The Roommate

Though quite a lot happened this week, including a couple of film shoots and a lot of script reading, I feel that the time has come to devote an entire post to my roommate.

Publisert Oppdatert

OBS! Denne artikkelen er mer enn tre år gammel, og kan inneholde utdatert informasjon.

This phenomenon of a person is worth an entire encyclopedia of his own; such a peculiar case of our specie cannot be passed by humanity in silence. There will definitely be a «Book of Costa», or «The Costa Chronicles» one day, but as that will have to be a later release, I will now just to give a small taste of what those chronicles may include. 

It started the minute we met; due to the stories shared over our first meal, I understood that this was some heavy load of a character – in the most comical, and the most heartbreaking way at the same time. The next seven months have shown that I had no idea how right I was.

I noticed a couple of weird things in his way of life the next days and weeks – like the way he goes to gym when others go to bed (around 1 AM), cooks dinner around 3 AM (in the same room where I’m trying to sleep), only sleeps about 4 hours a night, prefers complete darkness at all hours of the clock, eats steak and strawberries for breakfast and only fruit candy during the day, or how he spontaneously buys a ginormous fruit pie and eats the whole thing alone. Nevertheless, it would soon be clear that he had gone easy on me in the beginning.

Pilot

Ok, so this is the deal: Me, a young Norwegian guy who just started my career as a journalist, found that I could no longer hold back my dream. As an adventurer by nature, an artistic soul trapped within the limits of a reporter – or call it whatever – I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in an office for the rest of my time on earth. Yes, it’s a cliché, but I’ll say it anyway; if not for your dreams, then what are you gonna live for?

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Hence, I decided one day in January to take the leap; I quit my job, packed my bare essentials in a suitcase and boarded a plane to LA. To really make the cliché complete, I travelled fully haphazardly; almost without money, without knowing anyone <<over there>>, and without any place to stay. Thus, as the blog title implies, I am now starting a whole new life – my student life number two. Upgraded, radically different, but hopefully also the way I secretely wanted it to be the first time.

The next eight months I will be studying Acting for Film at the New York Film Academy in Hollywood, and my ambitions are of course nothing less than to make it in Hollywood. I am now officially one of the about a hundred thousand struggling actors in LA, which are all, of course, just as convinced as me to find gold.  The adventure, or possibly the tragedy, will be updated on this blog. Every week. 

When I came out of the bathroom one day in March, I found Mr. Costa intertwined the most unthinkable way in our four chairs on the floor. As absurd as my sense of humor is, I found this outrageously funny – and ever after, he has attempted to exceed the incident. Countless times I have found my roommate in some unimaginable position between chairs and mattresses, on top of our kitchen counter or hiding somewhere – waiting (for who knows how long) to scare me when I show up.

One might think I would start to anticipate his tricks – but one of Mr. Costas best skills is that he is always able to pick his moments so people least expect it. Some weeks later when I came out of the shower, I was shot full of spider web by Costa in his boxers, from his «fortress» build out of our air mattresses and bar stools. This, too, was soon to be outshined; when I came home after some late grocery shopping in April, the room was completely dark and the door blocked by my air mattress – but I could hear horror music from behind it.

As I forced my way in, I saw candles lighting up the other mattress, which was now standing on our kitchen counter with my name written on it in spider web. I scanned the dark room all confused, and out of nowhere I was attacked by some half naked savage in undies, a tie, a vest, boxing gloves and war paint in his face. Yup – that’s Justin Costa for you.

As I usually sleep way before he is even home, I’m used to not seeing my roommate until I get up – but one day in June his mattress was gone from the floor. As I got up and took my morning leak in the bathroom, I kept wondering what could have happened. Next thing I knew, I could not make my usual cup of coffee, because the missing mattress was laid over our stovetop and kitchen counter, with the person it belongs to sleeping on it.

Do not get me wrong – this post is in no way offensive to my roommate (as I know he would love to be presented in the weirdest possible way). As much as we are light-years apart in most ways, our personalities are in some weird way similar, so we get along surprisingly well. We have fought a good amount of battles together, and we have had our share of long, therapeutic conversations into the wee hours – so despite what it might sound like, we have actually become true brothers. 

