Auditions for film and TV are undergoing a seismic change from the days of crowded waiting rooms packed with guys who all look exactly the same. We put ourselves on tape now. Actually, technology has hyper-warped past the tape, and it’s a digital file that gets emailed, but we still call it, “putting ourselves on tape.” 

Tom Hillman at work

I got the call from my agent to “put myself on tape” for “Battle: Los Angeles” back in August, 2009, and straightaway looked up all I could find on the director, Jonathan Liebesman. 

He likes using a loose, handheld camera technique. 

Perfect. The scene I was auditioning for was the reporter on the beach, so I grabbed a plastic microphone from my kid’s overflowing toy box and my digital camcorder and headed down to the ocean. Many casting directors today are still expecting us to “follow the rules” and stand in front of a blank blue wall and do our thing. 

I like to break the rules. 

I shot the scenes walking up and down the beach not caring what the shell hunters thought as I aimed my camera at myself and surely looked like I’d escaped from the nearby happy house. I came back home to edit on my Mac and because the initial breakdown said they were interested in hiring a  “real reporter” for this role, I grabbed some footage from a job I’d recently done playing a reporter and tagged that on to the end of my audition. I emailed it out on a Tuesday, and by Friday I heard I’d won the role. 

A Day on the Set

Information was sketchy. I was to play a reporter, but no script was available even up to the day I was to travel to Baton Rouge. No problem. One of the tricks of the trade is to be prepared for anything, and go with the flow. I arrived in Baton Rouge on a Sunday afternoon, got settled in to my hotel, and set the alarm on my iPhone for the scheduled 4 a.m. pickup. 

First stop for me was the wardrobe trailer where I was to be given something that Anderson Cooper might wear in the field. I asked the stylist if she knew if I was going to be on a beach somewhere and she said she thought they had done some green-screen beach stuff the other day. I love wardrobe and makeup people. Especially when they have that “we can handle anything that gets thrown at us” attitude. It fuels me with that same “can do” confidence. My basic skill set as an actor consists of one main ingredient. I remember how to make believe. Everything else takes a back seat to that one creative gift from childhood. 

I met director Jonathan Liebesman outside on the street as the special effects artists were covering the brand new “Anderson Cooper” clothes with dirt and soot. After a cordial greeting and a quick up and down look of approval, Jonathan said, “So you know what you’re doing?” 

—–

Now, that kind of a question from a director calls for lightning fast strategic mental decisions, because on the one hand you want to sound über confident, but on the other, you really want to know what you’re doing. Because having a 70 million dollar movie production come to a screeching halt while everyone including Aaron Eckhart and the 700 dirtied up extras stare at you in disbelief and vile contempt makes for a very bad day. 

“No… Yes… I mean… I know I’m playing a reporter, but I haven’t seen a script…” and with that as if on cue, up walks the writer, Chris Bertolini, who hands me a sheet of paper with no less than eight paragraphs of dialogue on it. Again with the lightning fast strategic mental decision as to what expression my face should have on it at that very moment. I don’t take Ginko Biloba and I really should. These two men are completely and utterly juggling trillions of tiny details in order to tell this gargantuan story and here I stand with eight paragraphs of dialogue that they completely and utterly expect me to memorize in the next few minutes so they can begin shooting this scene.

 I was able to say, “Got it,” as they disappeared into the sea of controlled chaos that is a Hollywood movie set. 

The Marines at Work

I looked up and saw hundreds and hundreds of extras, all covered in the same dirt and soot I was. I saw real Marines they had hired to man the real tanks they had set in various positions on the street. I saw my friend, Neil Brown, Jr. who got cast as LCpl. Guerrero. He told me they had hired real Marines as Technical Advisors and had given them authority to step in front of the cameras and ruin a take if they saw anything that didn’t ring true to how the Marines would really operate. He also said that he’d endured two weeks of authentic Boot Camp and that the gear they were wearing weighed at least 40 pounds and that they had to keep it on and stay in character between takes and everyone from Aaron Eckhart on down was completely into the whole experience. 

