buh-Bye 2013

31 Dec

At midnight tonight 2013 will be gone and we’ll be living in the year 2014.

Colourful 2014 in fiery sparklers

2014.

Anybody else’s mind blown?…just a teeny bit? a smidge?…Yeah, mine too when I actually think about it.

I don’t do the whole New Years Resolution thing, I don’t see the point. If there are things I want to do why wait for Jan 1st to start working towards doing them? Also, if I have to actually sit down and think about what I should add to a list to create a New Years Resolution list well, to me that seems I probably don’t want to do those things all that much or I wouldn’t be having to sit and make a list, I’d already be working towards those things.

Does that make sense?

If I were to make a list the things on mine would be (1) work on acting career (2) get in better shape (3) travel more or at least find a way to save money to go towards travelling.

Not that hard. But ya know what? I’m already working on all those things. *gasp* I know, shocking huh?

Sure, I have a new work out plan I am going to be following but that isn’t because tomorrow is Jan 1st, that is because my most recent challenge didn’t net me the results I wanted and I researched to find a better plan to follow. I researched this back on Dec 22nd and would have already started following it except I got sick and I’m waiting till I am better before I go to the gym. Nothing worse then people at the gym sweating like crazy and breathing super hard while sick…why not just cough right in my face? Speed up the spreading of your germs why don’t ya? Ugh.

Let’s look at the other two things on my so called list shall we?

Work on the acting career? Oh wait, I do that already! Am I not the girl who recently (like two weeks ago) signed with a new and totally awesome agent, has new headshots, updated her various online acting related sites and as soon as she is talking normally (stupid congestion, grr) will be making appointments to take care of some other acting related things that will help promote her to casting agents? Yeah, yeah that is me. Coolio. Sooooo, working on that one but not cause it is on any kind of list…

Hmm, the third is travel more or find a way to save money to go travelling. I love love love to travel! Once I started University I sadly became waaaaay too poor to be able to travel anymore. Boo! 😦 For the past 6 years all I do is go between where I live now and where I used to live, until this past summer! I broke with that little tradition and went to Los Angeles this past August and it was awesome! It’s not like L.A. is far away but (1) I hadn’t been anywhere new in 6 freakin years so it felt amazing to go! (2) I got to hang with a friend I hadn’t seen for years for ten whole days! (3) hello? it was L.A., my acting mecca lol and well, it was vacation. Vacation that wasn’t spent jumping from one friend to another trying to make sure everyone got an even amount of time with me, it was ten days where I called the shots (for the most part) about what I did and where I went. Glorious. 😀 Sooooo, I already started travelling, even if it was a baby trip and yeah, not cause I’d put that on some sort of list….guess I must have really wanted to do that huh?

Something great that came of that trip was I decided that this no travelling thing can’t go on! I don’t care if I have to backpack everywhere I travel, I haaaaave to travel! My master plan was to alternate years. So, since I travelled summer 2013 I would spend 2014 saving money and travel again in 2015 but I have a family wedding summer of 2014 in England and if I am gonna spend all that money going to England for a wedding might as well check out a country I haven’t been to yet that is in the area, right? I mean, makes sense to me…I had been planning on going to Germany but have decided to switch that to somewhere else, I haven’t decided where yet. The only condition is it has to be somewhere I haven’t been before. I love that condition. 🙂 The trip will definitely be a low budget one but who cares as long as I am seeing a new part of the world? 🙂

where to go? where to go? hmm...

where to go? where to go? hmm…

Perhaps you are someone who does make a New Year’s Resolution List? If so I hope that works for you and whatever you put on that list happens for you in 2014! 🙂

If you’re like me and you don’t make a list don’t let that stop you from thinking of a goal and aiming for it!

2014 can be your year, I sure as hell plan on making it mine! Booyah! 😀

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Best. Day. Ever.

10 Dec

ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!

Did I say ohmygod! enough times? No, I think I need one more…

Oh. My. Gaaaaawd! 

BEST. DAY. EVER! 😀

Remember how yesterday I mentioned I had an appointment to go to today at 1pm? I purposefully didn’t say what the appointment was for because I am superstitious and didn’t want to jinx anything but it has happened, epic things came of it, and now I get to bring you up to date! *girly squeal*

I had an interview with an agent, an agent at a really good Talent Agency, to see about signing to his roster and have him represent me.

