Fantasy football drafting

Since early July I’ve been preparing to draft my fantasy football teams for the upcoming season.  At this point, I am quite familiar with NFL teams and their offensive philosophies, and I have pored over players, along with their individual offensive production over the past few seasons.  (Had I studied like this when in college, I would have aced my Probability & Statistics class!) If this means nothing to you, suffice it to say that my friends and I put together 12 cyber-teams of real-life players, to form a league. Howsoever these real-life players perform on any given Sunday is what they do in the league. Scores are tallied, people win, people lose, you laugh, you cry, you can earn bragging rights over your friends, (or strangers), and you can win money too!

Sometimes an athlete is not put in the best situation to succeed, even at the highest levels. A recurring theme in my preparation is that of athletes being put in the wrong roles, thus hindering their production. In the minor leagues, slugger David Ortiz played for a team whose philosophy on hitting didn’t cater to his power. This held him back from growing as a hitter, but he played the way he was coached to play, hitting singles, (sometimes). In football, someone might be a “3rd down specialist”. Why must he wait till 3rd down to specialize? Does he just not like 1st or 2nd down? How is someone a “possession receiver”? Isn’t that the job, to catch the ball? If a defensive player is a pass-rusher, is he not as qualified against the run? (He could easily tackle any of us readers) Certain types of runners won’t/can’t play to their potential if the coaching philosophy doesn’t capitalize on their strengths. An athlete, in any sport, needs to play to his strengths. All people, not just athletes, need to do that.

If someone is mis-cast in their job, then they will not be able to perform at their best.  Someone who is well-organized and focused might thrive as an accountant, while someone who loves mixing and matching colors and textures might be a good chef. No one wants to see action hero Sylvester Stallone attempt comedy in “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot”, they want “The Expendables”.  Did anyone see funnyman Bill Murray in “The Razor’s Edge”, a wartime romance by W. Somerset Maugham? (I didn’t think so.) 

 It doesn’t feel true, or organic, or even believable, when certain actors try to go beyond who we want them to be, in a style unfamiliar to us, the viewers; it feels “pushed”.  Sometimes it feels fake to the audience, and it’s worse when it feels fake to the actor. The layers of rehearsal will hopefully allow an actor to take on a different type of role such that he/she finds it within himself. That doesn’t mean that it always works in the end, nor does it mean that the audience will suspend disbelief for it.  The proof is indeed in the pudding. We have to ask, “How did it come out?” 

Dessert Pizza -it's got nutella, marshmallows, and raspberries but how does it taste?

You may lift weights and want to be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, circa 1975. However, Arnold, a big-boned man, was 6’1″, 258 lbs in his prime, with a 58 inch chest. If you are 5’6″, with a small-medium bone structure, Arnold might not be the appropriate or even, correct, role model. You might strive instead for a different aesthetic, a leaner symmetrical athletic type, over the bulkier, denser Atlas that was Schwarzenegger. As Polonius says in Hamlet, “To thine ownself be true”.Â�

In other words, know who you are.

In high school football I was mis-cast as a offensive lineman, even though I am/was built like a wide receiver.  Speed was never my forte, nor did I have the ballast that those big, big, big guys, with fists like small hams, take for granted. Instead, as a strapping thin guy, I literally got the snot knocked out of me every day in practice, and they said it made me tough. We also had a High School All American defensive tackle using me as his personal blocking dummy. (Great for building self-esteem, thanks Coach.)

Frank Zane the 185 lb. body beautiful, compared to massive Arnold the Governator

Ironically, I believe that we know this stuff in life.  We “get it”. My son was born at 10 pounds and 10 ounces –everyone said, “football player”, (we said, “Or big fat doctor)”. If you’re 5’2”, no matter how good a dribbler, defender, and/or passer you are, chances are that Basketball is not your best choice for a career. Yet, as actors, everyone wants to play a starring role meant for someone with “cheekbones”. Everyone wants to “stretch”—“Oh I can do that part!”. If you don’t have the “smoldering” look, get used to being cast as the best friend!

 Yet we actors often feel like it’s a personal affront when we don’t get the part. (“The guy with the swoopy hair got it”, we’ll sneer.) A good friend “finally got an ingénue role”, when she was younger; she says she was bored with it! She was directed to play within the constraints of the role! That’s the job!

You may want to play Romeo, but if you’re the funny one, work on Mercutio! I’ve had auditions where I’d hear, “Can you make him less funny?” (Sorry, it’s what I do). It’s nice when you can do an audition, and you show them “the funny”. But if they don’t want “the funny”, you ain’t getting that role. All you can do is show them who you are and what you can bring to the table. Maybe there’s something else in the project for you. I’ve also been on auditions where they ask me to be “less intense”. Immediately I disarm them with a joke. It comes with the package- I am a living breathing exclamation point- with that, comes both comedy and intensity. Ya just have to know how to flip the switch. 

The author hard at work; Comic Intensity indeed...

I had an audition recently for the role of a “wealthy Belgian aristocrat. Cultured. Provocative. A murky sexuality.”  I chose to wear an Armani shirt, one that is decidedly not one of Giorgio’s best designs. (Hey, it felt aristocratic) Before I started, I asked about “the moment before” of the scene I was reading, i.e., “what just happened to set this scene?”; The director set the circumstance for me and threw in, “He’s Bisexual”, and I quipped, “Hm! This is my bisexual shirt!” They guffawed and LOL’ed. A man who looked much older than I got cast, and I have no problem with that; they wanted to see actors ages 40-60, and they cast someone who looked much older than I.  But they now know that I’m fun.  If someone is casting an A.R. Gurney play, people are needed who can fit wasp-y roles. You might have a qualified NY actor with dark features, who relishes the challenge of stretching for the role; “Great attitude, he’ll go for it, he’ll wear make-up, dye his hair, work on his vocal rhythms, etc.” That said, I offer Two Lessons:

1. No Producer wants you to expand your range at his expense.
2. Why take the NY looking guy who’ll try to change his look when they can find a solid actor from central Connecticut who already looks, and maybe IS, the part?

 

Keep working on your craft, whether it’s the art of hitting a ball, blocking a blitzing lineman, acting, painting, music, chemistry. Start with yourself, that’s the palette you’re given, learn it and get really good at it, and take it from there. Accumulate performance experience, build a resume. Be who you are, you can’t fake that.  Once you “show them who you are, using the words of the author”, (quoting myself, thank you), they’ll allow you to show us who other people are….