My eight paragraphs of dialogue was nothing. I surmised that they had given me way more than would actually end up in the final cut, and that I could pull this off with one more trick up my sleeve. 

I had packed my ear prompter. I quickly recorded my eight paragraphs into my iPod and plugged in the cord and heard “Stand by” echo through the streets of this war zone. Jonathan came up to me and said he would be zig zagging in and around me with his steady-cam operator and to just keep the dialogue going the entire time. “Action!” I hit play on my iPod and repeated what I heard in my ear, “I’m standing on the ground amid a full-scale war…” 

I’ll put the audition on my website if you like that sort of thing, then go see “Battle:LA” this weekend and see if you can find me.

“What I have a problem with is people using hyperbole to induce an irrational fear of a particular group with the goal of ultimately reducing their numbers.”

You want to know what troubles me more than some hysterical Lefty whipping out tired Nazi references? This equally hysterical crusade currently taking place on the Left to chill political speech and set rules for what we can and cannot say.  Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen hasn’t been doing the media rounds so that Anderson Cooper can press him to defend, on an intellectual and factual basis, his declaration that Republicans are liars and therefore Nazis. No, instead, our Media Overseers have invited Cohen into their own televised kangaroo court to defend his “inappropriate” speech. Even a marginal mind like mine understands how disturbing that is.

Sadly, I don’t even have to make the slippery-slope argument in this case. The absurd is already well underway. “Job-killing” memory-holed. “Crosshairs” disappeared.

This is still America, right?

Sure, it’s fun to watch Stewart go after the other side. But it’s also a trap. If I don’t defend Cohen, what defense will I have when Stewart trains his fire on us and declares other references off-limits? But this is about something bigger than just understanding Stewart’s latest political chess move.

What we’re currently watching is those who should be the guardians of the First Amendment suddenly using words like “can’t,” “shouldn’t,” “inappropriate,” “don’t,” and *shudder* “off limits,” when it comes to political speech. Today, Stewart and his media allies have trained their fire on a Democrat. But there will be a tomorrow.

Stewart also misses the most important part of his own schtick. At the 1:20 mark Congressman Cohen says:

“I won’t say it again, but I was right.”

In other words, Cohen believes what he said but he’s been shamed into not speaking what he believes to be the truth. This happened in America.

Unlike Jon Stewart and Anderson Cooper and John King and all the other Speech Policers, I like it when people speak their minds. If someone thinks I’m a Nazi, I’d like to know that. That’s good information to have. If my next door neighbor doesn’t like my wife because she’s Mexican and tells me so, that’s not Hate Speech, it’s helpful. 

Civil discourse is a LIE if someone isn’t feeling civil.

I’m more interested in honesty than civility, or as the great Dennis Prager would say … clarity.

Again, Stewart’s own words:

“…he shouldn’t say it again because it’s wrong.”

“Shouldn’t.”

Actually, he should say it again because it is his opinion and he believes it to be true.

But hey, this is America, and Stewart and the media have every right to abuse their powers to chill political speech. And I would never say they ”shouldn’t” do it because it’s helpful when they do … and very revealing.

She did so initially by accusing Sarah Palin of being “a traitor to this country.” This ridiculous statement caught my attention not because it had any foundation in facts, but because it was being made by Barr: a woman who made headlines in 1990 for mocking America by grabbing her crotch and spitting while singing the National Anthem for a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and the Cincinnati Reds.

Barr next accused Palin of being “a dupe” and an opportunist who’s capitalizing on the “anti-intellectualism” of Americans. And while there’s something inherently laughable about Barr speaking derisively of “anti-intellectualism,” it’s somewhat offensive that she doesn’t guard against throwing the word “dupe” around so recklessly. After all, she is the dupe who once donned a Nazi uniform and wore it in pictures that showed her taking “burnt Jew cookies” out of an oven.