I want to stress that I have considered the fact that I might be obliged by the press ethics to protect Mr. Costa from himself by not publishing his explicit weirdness. But I have come to the conclusion that as his friend and brother, I am even more obliged to his highest wish for this life; to make the world laugh, or at least freak people’s guts out. So I will tell his stories – on this blog, to my kids, and to my grandkids – and I hope you all will too.

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.

July 30th 2014:
Chronicle #25: The Home Run

This week Petter Egge found himself crying in front of a class full of professional actors. 

The whole chronicle #25 here.

July 23th 2014:
Chronicle #24: The Hidden Hollywood Hardships

There is no secret that there are many obstacles for a young, naïve man who goes to Hollywood to search for gold as an amateur actor. 

Read the whole chronicle #24 here.

July 17th 2014:
Chronicle #23: F
or Crying Out Load 

Before acting school, I couldn’t even remember the last time I cried.

The whole chronicle #23 here.

July 9th 2014:
Chronicle #22: The Week of Independence

While I was already on that wave from last Sunday, I started this week with some hours in the gymnastics gym.

The whole chronicle #22 here.

July 2th 2014:
Chronicle #21: The Upswing

This week started with a Q and A session with casting director Chris Devane, which might be described as a rather tough start.

The whole chronicle #21 here.

June 17th 2014:
Chronicle #20: The Circle of Life

Ok, this is a hard one, folks. So please bear with me. This week, I circled halfway around the earth to catch the circle of life at its closure.

The whole chronicle #20 here.

June 10th 2014:
Chronicle #19: Back to business

Life 2.0 - the chronicles of an emerging actor facing Hollywood: After a really nice visitor, the company has left and Petter Egge is feeling a different kind of alone.

The whole chronicle #19 here.

June 3th 2014:
Chronicle #18: The Life of the Party

After one week off from school Khronos blogger Petter Egge is heading for semester two at the New York Film Academy in Hollywood.

The whole chronicle #18 here.

May 20th 2014:
Chronicle #17: The Life of the Party

This week, I got a whole new understanding of the fact that I now live and breathe the LA-life.

The whole chronicle #17 here.

May 15th 2014:
Chronicle #16: The Leap From Sanity 

After San Francisco, the way back to reality was just a little too short. From a weekend in heaven, I hit the ground in a pile of papers to write, finals coming up, and most of all – our final showcase at the Victory Theatre.

The whole chronicle #16 here.

May 8th 2014:
Chronicle #15: The Escape 

This week I thought I was up for an easy ride. Not many film projects in sight, and a long–awaited trip to my favorite city San Francisco – where I left my soul when leaving UC Berkeley two years ago.

The whole chronicle #15 here.

April 29th 2014:
Chronicle #14: The Aftermath

No journalists called me this week, and my phone has slowly managed to find peace; now it is only buzzing about twice as much as before Ellen (yes, there will forever be a «before» and «after Ellen» now). The number of followers on Instagram has eventually stabilized, and though my twitter profile is more busy with visitors and followers than ever before, the threat of an explosion seems to cease.

The whole chronicle #14 here.

April 23th 2014:
Chronicle #13: The Tribute


Out of his good heart Petter helped a person on the street, and suddenly life turned around for a couple of days. When this week started, I was at the bottom of a deep valley, weighed down under a number of concerns. The ones about my economy had already bothered me for months, as frequent readers would already know, but now my worries included another area of much bigger importance.

The whole chronicle #13 here.

April 16th 2014:
Chronicle #12: When words do not suffice

There are times, even for a writer
when written words become empty signs
Times when a writer don’t want to write
cause there’s too much between the lines

The whole poem-blog here.

April 9th 2014: 
Chronicle #11: «
The School of Life»

Life is a funny little thing. It is for sure a trembling rollercoaster, but also a splash of water in your face and missing ground under your feet. It has its ways – mysterious, inscrutable – of surprising me, not just when I thought I had it all together, but even more often when I’m already out of balance.

The whole chronicle #11 here.

April 2th 2014: 
Chronicle #10: «
The Decennium»

From waking up scared of an earthquake, to not take notice at all. So: I’m happy to announce that I might already be a real Californian.

The whole chronicle #10 here.

Mars 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #9: «The Wake Up Call
»

They say you’re not a real Californian until you no longer notice the earthquakes. 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.

The whole chronicle #9 here.

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 V
alentine’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.

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