Looking for my type and finding… myself.

(Too cheesy?)
This is going to be a different take on GPOY Wednesday...
This past spring I was trying to revive my all but dead acting career. To do this in the best manner possible I have to really know what it is I've got going on for me. Some advice I was given from a name casting director before moving out to LA was to play my type. Play the hand I've been dealt. But in order for that to happen I have to know what cards I'm holding. I had no idea what my type was. In high school I was the fool. In early college I was typed as the shady love interest. In the latter half of college I played the asshole rock star. Then I was the geek. Then I was the cute everyman. I could not figure out what the common denominator for these ever changing archetypes was. When I asked the CD what my type was she had a hard time figuring it out and finally settled on someone who wasn't the leading man and wasn't the character role, but this weird and rare thing in between that barely gets work. Still, as auditions and castings continued, I struggled with the question, What is my type?
I stumbled across a workshop that would help me to find the answer. Sam Christensen Studios was holding a workshop on public self image. I believe that's what they called it. Anyway, the focus of the workshop was to have a full understanding of who you are as a person, as an actor, as a public figure, whatever. It was about rediscovering the person that friends and family see you as and discovering the person that everybody sees you as, then filtering through it with the person you see yourself as until you find an image of yourself that everybody can agree on.
I feel saying any more on the class would betray Sam's process. But I'll let you know it was an involved process. And it lead me to this:

That's right. It's a picture of me if I were made of words. For the record, the word cloud wasn't Sam's idea. I just did that to have what Sam lead me to all in one place. And I tried to form the words into a picture, but it didn't work. But this does! It's not perfect. Believe me I tried. But it includes everything, which is why words like "brings", "tap", and "Mr" are in there. I also tried to get the cloud to put relative emphasis on the words which were repeated, but it doesn't account for when someone uses certain words three times within the same phrase. STILL! All of it matters! So it's all in there! Just, very disjointed.
I waited to talk about the class because I wanted to see what it would do for me first. Couldn't ruin the experiment, ya know. Unfortunately I've been working too much to be auditioning. (How great is that?!) And since I won't be auditioning for at least another month, I might as well blog about it now. Plus I felt it was about time to mention it. It kinda piggy backs on Monday's blog about finding a new look. Nevertheless, in the meantime, it's helped me to present myself, spruce up my reels, and has helped me nail the few auditions I have gone in for.
I still don't know what type casting directors will see me as. I could be the dork, the cute guy, the rock star, heck I could even be the leading man on a good day. But I think I know much more valuable stuff. First and foremost, I know I'm Kevin Allen, and I am all of those words.
Well... maybe not "Mr".