Yet as stupid as all these things were, perhaps Barr’s most stupid statement was her assertion that Dick Cheney has never “[earned] one damn thing. [The] guy’s never worked an honest day in his life.” Where has she been for the last 10 years? A period of time in which Cheney was relentlessly criticized for his ties to Big Oil, via his past working relationship with Halliburton. To this day, Cheney continues to be vilified for his work with that company.

Thus while Barr tried to paint Cheney as elitist and out of touch, the truth is Halliburton has been a convenient political noose that real elites tighten around Cheney’s neck every chance they get. By “real elites” I mean people who’ve never had to work a day in their lives because they either married wealthy women or were born into families with enormous wealth: people like Senator John Kerry or the late Ted Kennedy. (Such elites have been so successful at tying Cheney to Big Oil that even the all knowing, all seeing Robert Redford was fooled into blaming him for the April 2010 Gulf Oil Spill.)

That Cheney was (and is) one of the most hardworking, decent human beings to ever hold the office of Vice President is lost on Roseanne because she is swallowed up in a world of self-loathing and bitterness, much akin to Cher and Janeane Garofalo. And for this same reason, she can only look on Palin with contempt and spew vitriol toward her because the former Governor dares to be comfortable in her own skin.

Barr is so hate-filled and so non-intellectually stimulating that I may even owe Garofalo an apology for mentioning her in this post (and that’s saying a lot).

—–

As usual Anderson Cooper outnumbers the Republican, in this case 3 to 1: Ted Nugent vs. Roseanne Barr, Democrat Cornell Bellcher and, uhm, Cooper.

Watch how joyless Roseanne Barr is. Man, that woman’s damaged. She’s currently on tour hoping to say as much outrageously stupid stuff as possible in order to resurrect her miserable career like Kathy Griffin and Joyless Behar did. But Nugent owns the whole bunch. He’s heard all the crazy-left’s talking points before and is more than ready for them. The National Anthem shot is our personal favorite. That’s Nugent letting Barr know from the opening bell that he’s come to play and it immediately throws her off her game. He’s like a boxer leading with a straight right instead of a jab. You know he wants to rumble.

Let us all come together and do what we can to resurrect Roseanne as a left-wing spokesperson. She’s a perfect addition to Behar, Whoopi, Kathy Griffin, Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Moore and the rest. Eventually a large part of the Democratic party simply has to take a closer look at the humorless, unattractive idiocy on their side and think to themselves, “Would I rather stand with these assholes or Sarah Palin, Nugent, Dennis Miller, Dana Perrino, Charles Krauthammer and that Breitbart fella? At least they seem to be having some fun.”

Vince Vaughn on the ‘gay’ trailer non-controversy that so outraged Anderson Cooper and GLAAD:

“Let me add my voice of support to the people outraged by the bullying and persecution of people for their differences, whatever those differences may be. Comedy and joking about our differences breaks tension and brings us together. Drawing dividing lines over what we can and cannot joke about does exactly that; it divides us. Most importantly, where does it stop.”

—–

Adam Lambert on the disgraceful situation in Malaysia that Anderson Cooper and GLAAD didn’t cause a similar uproar over:

Lambert said at a news conference ahead of the concert that the only thing he would omit from his show in the mainly Muslim Southeast Asian country was an onstage kiss with a fellow male performer.

“My performance will still have a lot of vibes about it,” said Lambert, in a black jacket and pants and sporting his trademark black eyeliner.

“That’s not something I can really control. I’m just refraining from making one little kiss,” the former “American Idol” runner-up said when asked whether he was sending the wrong message by agreeing to suppress his sexuality in his show.

“There will be lots of leather and some sequins, and spikes and studs and fur, it’ll be exciting,” said Lambert.

Homosexual sex is a criminal offense in Malaysia, and the main Islamist opposition party in the country has described the show as promoting “gay culture.” Party members have pledged to proselytize concert goers.

Lambert’s glam-rock flamboyance might not represent your particular scene, but give him credit for standing up for who he is and openly defying these murdering, sexist, racist, homophobic theocrats.

Don’t be surprised if Cooper and GLAAD criticize Lambert for his lack of multi-cultural sensitivity. We wouldn’t want to offend murdering, sexist, racist, homophobic theocrats now, would we?

The full-fledged ire of GLAAD, straight from the top of the organization, is laughable.  President Jarrett Barrios says, “There has been a rash of bullying, some leading to suicides, much of it because of the widespread belief that it’s somehow OK to say things about gay people that it is not OK to say about other groups. Comments like those in the movie make it seem OK to beat up gay people.”  So, electric cars are gay = it’s okay to commit violence against gay people.  Check.

Make no mistake:  it is an awful tragedy that Tyler Clementi killed himself because of the malicious, despicable humiliation he was subjected to.  To equivocate that with a goofy putdown of electric cars (and GLAAD does not know the context of this line; sounds like something to establish early on in Vaughn’s character arc that he’s insensitive) is not only moronic but as hypocritical as Fred Phelps asking for some peace and quiet at a funeral.  Why, you may say? One word:  teabaggers.

This week, Anderson Cooper shilled for GLAAD (they do those yearly TV browbeating reports, so I guess he’s hoping to get off lightly) and brought out his crocodile tears about how this one word in the movie trailer was offensive.  He and GLAAD must have forgotten how he helped bring an anti-homosexual pejorative into the mainstream of political discourse.  Between the daily crude assaults that Hollywood celebrities spit at everyday Americans petitioning their government and the all-but-violent anti-gay epithets hurled continuously at Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart, GLAAD has not uttered a peep.  Why?  They couldn’t give a flaming pile of crap about consistency, because that would mean betraying the principle of Absolute Power that’s defined the Left since… well, always.

This isn’t a fight for justice or equality.  A fight requires two active participants.  A mugging is more like it, or a demented kid kicking stray dogs on the street.  The last thing Ron Howard is going to do is respond to Jarrett Barrios and call him an idiotic coward.  He and Universal, who are bankrolling the film, are going to tuck their tails and do exactly as they’re told.  Barrios knows this, and he’s laughing all the way to the hit counter on his website.

Priorities.

Speaking of which, take a look over yonder to said website, and check out all the important things GLAAD is doing for the gay community.  Do you see any mention of Adam Lambert?  No?  That’s weird, because his free speech is being curtailed to appease Islamic protesters in Malaysia, a country where homosexual sex can land you in prison for 20 years.  You’d think that a statement like “Lambert is morally unfit. His gay lifestyle will harm our society. He is of bad, bad character and poses a danger to young Malaysians” from Nasrudin Hassan, a representatives of Malaysia’s Islamic Party, would merit more attention than “Electric cars are gay,” wouldn’t you?  But you just believe that because you have a spine, and you’re able to tell the difference between an annoyance and danger, between oppression and irreverence, you heteronormative hatemonger, you.

It’s no surprise that GLAAD’s still wearing politically correct blinders to guide their selective outrage.  In fact, it’s become so commonplace, it’s even easy to ignore, but we’re not gonna do that anymore.  The Left relies on it.  It’s time to hold this frivolous organization’s feet to the fire.  So allow me to announce:  Big Hollywood’s very own To-Do List for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation!

1. Speak out against censorship, accusations of moral degeneracy directed toward gay American pop star performing in Malaysia.

2. Pressure Iranian publications to profile gay couples in country to combat false statements from President, just like recent pressure for Essence.com to profile a lesbian married couple.

3. Upbraid Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, David Shuster, Keith Olbermann, Janeane Garofalo, Roger Ebert, D.C. Douglas, Bill Maher, Carrie Fisher, Brad Friedman, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Maxine Waters, John Kerry, The American Federation of Government Employees, National Public Radio, and President Obama for using “teabagger” as slur.