When I initially contacted the agency D responded and said they were only looking to expand their commercial roster right now and if I was interested then yes I could send my info to him. What this means is I would be put in for auditions for commercials but not for tv shows or movies. Well, I want to go for tv and film roles but am aware I have to earn my way up the ladder so I said yes I’d be open to commercial representation. I figured get my foot in the door, after I’ve proven myself talk to them about also repping me for tv shows and film. Sounds good, right? Right!

Well, while we were talking he said that even though they are expanding their commercial roster he can tell that I am “meant for tv and film” and he is going to start me with commercials but push to get me out there for tv and film auditions quickly because it is obvious that is what I am meant to be doing! Oh. My. God! Yesssss! 😀

What would normally be a one hour interview became a bit over two hours and he offered me a spot on his roster right then and there, no having to wait and let him think about it or meet with the others on his team, he wanted me. Just as I am. Amazing. Just…wow…

We had such an instant and solid connection that I already knew I wanted to sign with him and am so thrilled he feels the same! 😀

Normally I would never try to get an agent in December, it is such a bad month for that. Agents are already thinking vacation, filming has shut down for the holidays, the only people really working are doing prep things for January (like costume fittings etc), it is traditionally a horrible month to try to find representation. A friend of mine who is also signed with this agency recommended them to me and when I took a look at them I had this feeling…I know, sounds hokey, but that really is what happened, I just had a feeling I should apply. Forget that it is a bad month for it, forget that I am not at my “perfect weight” yet, forget all the logical reasons for not applying, just apply! It is what my gut was saying and I decided to listen. Man am I glad I listened!

The lull in the industry for the next couple weeks is perfect too. D said he will use the next two weeks to get all my online profiles etc looking the way they should, everything can get shifted to show I am signed with D, my brand can be re-worked a bit so when January gets here everything will be good to go and he can start submitting me asap for auditions. Who’d of thought a lull in filming would be a good thing? lol

We talked about getting me in front of casting directors, workshops, my headshots, all kinds of things. He is so pro-active about getting me seen and getting me in the audition room that I feel really confident about what we can accomplish. 🙂

Oh, and get this! He never once said I have to lose weight! He believes in diversification, he knows the trends are changing, people want to see a wider variety of looks on screen and instead of trying to force me to look like everyone else he is going to promote me the way I am, because I have my own look, I am unique, there is no one else that looks like me and the industry is changing and seeing they need that different look. I love this man. I have had agents say they won’t put me out for work until I get 15 pounds underweight! Not “lose a bit of weight” but “get 15 pounds underweight”! that is so unhealthy! Not just for the body but the psyche. Being told you are worthless as an actor until you are underweight by a noticeable amount, not cool. It really messes with a girl, boo! But D, he loves how I look. He loves how I can pull of different “types” (badass, down to earth, quirky etc) and what is great is he noticed while we talked all those different parts of my personality (and more) which means he is observant and will be better able to sell me to casting directors because he really does know I can be all those different things, he isn’t just making it up.

Can ya tell I’m still over the moon about today? lol

This morning I was an unrepresented actor with not a lot of hope for landing a well paying roll. Tonight I go to bed a represented actor whose chances just got a whole hell of a lot better.

I can’t wait for 2014 to get here, I am going to make it my year!

Maijah Lewk Logo

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A New Beginning

24 Feb

Just Do It!

 

I am leaving Weight Watchers…yes, you read that correctly. Although, since I never officially joined, just did the program on my own I guess I’m not “officially” leaving them since well, how can you leave something you were never really a part of?

I learned a lot from Weight Watchers and I will take those lessons with me. I learned about proper portion sizes, and how to eat food groups, I learned how to actually read a nutritional label (I used to glance at them as if I knew what I was doing but didn’t actually read them lol). I think overall I learned common sense, something some people say can’t be learned lol, because, really, in the end Weight Watchers is common sense. They give you the tools and you use them or you don’t and the results you get are reflective of the work you put in to the program.

