Blog Stage - Acting in Film, TV, Theatre - Backstage

Meet Korean Actress Hyejin Park

Our Blog Stage readers who want to know about being a performer abroad will be interested to read about Hyejin Park, an aspiring South Korean actress who is trying to make her way to the Korean stage, and one day to Broadway. Jun Yong Choi, our South Korean intern/entertainment correspondent, spoke with Park to learn a little more about what it means to be an actor in Korea:

Do you want to be a musical actress in Korea? Maybe you're attractive and have a beautiful voice, but what else?

Hyejin Park, an aspiring actress and an assistant professor of vocal training at Baek-seok Art College, says, "If you want to be an actor or actress, find your passion first."

Today, I interview her not because she is a famous actress. In fact, she has failed at countless auditions. But whenever she was down, she got up again.

"To be an actress who is famous in Korea? It is tough. Yes, it is much more difficult than becoming a Harvard student," she says with a laugh. But it does not sound like a joke when she says it, and sadly, it might be true.

The Korean musical theater industry is not as big as Broadway in the U.S., and depends more on domestic demand, rather than tourism. Fewer performance opportunities, plus a higher density of population, make it an even more competitive field in many ways.

Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt Marry in San Francisco

People reports that actors Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt were married Nov. 2 in San Francisco. Livingston's rep confirmed the news to People yesterday. Congratulations!

Livingston (Office Space, Sex and the City) and DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married, United States of Tara) met while shooting the Fox series Standoff and have been dating for over three years.

-- Daniel Lehman

James Franco Guest Stars on 'General Hospital'

James Franco is a perplexing character. When producers announced last month that the actor would be joining the long-running soap opera General Hospital for two months in a recurring role, we didn't know if we should be surprised, intrigued, or just accepting. (The fact that Franco approached the show himself and actually asked to work in daytime TV only adds to our confusion.)

In truth, we think this could work. And not just because Franco seems too good to be on daytime TV. In fact, it's because he isn't always. Franco is a likable yet extremely inconsistent actor. Compare his raw and powerful performances in Freaks and Geeks, James Dean, and Milk and a remarkably self-aware comedic performance in Pineapple Express with his largely-ignored starring roles in forgettable films like Tristan & Isolde, Annapolis, and Flyboys. He's starring as beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl and returns to comedy in the upcoming films Date Night and Your Highness, but still accepts a paycheck for garbage like Nights in Rodanthe and The Wicker Man. And perhaps most importantly, he plays a central role in the Spider-Man franchise, but portrays Harry Osborn in a way more suited to soap operas than blockbusters anyway.

Watch the new promo for Franco's upcoming stint on GH below to judge for yourself:

Franco also recently filmed an episode of 30 Rock, in which he plays himself. But which version of James Franco is that, really?

Former Casting Director Makes Her Broadway Stage Debut

This week, Variety shines the spotlight on Jane Alderman, who is making her Broadway debut in Superior Donuts in a featured role as Lady Boyle, "a dotty senior citizen." As Variety notes, Alderman has been an actress on and off for nearly 40 years, but most of her credits (including ER, Rudy, Backdraft, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and more) are actually for casting and hiring other actors.

Alderman began her career as a casting director 30 years ago, after struggling and failing to make it as an actress. "I was really an awful actor," Alderman says. "So the idiot in me said, 'Oh, I'll cast,' as if that's not as tenuous as acting." She became a prominent casting director in Chicago, casting ER and handling additional local casting for films including The Virgin Suicides, Natural Born Killers, Major League, and more.

She believes she continued to learn acting as she auditioned prominent Chicago actors including John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Laurie Metcalf. Alderman herself started auditioning again after performing in The Vagina Monologues in 2002. She has since retired from casting, but says that it was a little weird showing up to compete with a group of actors she knew from her time on the other side of the table. "I was aware that when I showed up at an audition, the actors who were my competition would freak out," she says.