4. Investigate and publish names of individuals attempting to silence Andrew Breitbart by calling him gay while protesting at Right Nation 2010.

5. Make Marc Maron persona non grata for hateful bullying of recently outed Ken Mehlman.

And we’re just getting started here.  Commenters?

Earlier this week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, host of Anderson Cooper 360, had actor Robert Redford on his show to talk about the spill. Not surprisingly, what viewers heard from Redford was how the spill demonstrated that big oil companies are bad, that it was George W. Bush’s fault (more accurately, Dick Cheney’s), and that Obama has done his level best to handle this mess in a Presidential manner.

Cooper began the interview by asking Redford what he thought of BP’s response to the spill thus far, and Redford answered by saying we were seeing the fruits of “a failed energy policy” that was “the consequence of the collusion between government, Congress and big oil companies.” Redford went on to say that it was our “terrible energy policy” had “allowed this [spill] to happen” in the first place.

As Redford spoke, I thought about the fact that a spill of this magnitude has not happened anywhere, at any time, during the last four decades of oil and gas exploration. Therefore, I could only conclude Redford is of the opinion that one spill is enough to prove our entire approach to energy acquisition a “failed” one.

In other words, according to Redford, one accident equals failure.

So I wondered, would Redford say one passenger airline crash proves our system of airline travel a failure? Does he think one train crash proves locomotion kaput? Or was he ready to give up on space travel following the Challenger explosion in 1986?

While I pondered these things, Redford reframed his answer to say that our energy policy is bad “because of the way it was designed [and because of] who it was designed by.” He then intimated that our current fossil fuel-based energy policy is the work of the always devious Dick Cheney. (I don’t know where Redford got this idea, but I do know that at the Daily Kos, certain lowbrow “journalists” at the Huffington Post, and a few other miscreants on angry, left-leaning websites hold the same theory.)

Nevertheless, Redford actually said that Cheney, while Vice President, framed our nation’s “energy policy [via meetings held]…behind closed doors with oil, gas and coal companies.” And because these meetings were secretive, they were “bound to end up being a disaster of some sort.”  

I don’t remember Redford voicing any opposition to the closed door meetings Obama used to push Universal Healthcare through congress or any opposition to the same kind of meetings that resulted in GM bailouts, which were really little more than the seizing of taxpayer dollars for the purpose of bailing out automotive labor unions.

Redford also made clear the fact that he doesn’t hold this spill against Obama by saying: “I’m somewhat sympathetic to what the guy’s dealing with because he [had so many]…other issues that were paramount when this thing came forward.”

I’m sure Redford gave Bush this same type of courtesy when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. It’s not like Bush didn’t have “other issues that were paramount” as well. For example, Bush was smack-dab in the middle of a relatively new, multi-front War on Terror at that time.

But I won’t hold my breath waiting to see Redford break out the kid gloves for a Republican President the way he’s broken them out for the current failure-in-chief. However, I do believe someone needs to remind Redford that the blame Bush and Cheney stuff is getting old: those guys have been out of office for nearly 18 months.

—–

Kudos to CNN’s Anderson Cooper for having someone on who not only knows of what he speaks from first-hand experience, but obviously wasn’t going to say what Cooper would’ve have liked him to say.

Adkins handles himself with the class of a true superstar. He doesn’t get partisan and keeps his informed criticism borne of actual experience focused where it should be: on policies and ideas instead of individuals.

Word you won’t hear: ObamaHitler. But that’s only because Nashville’s never been as sophisticated as Hollywood.

Last week, in a re-broadcast of an episode that originally aired two years ago, Oscar starts his own news network, GNN (Grouchy News Network).  An irate viewer calls in to berate him that the news is not grouchy enough:

“I am changing the channel. From now on I am watching ‘Pox’ News. Now there is a trashy news show.”

