The Alchemist

Hey everyone! For those of you that are friends of mine on Facebook, you have a general idea of how awesome the last 7 days have been for me. But here are the details:

Thursday: I had 3 auditions (Autozone, Cranium, and Mini Cooper). A great day by all counts!

Friday: 4 (wow!) more auditions (A Playboy TV promo, a webisode thingy with the producers of LonelyGirl15, a host for something or another, and Big Lots)… but oops, I had to miss the Big Lots audition - rats. Fantastic!

Saturday: A callback for Cranium. Very unusual to have a commercial audition on a weekend! (Oh, and of course, as I do each Saturday evening, I worked on my super secret sci-fi series I’m help write and produce.) Yea!

Monday: Live Well Financial host and Legal Credit Cures host. Ok.

Tuesday: Post It Notes spec (where I’m an Apollo 13 astronaut - way cool!), and a callback for the Live Well Financial host spot. Nice.

Wednesday: First Bank, a callback for Playboy TV, and 1000 Ways to Die (a Spike TV series). Great day!

Thursday (today): Interrogation (a short film), and a callback for Post It Notes spec. Woo!

And now… the results (so far):

On Avail: First Bank (shoots next week)
Booked: 1000 Ways to Die (shoots next week)
Booked: Post It Notes spec. (shoots in a couple weeks)

Yes! Yes! Yes!

(Do you want more? Leave comments and I’ll try to give you more details.)

It was so exciting to sit with my family and watch history being made last night by Barack Obama. I honestly had wondered if it would be possible for a black man to be nominated this year… but I couldn’t be more thrilled! And with his acceptance speech, he has shown again why he must be elected president. There are so few moments when you can feel the course of history being changed for the better by true leadership. I believe that Barack is a truly a great leader for our generation.

I’m officially scared for America.

I was recently disturbed by what I saw in an attack ad that (after taking Barack Obama’s words completely out of context) claimed that “Christ would never advocate turning the other cheek to terrorists and America’s enemies.” (By the way, this ad has been viewed on YouTube 1,366,432 times!)

Now, I’m not a Biblical Scholar - so some things are totally incomprehensible to me, but it seems to me that the war hawks that support Mr. McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” policies should be reminded of Jesus’ actual teachings. They should reread Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and his reconsider Jesus’ action and admonishment in Gethsemane when Simon Peter cut off Malchus’ ear (”All who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”).

But there is something far more insidious going on than the deliberate misconstruing of Obama’s words by these “Christian” people. That video was forwarded to me by a woman that told me: “My heart tells me if he isn’t the antichrist that he will usher him in.” And come to find out, far from being a lone, off-the-wall crackpot, a large number of Americans today actually do believe that Obama is the antichrist! Holy crap!

To be fair to the Bible, this kind of thought is far less based on that book than it is on the otherwise seemingly innocuous “Left Behind” series of fiction and Nostradamous‘ unintelligible ramblings. However, it seems increasingly apparent that many “Christian” Americans simply don’t have the faculty to separate fact from fiction or even the book of Revelations from other random prophecies.

A TIME/CNN poll finds that more than one-third of Americans say they are paying more attention now to how the news might relate to the end of the world, and have talked about what the Bible has to say on the subject. Fully 59% say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack. - Time Magazine

Worse than what otherwise might be simply accidental mingling of information, however, it appears that Senator John McCain (or at least someone in his campaign) is aware of this trend and may even be attempting to take advantage of these misguided folks in his “The One” series of attack ads. Yet another frightful sign from someone who has a fighting chance of being the most powerful person on our planet in just a few months!

All of this nonsense could be chalked up to just a bunch of fascinating human psychology - if the fate of the country, and indeed the world, didn’t hang in the balance. But given the stakes, it leaves me with this sobering thought: Christ may or may not be returning, but if some of these people have their way, the end times will be that much closer.

Hey everyone, I’m on the hunt for a good theatrical agent in Los Angeles and I need your help!

If you know anyone or know anyone who knows anyone that has a relationship with an agent here, I could really use a referral to help get some attention.

Please let me know. Thanks!

I really like this latest reel. It’s low key and focuses directly on my acting. I think it’s what my reel should have been all along! I hope you enjoy it. Feedback is welcome.

Scott Ganyo’s Demo Reel from Scott Ganyo on Vimeo.

Update: I replaced the YouTube video with a Vimeo video because the quality is SOOO much better!

Hey all! So, I didn’t post last week about fantastic my birthday was, so let me rectify that right now!

First of all, my agent called and let me know that I had been put on avail for not 1… but 2 commercials! (One for a anti-underage drinking PSA and the other for a Bandai Power Rangers helmet). Fantastic! A small complication, though: They both wanted me on the same day. Go figure…. but the production companies generously worked things out in my favor and I booked both! (I’ll be filming one tomorrow and one Thursday.) So, that was a very nice birthday present, indeed!

Next, my parents were in town (all the way from the right coast: Jacksonville, Florida) to visit me for the week of my birthday, so that was fantastic! I hadn’t seen them in many months and it was great to visit and celebrate my birthday with them. (I also talked to each of my sisters via phone, so it was a very nice family day all around.)

And finally, my parents generously allowed me and Amy to get away from the house to go see The Dark Knight. And now I can confirm that yes, indeed, I made the final cut. I’m right there, larger than life, helping load patients from Gotham General Hospital onto an evacuation bus. To be a part of this huge, record-setting movie is really just beyond words. And experiencing myself as having a role in it was a fantastic end to a fantastic day.

So did I mention my birthday was fantastic?

Just a quick note to let you know that as of last night, I’m now a Red Cross certified Lifeguard!

Relax, citizens! I’m here to protect you!

(It’s all part of expanding my superhero skills…)

It seems like an eternity ago now… but back in the day before I left Indianapolis for all the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood career in acting, a good friend of mine (and fellow producer of First They Came For…), Kate Chaplin, interviewed me for an article to provide advice to actors in Indiana. Kate has now published the interview online for her blog readers, so if you’re so inclined, check it out.

“(CNN) — Sen. John McCain’s campaign again called Sen. Barack Obama a flip-flopper…”

Um… right. Does anyone even remember who John McCain used to be?