Monday, February 22, 2010

Billy Tango On Being A Young Actor

Billy “Bilippines” Tangradi

Character: Dutch Dortmunder

How he got into acting: Billy’s acting career began as a hyperactive 8 year old with a ventriloquist. “I was in a 3rd grade talent show. Once I realized I was sitting in front of an audience laughing at my jokes I was hooked. I kept acting through elementary school, high school – I was always hanging out with the older actors. If I was 10 I was hanging out with 17 year old actors.”

Billy’s career became more serious when he great uncle, a preist oblate, founded a theatre program in his hometown of Allentown, PA, and later at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.

How he got his first union job: A classmate became a manager and asked him to audition. Billy got a 5 line part in Law and Order Criminal Intent, but waited to join the union. “After your second union job you have to join (and pay $2000) or you can’t work…It wasn’t an easier once I was a SAG actor but it was a right of passage…it was a confirmation that acting is not a hobby, I was a real actor…but SAG has almost 70,000 actors, only about 1500 are working.”

On moving to New York: I chose New York over Los Angeles because its closer, and I had older classmates that had already moved to New York. It was only an hour and a half from family. Also I still wanted to do New York theatre, but it’s a really small community that’s able to make it in theatre.

How Billy made it to Baryo: “ I got a call from my agent about a John Sayles movie. I knew the pedigree of his work – I was shocked. Here’s what really happened, the casting director said they want young actors and what they got at the audition were Twilight actors. They told the casting director they didn’t want models, they wanted characters, so they went down the second tier agents and that’s where I came in. I got the part but I still feels like I’m double-A when everyone else is in the majors.

Will Baryo change anything? “I don’t know, maybe this will get picked up in Toronto [Film Festival] and get at least art house distribution, maybe it will win awards, you never know, maybe something will happen. Hopefully someone will see my face and say, ‘We want Bill Tangradi,’ but even then, you have to keep at it. In this business it never stops, you’ve never ‘made it’, you have to maintain…essentially you are a can of coke – you have managers, agents, business people all trying to sell you, keep you in the conversation. If you get a good agent you can get in through package deals, they may say, ‘you can have Kevin Spacey, but only if you take Dane Dehaan (Gil),’ you hope you can get an agent with that kind of leverage. It’s a very forgetful business.

On being an extra: “I did some extra work on Saturday Night Live, but it was miserable. It’s not bad money and it’s good to get on set, but I’ve always had a feeling I’m going to be a star, so being an extra was just depressing…If you an extra enough time you can collect vouchers, and after a certain number of vouchers you become eligible.

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