–

Later in the episode, Anderson Cooper from 4th place CNN, guest stars as a reporter for GNN.  He interacts with “Walter Cranky” and “Dan Rather-Not” —  Muppets representing real-life liberal news personalities — and they talk about “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler.” But no affectionate nicknames for Fox News personalities; no Spill O’Reilly or Brittle Hume — nope, and the only disparaging characterization of real-world news is reserved for Fox:  Fox is a POX.  It is trashy.  They didn’t even attempt to try “MessyNBC.”

If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.”  So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news?  The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.”  There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.

…by the way, why SHOULD I change the channel?  This is MY channel, I’m paying for it!

The fact that this is a re-run from an episode written during the Bush Presidency only reinforces that this is nothing new.  The Left has been doing this for years now. All of us have seen it and felt powerless to mention it, because if we do, we’re ridiculed and dismissed (thank you, Mr. Alinsky).

No, this is nothing new.  In Julia L. Mickenberg’s book “Learning From the Left” the history is plainly spelled out.  Radicals drummed out of mainstream culture in the late 1940’s turned to children’s entertainment for opportunities not just to work, but to influence.  In her introduction, she quotes folk singer Pete Seeger about those artists:  “I think many of them are thinking more on the lines of, ‘If we’re going to save this world, we’re going to have to reach the kids’.”

Now this is always a slippery argument for us to make from the right, because we run the risk of being caricatured in the way the late Jerry Falwell was in the infamous “Tinky-Winky” incident.  But with this ever-growing list:

• Television shows steering children to left-infested “volunteer” web sites.
• The NEA and White House Office of Public Engagement getting caught RED-handed rallying artists to the cause of Obama-led initiatives.
• An onslaught of public schools teaching their students songs of praise for Barack Obama.
• The simulcast speech by the President to school children with an attached lesson plan to teach our children how they can “help” the president.
• The effort by the President’s top advisers to turn news agencies against the sole-voice of skepticism within the television media.

…One can be forgiven for taking a second look at that Teletubby with the purse… He DOES seem a little gay, doesn’t he?

The insidious nature of left-leaning artists involved in altruistic artistic endeavors always carries the cloak of unassailability:

“How can you fault them for wanting to teach and entertain our children?”

“You must be a conspiracy-theorist to think that all of these people have a master plan to brainwash your children.”

But no one here thinks that in one fell swoop the Left will pass laws against the free expression of dissenting political or cultural views.  That’s not how it’s done.  First you “educate” children from your perspective.  The rest will follow — just like the proverbial boiling frog … is everyone enjoying the Jacuzzi?

But the difference now is that a Saul Alinsky-trained, William Ayers-influenced, Annenberg Challenge Board Member is now our President, and his influence, tactics and worldview (not to mention the power of your federal tax dollars through NPR, PBS and the NEA) now influence our culture at such an accelerated rate that the frog is no longer on a slow simmer but at a rapid boil.

Irony is a wonderful thing.  Just as the Left elected the perfect Propagandist-in-Chief, their opposition (you and me) got wise, agile and pretty entertaining. With every lame attempt to turn our kids against us, we now call them on it and point out how ham-fisted, clumsy and square they are. The Left’s worst nightmare came true:  The conservatives are the hip ones.

“Sesame Street” can awkwardly slam FoxNews from the comfort of their stodgy old PBS studios… Meanwhile, we have the cool kids on our side: Dennis Miller, Greg Gutfeld, Andrew Breitbart and yes, even Glenn Beck. And our cool kids are pointing out just how boring, lame, predictable and lazy the other side has become.  No longer will middle-America sit back and feel powerless as these snobs pass judgment on what we find to be informative and entertaining.

We no longer  NEED their approval. We see them for what they are: bitter, pompous and desperate.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, Russia, Missile Defense, Iran, Liberal Media, Sarah Palin, NPR, Michael Moore, Barbie Movie, Anderson Cooper, and Kelly Osbourne.