Fired Actor Tells His Side of Story

In response to a recent New York Times story detailing actor Matt Mulhern’s firing from the Hartford Stage production of Horton Foote’s “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” the actor has posted a YouTube video to share his side of the story.

Dakota Fanning Crowned Homecoming Princess

Actress Dakota Fanning was crowned Homecoming Princess of Campbell Hall Episcopal school on Friday Oct. 30, at her high school football team's away game at Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino, CA. Congratulations, Dakota!

Sometimes, Actors Forget Their Lines!

In response to the criticism aimed at the New Group's Broadway production of The Starry Messenger this week -- after star Matthew Broderick relied heavily on a prompter to remember his lines during the show's first preview performance Monday night -- the New York Times has shed more light on the topic of professional actors using prompters, earpieces, or other tricks to recall their lines and cues mid-performances.

In defense of Broderick, according to the Times, Angela Lansbury, Mary Martin, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Tandy, Marian Seldes, and even Laurence Olivier are some of the theater royalty who have admitted to needing help remembering bits of dialogue at some point in their careers. As New Group artistic director Scott Elliott said after Monday and Tuesday night's performances of The Starry Messenger, there is no shame in using a prompter. “It happens now and then,” he said, “but people simply don’t know about it.”

Read the full New York Times story to learn more.

'Smallville' Star Arrested for Drug Deals

Well, it seems television actors are still trying to keep reality TV from stealing their jobs -- in the illegal drug trade.

We noted yesterday that 2008 Big Brother winner Adam Jasinski was busted Tuesday after trying to sell oxycodone pills to an undercover agent -- pills that he had purchased with his $500,000 winnings from the reality competition series.

Now, TMZ reports that Smallville star Sam Jones was arrested yesterday "by DEA agents who claim Jones was a 'co-conspirator' in a series of major drug deals in 2008." Jones was reportedly the "Hollywood connection" in a plot to illegally purchase and distribute more than 10,000 pills of oxycodone. The actor, who played Clark Kent's best friend on the show, has been charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Bronson Pinchot Hates Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington

In a candid interview with The AV Club today, actor Bronson Pinchot isn't afraid to say the types of things that could certainly have ended his career when, you know, he actually had a career. When recalling his experiences working on the films Risky Business and Courage Under Fire, Pinchot has harsh words for co-stars Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington.

On working with Tom Cruise on Risky Business:

We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit. We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn—we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange...

Years and years later when people started to torment him with that, I used to think “God, that’s really fitting, because he tormented a lot of people as a 20-year-old.”

On working with Denzel Washington on Courage Under Fire:

That was a low point, because Denzel Washington was behind the incredibly cowardly bullshit of “This is my character, not me.” He was really abusive to me and everybody on that movie, and his official explanation was that his character didn’t like me, but it was a dreadful experience. I spent my salary on time with my shrink just for helping me get through it...

Denzel Washington cured me forever of thinking that there is any amount of money or anything that could ever, ever make it okay to be abused. The script supervisor on that movie said it’s like watching somebody kick a puppy. He was so vile. And after that, I just would never endure it again.

Geez. If you don't have anything nice to say...

Starring Thomas Jane as Himself

Today, The AV Club has compiled a new list of more than 20 of the best performances by guest stars playing exaggerated versions of themselves in TV and movies. Some are obvious: Neil Patrick Harris revitalized his career playing "Neil Patrick Harris" in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle; Wayne Brady played against type as a more threatening version of himself in an unforgettable Chapelle's Show skit; and John Malkovich was an over-the-top John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich, for example.

But even though the list mentions Carl Weathers, Judge Reinhold, and Andy Richter's hilarious separate appearances as themselves on various episodes of Arrested Development, they left out one of our favorites. Thomas Jane showed up (uncredited) in a second season episode of Arrested Development as a homeless man who looks like movie star Thomas Jane (but in fact is Thomas Jane, a method actor who is only pretending to be homeless to prepare himself for an upcoming role as a homeless man). Watch a video clip below: