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On the set of “For Pete’s Sake.”

So in March of ‘08 Rachael and I BOTH got cast in a TV movie called “For Pete’s Sake” or “Baggage.” It was a great blessing to both be in the same film! We spent three weeks back in our home town of Chicago shooting the film and I think we both learned some valuable lessons through this experience.

Rachael got the call from her Chicago agents the second week in February informing her she had two auditions, one for a Michael Mann film shooting in Chicago called “Public Enemies” and the next week she had an audition for “Baggage.” So she got the sides and meanwhile I emailed my manager to see if there was anything in either films for me. She got back to me with an audition for “Baggage” as well. So we both had auditions the last week in February and we both got decent roles in the film!

Rachael plays Kelly who is Pete’s girlfriend at the top of the film. Most of her scene’s were with the lead Barry Bostwick (who really was a great guy and a lot of fun to work with). Yes, my wife made out with Barry Bostwick. I’m not proud of that fact, but I’ll get over it…years of counseling to come I’m sure. It helped that Barry really was a class act. I only hope she doesn’t think my hair will look like his when I’m his age. The man has a great mop.

My character comes in midway through the film when you meet the family headed by the matriarch Cheryl Ladd playing Sarah Murphy. I play Greg, the boyfriend to the youngest Murphy daughter Holly played by Leah Wagner in her first film! Go Leah…she was really great too. The women in this film were very strong and I felt like I was constantly trying to keep up!

For some snap shots I took while on the set go here.

Overall, I think the experience on this film was very valuable to me as an actor for one big reason. I had to learn to be a lot more flexible than I’m used to being on a movie set. We were told the night before, around 1am, what scene’s we would be working on the following day. Every day that I worked whatever I was told the night before was thrown out the window and we were working on whole different parts of the film. Our director, Stephen Polk, also loved to improvise through scene’s so I was really forced to be on my toes. You have two choices in that kind of a situation, you can either fight it or go with it. In the end going with it is obviously the only real way to continue having a positive working environment. It was hard at first to be in this kind of an environment since I wasn’t used to this kind of constant uncertainty on a film set. In the end though, each time you work you should be able to take something away from the experience and this lesson learned on this film will serve me well for the rest of may career I’m sure.

I will post dates of release when I have them. It’s a holiday movie so look for it around the end of 2008.

Blessings to all for now…J