The only problem with that last sentence is the results you get aren’t always reflective of the work you put in to the program, and that’s where my love affair with Weight Watchers started to go wrong. For the longest time if I ate my points and did my exercising I lost weight every week, maybe not a lot but I’d lose something and so life was good. But I have been stuck on a plateau since last summer, yup, you read that right, last freakin summer! and my irritation with Weight Watchers and myself was reaching a level I didn’t think possible. Yes, since moving to the new apartment I hadn’t been tracking or paying all that close attention to what I was eating or portion sizes but that is partly because for the previous 6 months even though I had been doing all that nothing had been changing, I was stuck at the same weight for so long that I just gave up. Lame huh?

I probably would have stayed on this cycle of meaning to start tracking again but not doing it and going to the gym about 3 times a week but totally counter acting any work I did in the gym by eating a donut or something else ridiculously bad for me except I had a talk with my agent last week. I had emailed her because I am not getting any auditions and I wanted to ask her if she’d be willing to put me in as a wild card for some auditions to help get me seen more. I am aware there aren’t a lot of casting calls for 5’8″ redheads lol so I was thinking if she put me in for say, auditions meant for brunettes or something maybe somebody would decide that hey maybe a redhead would be good in this role too. Well, she called me back and in the nicest voice (she really sounds like such a sweet lady when she’s tearing your heart out) she informed me that she is putting me out there for anything in my height/age range but I need to lose weight because the girls I am going up against are all around 120lbs and I am not…Now, normally anybody with any self-esteem would not let someone tell them they are too fat and that they have to lose a specific amount of weight but an actor’s relationship with their agent is different so all I did during this convo was make agreeing noises, say “yup” a lot and basically just took it. It’s like a whipped dog, tail between it’s legs, just takes the painful crap cause there’s no other option. *rolls eyes* Suckfest huh? Cause, yes, I know I am overweight, especially for the acting world, but come on! I’m a lot smaller then I was and how the fuck am I gonna lose more weight? I’ve been stuck at this weight for so long telling me to lose so I weigh 120lbs, well, you might as well be telling me I need to lose 500lbs, I have no idea how to do it! sigh

Luckily, fates were on my side that day, later in the day I was meeting up with NC who is someone I have recently been seeing and when I told him the gist of the convo with my agent he said he could help me. Turns out that he used to be a personal trainer and he’s kept up with all the info on the topic so he actually knows what he is talking about lol. Guess that explains how he is in such amazing shape…seriously, amazing! He says if I follow the program he makes for me I could lose 20lbs in 2 months but not just lose the weight like become a smaller version of me, I’d be more toned, in shape, fit…so a healthy weight loss…which is what I need but have no idea how to accomplish on my own. Sweet huh?

So, that is why I haven’t been writing for the last little bit, I’ve been learning the new program I am going to be following and wanted to wait till I had a better understanding of it before I wrote too much about it. I don’t want to write something that ends up being incorrect and have you all think I am nutso lol. Because even though I trust that NC knows what he is talking about and is teaching me good habits etc I am also reading books on the eating style he is having me follow so I can understand the science behind what I am doing…cause, people, there really is a science behind it, it’s crazed! lol

I’ll write more about what my eating and exercise habits are going to be from now on another day, since this post is already nice an long lol but now you know what I am up to over here. 🙂

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3 Good Days

9 Oct

I believe in balance in life, never are all things good or all things bad – I think if something goes great in one aspect of your life then in another area something not so great will happen to keep your balance in check. It’s like a karma thing. 🙂

Well, I’ve had three really good things happen three days in a row…I’m disturbed slightly by this and wondering what is about to happen to balance those things out. But then I think maybe the three good things are balancing out the not so great things that had happened recently so maybe there’s no need to worry…guess I’ll find out! lol

The first good thing was getting the Agent on Thursday – by far the best of all three things! 😀 I will not blather on about it since I already wrote an entire post about it but suffice to say I am still riding high from that lol.

