up, up, and away we go!

Up! has found a rival for my favorite summer movie: Away We Go.

Yes, I know the movie doesn't come out until June 26, but first I just need to say a little bit about Maya Rudolph and why I'm taking a slight personal victory in the buzz this movie is getting.

OK - it starts with a brief seminar from Lisa Gold of Actors Access at the end of the semester this year about how to market yourself, get an agent, and keep an agent. All in all, very helpful. But, at the end I looked at my notes and there was a little checklist of things I should know about myself and whatnot including what roles I can currently play on broadway/regional stage, careers I emulate, and other female actors who are currently working and whose "products" closely resemble mine, people I get compared to. (I feel like a tool speaking like this and dread selling myself to anyone. Ah, the business... Pardon while I make faces in the mirror like Norma Desmond. Oy.)

See where I'm going?

I went back to my apartment and landed myself somewhere between Joan Cusak and Emma Thompson, which relatively equates to something sort of like Cynthia Nixon. Only there was one slight problem. I'm not a middle aged white lady.

When I went through my epic I-wanna-be-on-SNL phase (later abandoned when I realized I'm not quite funny enough), Maya Rudolph was in the cast and so far she's been my only point of comparison, actor-wise. But when I was 14 and 16, when I started trying to define exactly who I was in the grand scheme of everything, it was so rockingly awesome to see another un-pinnable ethnically ambiguous actress with a similar quality on TV doing rockingly awesome work. (I believe she's half black, half jewish. Something slightly more specific than lebanese-indian-chinese-guanese-american. Just slightly).

Even on the smaller scale, it's still a little awkward trying to find where I fit in even within my own theatre department. So far at school I've played a Muslim fundamentalist and a monkey. Really.

Then she left to have a baby and disappeared for a little bit.
Then I see that trailer and start doing a mini happy victory dance.

I graduate in 2 years. So in 2011, I can finish my my sell-yourself-speech with something along the lines of "I get compared to Maya Rudolph sometimes" and feel confident about that. Of course, minus about 10-15 years. Still, definitely closer to the mark than Emma Thompson or Joan Cusak.

I'm a little too excited about this movie.... just a little, but homegirl just scored big points for the funny-contemporary-quirky-lightskinnedbrowngirl-leadinglady-sidekick team. Yay!

The 20-something-out-of-college phase of my life just got a little less scary. My type is current, kicking ass, and taking names. Anyone else who's having a mild crisis, take a look at this article. Just a few helpful reminders of the things we forget sometimes when we get so caught up in the jumble.

I appologize to anyone who isn't an actor and got a little annoyed by my rambling (or actors who got annoyed by my rambling), but it's pretty significant for me. And I'm seeing this movie opening weekend, guaranteed.

Nope, nothing profound, just one movie I'm really happy about.

Oh, and about being thankful for my body - I'm getting a jump rope tomorrow and setting up a little work out regemin for myself. Woo!!

happy days ahead, kids!

aliee

PS. My nerdiness has reached a new high. Two staples I currently carry in my purse include a 20-sided di (singular of dice?) and a foam red clown nose. I test my friends with the latter and put it on in public and measure their freak-out meter and urgency at which they beg me to take it off.