Winter in Portlandia and other TV appearances

I'm excited to announce that I made my Portlandia debut last week! The link to view this special episode free on iTunes is embedded in this post's title. I'm in the opening skit, which is much shorter than I expected. We shot enough good/funny footage that I think it should have been at least twice as long as it is. But you can see me a lot, so that's cool!

We be grillin'

I worked on one other Portlandia skit a few months ago which will air sometime in early 2013. I'll post screenshots on Facebook if I make the final cut.

Look, there's the sun!

I also worked on an episode of Grimm recently which hasn't aired yet. It was the first time I got to ride in a police car on set as an active crime scene responder. I was even told to draw my gun but it was glued into the holster so I just kept my hand on my hip as if I was going to pull it out if necessary!

responding to a crime scene on Grimm (this episode has not yet aired)

Sadly, after five seasons, Leverage has wrapped for good. However, you can see me in two recent episodes:

I'm on the far right, standing behind Brett Kelly

The White Rabbit Job aired on December 5th. I'm one of three people at the factory that is wearing a white lab coat (and the only female); everyone else is wearing red jumpsuits so I'm easy to spot. You don't even have to watch the whole episode as the extras are only seen at the very beginning (first minute) and the very end (starting around minute 37). I'm also in the black & white surveillance video that the team looks at from minute 24:57-25:08 but it's mostly the back of my head so not anything that will make me famous.

I'm all smiles behind the guest stars

The Leverage season (and series) finale The Long Good-bye Job aired last night. I played a Highpoint Tower security guard. You can see me in the first few minutes as the lobby checkpoint guard searching a woman's purse (the dialogue is a voiceover) and also towards the end of the show, searching the theater. I'm in several other scenes as well but it's much harder to spot me in them.

Since moving to Portland last January, I have gotten a fair amount of work as an extra (10 days on Grimm, 5 days on Leverage, 2 days on Portlandia, and 2 movie shoots (Bad Signs and C.O.G.). Of course, I would love to do more and particularly would like to have a short speaking role, but I'm not expecting much in the coming months. Portlandia Season 3 has already wrapped and Leverage is finished forever. There are still a few episodes of Grimm Season 2 to shoot but they're on hiatus for a few more weeks. By the time they start working again I'll have had surgery on my right hip (something I will write about in a forthcoming post) and won't be able to work for several months. So I will close by saying how thankful I am to have worked with some really fantastic people (and actors) over the past year and to have made many new friends. I hope we can do more together in 2013!

Here are links to previous blog posts which I have written (and posted pictures & screenshots) about being an extra:
http://smartt-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/02/extra-ordinary-day.html
http://smartt-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/03/quiet-on-set-life-of-television-extra.html
http://smartt-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/03/celebrating-leap-day-2012.html
http://smartt-adventures.blogspot.com/2012/09/dont-blink-or-youll-miss-me.html