The Wake up Call

This week started with something of a wake up call. As mentioned in previous posts, sleep is quite limited for me over here due to lack of time. That one night when I finally managed to enter deeply into those psychedelic lands of dreams at the right time, with no alarm set for the next morning – THE EARTH decided to shake me out of bed at 6:25 AM with a 4.4 magnitude earthquake.

They say you’re not a real Californian until you no longer notice the earthquakes. Well, I guess I can’t call myself a real Californian just yet. I literally bounced out of my stupid little air mattress and onto the floor – looking desperately around me for that burglar, until I realized the ground was still shaking and there was no one else in the room.

That is one of the few times you can be glad to have absolutely nothing in your apartment; no values to be broken, nothing to fall from a shelf to hit you (obviously I have neither a shelf nor anything to fall from it), and the bed drop of two inches could barely hurt me. If nothing else, my apartment is at least super earthquake safe.

Script reading is an essential part of an actors work, and I even happen to like that part, but the amount of scripts assigned to me lately is about to concern me just a tad. Wednesday was the final performances of the scenes we’ve been working on with our partners for the last three weeks, which for me was the one where I’m fighting shirtless with my new wife.

For the sake of the performance, this time also my pants came off – which meant that everybody’s eyes as well as the camera was on me. Rarely have I been more aware of my legs; though the lights were dimmed, my Norwegian winter pale thighs lit up the whole room.

That same day I received a new monologue from my teacher with the note that «it will be filmed at Universal Studios on Saturday.» That was only added to the scene he had just assigned me where I have to learn perfect British accent in a couple of days, and the script received later that day for another film shoot where I (once again) break up with my girlfriend – this time in favor of a book.

And of course, a fourth script where I’m supposed to talk a friend into committing suicide, and a fifth to be filmed on my only day off this week – meaning I was to sell my thesis project for a dinner date this Sunday. Bear in mind, all of them was to be memorized in the spare time I didn’t have that week. The good thing though, about too little sleep and too many scripts to read, is that you have a legitimate excuse to drink way too much coffee all the time.

From learning how to walk in some classes, it is undoubtedly quite a span to this week’s stunt-class where I was practicing Thai chi, martial arts and falling techniques. Finally, I was able to release some of the acrobatics I’ve kept in for about two months now. All the more, these classes might be my solution from now on to keep me from exploding from bottled up gymnastics moves.

Though I thought I was surprisingly fine with such lack of sleep, it seems that it eventually has its consequences. Like when it culminated in a celebration of forgetfulness towards the end of this week. On Saturday, I lost my favorite jacket at a nightclub on Hollywood Blvd, in which pockets were all my keys, including those to my apartment. After some weird hours of schizophrenic shifting between careless dancing and desperate search for my belongings, I realized I might not have anywhere to sleep that night.

In such moments I thank the higher powers that my roommate has the weirdest sleeping schedule in the world; I call him, and of course he is wide awake and ready to go to gym at this hour (which was 3 AM). Thus, he has no problems with letting me in on his way out – and problem is solved. Until he kindly borrows me his keys when I leave for filming the next morning. Of course we should both have known better, for at the end of the day the number of lost keys was doubled, due to my incredible art of unintended conjuring.

I am tempted to blame my lack of sleep for the misery (including a $ 100 replacement fee I really can’t afford), but truth is this is my nature. Luckily, sometimes part of my magic is to accidentally bring things back again – and this time at least half of the keys bounced out the pocket of the jacket I didn’t loose. If only I learn to control these things, I might go for a career as a magician instead of acting.

I guess the moral of this week’s stories is that sometimes even a wake up call from the earth itself isn’t enough to shake me out of my daydreams. On the contrary, maybe it is time to give body and head a rest; lets hope for no earthquakes this week. But more importantly – I’m reminded to appreciate good friends that are able to handle me with a healthy dose of humor, when they very well might have granted me their fury. 

Life 2.0 is one of Khrono’s blogs, and will be presented with new blogposts every week. Petter Egge is a former student from HiOA and journalist at Khrono.no. He has decided to do something quite different. This is his stories.

Mars 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #8: «So You Think You Can Act»

Do you know how to walk? No, you don’t. Can you sit, crawl, or lie down? No, you can’t.  You can’t even lift your arm up in front of you. I know you can’t believe it – neither could I. But every day here, I am proven wrong.

The whole chronicle #8 here.

Mars 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #7: «The walk of Shame»

Ever had the feeling that your duties seem to pass by like a super fast train and you just can’t catch up with it for the life of you?

The whole chronicle #7 here.

Mars 4th 2014: 
Chronicle #6: «Teaser»

I was a journalist, a gymnast and a musician. I had everything I needed – except what I wanted. Thats why I decided to quit my job, say goodbye to my friends and family, and leave for acting school in Hollywood. The Video presented in this blog is a small taste of what life has been like the first few weeks.

Here you can see the video-blog.

Feb. 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #5: «In a cold sweat»

For a guy who has lived all his life by the rules and routines of a gymnastics regime, there is no doubt that life here is a tad more divergent. Having nothing to do at one moment is just as shockingly unfamiliar as it is to run from a film shoot to my roommates’ baptism in the next. At any point earlier in my life, the degree of variation stretched from sleeping, through eating and practice, to toilet visits, school and back to sleep. The circle of life has definitely taken a new shape.

The whole chronicle #5 here.

Feb. 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #4: «The Proposal and the Valentine’s»

Real life, as we will know it the next eight months (though dreamy it may still seem to me), is about to blossom. As the hassle of settling down slowly dies out, challenges of school is coming to life, growing over the heads of its students.

The whole chronicle #4 here.

Feb. 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #3: «Life’s a like a box of chocolate»

As we still can’t seem to get friendly with our apartment (at least our rent), it took my roommate and me no more than three days to decide to move out again. Already stretching our comfort zone with one bedroom, we are now downgrading to NO bedroom.

The whole chronicle #3 here.

Feb. 8th 2014: 
Chronicle #2: Move-in Day and monologues

When gas, water, power and insurance companies got back in to business on Monday morning, Murphy’s law did the same; what could go wrong – well, you know. For the landlord to let us move in, they needed confirmation letters faxed from all of the above – which should be no problem, since we asked them all to do so when opening our new accounts. After half a day of waiting by an empty fax machine, we dared to call them back with a friendly reminder – only to discover that they’d forgotten all about us. When they eventually faxed it, only one name was on the paper – and we’d really prefer that both of us could move in. 

The whole chronicle #2 here.

Feb. 5th 2014: 
Chronicle #1: «I need a dollar, dollar is what I need»

Ok, just to make it clear right away: I am NOT a blogger. Since the dawn of the blogosphere, my prejudices have kept me far away from its kind. But as we all know, the first unwritten rule of a struggling actor in Hollywood is that «Everyone must accept some kind of prostitution in order to survive up until the big breakthrough.» So, I could have fulfilled the stereotype of waiting tables between my auditions, or I could do a «Sylvester Stallone» – but instead I am now spreading trivialities about my still-to-be famous self. Oh, the irony.

The whole chronicle #1 here.