Women Make Movies by John Gaspard

Author:John Gaspard [Gaspard, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Gaspard

PART III

THE ACTORS

DEBRA EISENSTADT ON “OLEANNA” AND DAVID MAMET

When did you first get interested in acting?

DEBRA: I remember when I was very little being interested in plays and I used to read all the Tennessee Williams plays and all the Sam Shepard plays – all the books that my older sister had on her shelves. This was in elementary school. So I was always interested, always seeking out opportunities to be in plays. But I was never cast.

I think there are two kinds of actors. There’s the writer actor and then there’s the performer/singer actor. And I was always more into the writing of it. And I was always interested in writing, too. But my sister was a writer, and so I always felt like that was her territory. So I went into acting, even though I think for me I had the same feeling for writing.

Acting was very good for me for a lot of reasons, so I stayed with it. I would take the train into the city to take acting classes when I young, like fourteen. And then I majored in theater when I was in college and I went to special summer programs for acting – it was just what I did.

Then when I graduated from college, I started interning at Circle Rep, which I don’t think exists anymore. It was a pretty big off-Broadway theater at one time. And then I would go on auditions through Backstage. And I immediately started getting work in off-off-Broadway plays.

How did Oleanna come into your life?

DEBRA: I went to an open call for Oleanna, to understudy, and I got the part as the understudy. Then, after a few months of understudying, I had been rehearsing with David Mamet, who was putting in a new actress, and he offered me the part. So that’s how I broke into it, as far as making money and making my living.

From there I just kept getting work as an actress, so I was able to make a living. I did a lot of theater. I did the Wendy Wasserstein play, The Sisters Rosensweig, and then I did the movie The Heidi Chronicles and I did the movie of Oleanna and I was doing television and TV movies – I moved out to Los Angeles.

But the business of acting was not good for me. I wasn’t very happy and I didn’t understand it. Nobody taught me, there’s no book to prepare you for what it is. I had just been acting in classes, which I enjoyed. But auditioning for casting directors and dealing with agents – I was completely green. I had no idea how to deal with these people. I was pretty young, about twenty-three.

So I went to film school and I learned how to edit and I learned to do all the things you need to do to make a film. It really opened up a whole new world to me that I changed my life completely and I became a much happier person.

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