The second good thing was on Friday when my new roomie and I finally found a new apartment. It’s pretty sweet looking and has almost everything we want/need. We realized we were never going to find a place that had everything but this one comes pretty close. 🙂 The rooms are a good size, it’s big enough to fit all our furniture, hardwood floors, decent sized kitchen, little balcony, laundry on site, free covered parking, close to everything a person could possibly need which means I can walk to do stuff instead of drive thereby saving money on gas (which is good cause it went up to $1.40 yesterday! ack!). It’s in a totally different area of the city then where I live now so there will be the fun of getting used to a new area – something I am looking forward to and yet, not looking forward to lol.

The third good thing happened on Saturday. My day job is as an on-call nanny and for that I have to have my cpr/first aid certificate, well, the silly thing expired so I had to recertify. I always think to recertify you should be allowed to just write the test not have to retake the whole class cause geez, 9 hours being told stuff I already know? Boring! Anyways, the good thing was I passed with 100% and can continue to work my day job…ya know, until I become rich and famous lol.

So yah, a good three days. 😀 I wonder what the next three days will hold…

On the food front I have to confess, I have been about the worst Weight Watcher in the history of Weight Watchers for the past, oh, three weeks or so? *hangs head in shame* I don’t know what happened! I mean, I kinda do…I know how it started but I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get myself under control, sigh.

It all started when I got the ulcer attack, I had days of not being able to eat anything, and then when I could finally manage to eat something it was Weetabix cereal drowned in milk. Anything other then the cereal was still causing massive pain but I got to a point where I needed food – I felt like I was being starved to death and really, it’d been like a week since I had eaten properly so in my defence, I was kinda being starved…just ya know, by my own stomach’s ability to digest not by like, some psycho holding me hostage and not feeding me (I watch a lot of Criminal Minds lol)

I got to a point where I would eat something even though I knew I was gonna pay for it with pain cause I just had to eat and I got this mind set that if it’s gonna hurt no matter what I eat I might as well eat something really yummy – make the pain worth it. So I would eat whatever I wanted. I was only eating like once a day so it’s not like I was gorging multiple times a day or anything but for that one meal there were no rules. I ate pie, pizza, cookies, pasta…whatever I craved, shrug. I justified it to myself by saying “go ahead, eat whatever you want, it’s gonna be the only food that goes in you today so might as well make your taste buds happy since no matter what your stomach won’t be”

Once I started being able to eat and not feel pain all the time I did try to eat normally. Mostly cause I noticed that some foods still caused me trouble but others didn’t. I could only eat really small amounts at a time and only about twice a day so I was still feeling starved but not quite as badly lol. But see, that’s when it got bad cause the more I was able to tolerate food the more I was craving really bad for me things and it appeared my ability to say no to myself had disappeared…gain an ulcer lose my self-control? Bad trade off in my opinion. lol.

I started eating pastries, and hot cocoa, and more cookies, and more pie. Every evening I would swear that the next day I’d get back on track and the next day I might even have started it eating properly but somewhere during that day I’d make a stupid move and binge eat on something. sigh. It’s gotten to the point that I am scared to step on the scale and I can see in the mirror that I am bigger. I am poofier in the abdomenal area and my love handles are more handle-y. Combined with the bad food choices I was unable to exercise when the ulcer was really bad and when the ulcer got a bit better I was still missing boxing classes due to apartment hunting.

I’m turning in to that marshmallow dude from the Ghostbuster movie. ugh.

I’m so disgusted with myself, with how I let myself lose all my self-control in regards to food. My mindset was “I’m barely eating so I can eat whatever I want” but when I started to be able to eat again I wasn’t able to change that mindset of eating whatever I wanted and I no longer had the ulcer pain happening to stop me from eating more then once a day so I ended up going on a food binge that lasted weeks. Weeks!!!! Disgusting. 😦

