This past week, Lucien taught once again at NYU’s Tisch department for the freshman sound/image classes, demonstrating alongside colleague Barbara Rosenblat the intricasies of the voice-over profession, and answering questions along the way.
Lucien will be performing in an episode of the Sam Spade radio drama series live at the Friends of Old Time Radio convention in Newark, NJ as part of the Gotham Radio Players on October 24th, at 4:45pm.
When you’re working in a fast paced, competitive industry, and things in your lane feel like they’re moving at the speed of stone, sometimes what you need is to just shake it off and get a change of scenery. Re-stimulate the senses. In my case, that included taking a trip back home for the 4th of July weekend, then flying out for a week to San Antonio, TX, ate great food, saw some movies, and had pleasurable company. Just what the Doctor ordered.
Check out these two McDonalds radio spots featuring Lucien as Brad and Ryan respectively;
A short, equalizing opinion about the whole debate regarding this article:
It doesn’t matter what he was payed. He could have been paid 10$ million, he could have been paid 10,000$. Whether you believe he was paid too much or too little, the actor and his agent (assuming he/she was part of the deal) entered a mutual agreement with Rockstar games upon signing the working contract, he provided the work, done and done.
Moving on!
You may have heard someone remarking after watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster that John Doe “wasn’t really acting; he was just playing himself.”
This to me implies a certain brand of laziness, or lack of commitment on the actors part. As actors, our job is to illuminate a character by using your own experiences and choices to create a believable persona, no matter how close or far from reality that character may be. If the ‘order is filled’, the actor has done his job. A shy, twenty year old college student playing a shy, twenty year old college student will likely naturally bring recognizable or sympathetic qualities and mannerisms to the role. The same steps still have to be taken however in getting the words off the page, communicating the role to the audience, and projecting him or herself into the immaginary scene. How much resemblance exists does not make it any less acting. If you are “living truthfully within immaginary circumstances” as articulated by Meisner, you are acting. Even in playing ‘yourself,’ more than likely you’re still playing yourself as a character; You’re still working with a script consisting of strings of words which you may or may not naturaly say in that moment, projecting yourself into a scene which is not actually happening.
Well, time to go back to being myself… whatever that is exactly.
Find the missing Poptarts at Poptarts.com, and discover two webisodes featuring Lucien as CrazyGood Kids.
After a long hiatus, the web-site is finally back and looking better than ever! And to commemorate it’s return, Lucien has booked his second radio commercial with McDonalds.
