DWF 2015: ACTOR FOR HIRE

Jessie (Jessie O'Neill) in Actor for Hire.

Lost in Los Angeles

By Miranda Inganni

Jessie (Jessie O’Neill) is a young, conventionally attractive, ostensibly talented white actor who just can’t seem to land a role, much less catch a break in Marcus Mizelle’s Actor for Hire. Whether it is due to his baldness or his acting skills is up for debate, but Jessie dons a wig and immediately lands the next role for which he auditions. Upon discovering that his live-in girlfriend (Hollie Shay) is cheating on him, he quickly finds a room in an apartment with the casting director from his most recent, successful audition. What follows is a whole bunch of silliness wherein truth is obfuscated to one degree or another.

Why do so many people lie in Hollywood? What is it about the entertainment industry that causes people to falsify their appearances/ages/backgrounds/etc.? These questions are not ever considered, yet Actor for Hire satirizes many of these aspects of the industry. Jessie’s new do so transforms the man that his new best friend, major film star, Joel (Joel Hogans – perhaps a long-lost Hemsworth brother) does not realize that his hirsute bud is the same as the bald cocktail server at Joel’s house party. (A party, by the by, where lies are further perpetuated by the many champagne flutes filled with what appears to be water – a classic and cheap film fib.)

Where the film -- written, directed and co-produced (with Jillian Longnecker) by Mizelle -- succeeds in furthering the subterfuge (intentionally or not) is in the exterior shots with Los Angeles as the backdrop. Those unfamiliar with the scenery might not realize just how long it would take to walk from Downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood to Chinatown, but it is shot like it would be a matter of minutes; the fact they visit KJ’s diner in Westerchester when they live over 50 miles away in a Los Feliz neighborhood also raises an eye.

While there are some clever moments, Actor for Hire sometimes feels like it is unsure of its own identity as a film. It could have gone a little bit further in feeling like a low budget, high camp flick. Or swung in the opposite direction and taken itself more seriously. But the moral of the story remains the same: you have a better chance of success if you are true to yourself.

 

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