I tried getting back on track last week, I started tracking, I was careful with my points, I even went for a hike cause I wasn’t going to be able to box that day and I wanted to make sure I got at least some exercise. I thought it’d be easy to get back on track but I only lasted two days. I tried again yesterday, I took food with me to the St John’s Ambulance cpr/first aid class I had to spend the day at so I wouldn’t go to the mall that was across the street and buy lunch from the food court. I was doing good yesterday, I ate a healthy breakfast before I left the apartment, ate some of the food I took but when I went to Starbucks to get hot water for the tea bag I had brought with me I bowed to the peer pressure the girl I was hanging out with in the class exerted and got a half sweet peppermint hot chocolate instead. sigh. Then, after class when I hung out with KL the plan was to get a sub from Subway to sneak in to the movie theatre, however, the food court at that mall didn’t have a Subway (we both thought it did!) and we ended up going to the movie with no food. By the time the movie was over we were so incredibly hungry we went to Red Robin’s and split an order of onion rings and we each got an entree. I got a salad, which you might not think is so bad but the salad has a lemon poppyseed dressing, candied walnuts and feta cheese on it…I calculated the points for it once-upon-a-time and I remember it was in the high teens somewhere…bad salad! Oh, and I got a side of garlic bread too…the bread had melted cheese on it…

So now today, yet another day I swore I would be good has come and gone and guess who wasn’t good? I didn’t exercise. I didn’t eat healthy, I haven’t even tracked my points or written down any of the food I ate so who knows how bad I’ve really been? I know I should calculate my points for the day but it’s so depressing seeing just how badly I’ve eaten…

Maybe I’ll manage to be better tomorrow…at this point, I can’t get much worse…*rolls eyes*

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I Got An AGENT!!!

6 Oct

HAPPY HAPPY DANCE!

This blog is about me, an actress who is as yet not famous, who is working to lose weight in order to better my chances within my career field but not wanting to go so extreme that I become one of those scary thin chicks. So far, I have no fear of going to extreme with my thinness since I am still overweight lol. 😛

Despite this blog being about an actress whose losing weight it mostly focuses on the weight part and not the acting part. I don’t generally mention the auditions I do go on, or everytime I apply to an agency or work on a scene with a friend etc cause well, it’d be like someone who works in an office talking about what they do on their computer everyday in their blog – this is my job, I love it and think it’s ridiculously interesting but I’m aware not everyone would think that. shrug.

But today I just have to post about the acting part of my life cause I GOT AN AGENT!!! wOOt! 😀

Up to this point I’ve been self-represented which has it’s ups and downs. Ups being I can work on any project I want and I keep all the money I may earn. Downs being the projects I can apply for don’t pay that well and I have limited projects to choose from. To “make it” in acting you have to have an agent, it’s just how it works. I was starting to get a tad worried that I’d be the only actress left in the world without an agent when boom! out of the blue I got an offer from an agency. Say whaaaa?

I got the offer on Monday, the contract with my and my witness’s signatures on it got sent back to them yesterday and today I got confirmation that it’s accepted – all is good, it’s in writing, it’s all concrete – it’s official! 😀

I had stress that after I got the offer on Monday something would go wrong and it wouldn’t become official so once it became official I breathed a huuuuge sigh of relief, did a happy squeal and dance then called my parents to let them know. lol. Then of course I announced it on facebook cause, well, everything goes on facebook right? 😛

It’s so great knowing I have someone whose job is to find me auditions to go on, it helps relieve the stress from my life. Also, your agent is like your fairy godmother/bodyguard/backer/everything – they make sure you get good auditions, they make sure you look good at all times to casting directors, they talk you up and network for you to get your name out there, they do all the negotiations so when you book a job you get the best pay etc possible, they take care of you and make sure nobody screws you over. They help build your career, they get you the chances needed for success to happen. And now…I have one! 😀

She was brutally honest with me, which I loved, explaining she’s going to get me commercial auditions first because my resume isn’t built up enough to get me principal auditions in movies or tv shows. I already knew this, and expected this, but it was nice to have her tell me that first instead of trying to win me over by promising me a tv show or movie contract in a stupid small amount of time. I know I have to work my way up to those auditions and I’d rather she told me that then tell me what she thinks I want to hear. Does that make sense?

Other then that, nothing really happened today, lol, but I’d say only so much should happen in a day and I’m way happy that this is how my day went. 😀

I find myself smiling like a crazy person while typing this, or looking in to the distance and giggling (in a happy not psychotic way lol), when I get up to go get a cup of tea or whatever I do a little butt wiggle while I walk. Basically I’m in a continuous happy and celebratory state lol. Yaaaahhhh! 😀

Today was a gooooood day. 😀

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