By Steve Ritchie
Talking with Kennedy High graduate Carrie Finklea about her seven years in Hollywood working in movies and television is like getting a crash course in The Business of Acting 101.
Finklea, 26, left Mount Angel for Hollywood two weeks after her high school graduation in June of 2004. When asked whether moving there took a lot of courage, Finklea laughed loudly.
“Or just not thinking . . . if I was more coherent at the time, I may not have done it. I think it’s nuts for someone to do (what I did),” Finklea said.
That’s not to say that the move has been a disaster for her, though she readily admits it could have been, and recounts the shock she felt when she arrived.
“My first apartment was in North Hollywood and I was all excited, but North Hollywood is not Hollywood. You don’t even want to live in Hollywood, and North Hollywood is worse. I lived next to a 98-cent store with bars all over the windows. I didn’t even have a mattress for six months.” Finklea now lives in Sherman Oaks, a “nice area” that is a short drive from Los Angeles.
Her acting career has progressed over the past seven years, and has, along with her part-time waitressing gig and the occasional residual checks from movies she has appeared in, enabled her to support herself since her second year in Los Angeles.
Finklea has appeared in eight feature films, three shorts and a couple of television series, including a featured guest spot in the season two finale of The Mentalist, a popular CBS show now in its fourth season.
Finklea’s first big break came when she was a high school junior. Acclaimed director Gus Van Sant was casting for a movie he was doing about the 1998 Columbine High School shootings. Finklea went to Portland and stood in a line with hundreds of other kids for hours. Discouraged by the long wait, she called her mom, Cathy Cheney, who remembers her daughter saying, “God, this is stupid. This is ridiculous. Come and get me.”
As she continued to wait in line, someone handed her an ice cream cone and a card, telling her to give the card to casting coordinator when she reached the front of the line.
As it turned out, the person handing her the card was Dany Wolf, a film producer. Finklea had her photo taken and went home. In a few weeks, she was called back for an audition and got the part, playing “Carrie,” a cheerleader who becomes one of the killers’ victims.
The film, Elephant, garnered critical acclaim and played in theaters across the country. Finklea’s role put her on local talk shows and earned her a trip to the Toronto Film Festival. More importantly, she said, it got her into the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the union for actors.
“It’s a catch-22 for many people. I was really lucky that I got into SAG because of Elephant. If you aren’t a SAG member, no one will hire you. But you can’t get into SAG without doing SAG work,” she said.
“Because I was SAG and I was 18 and fresh meat, (the management company) signed me. When you are 18, you are gold in Hollywood. You can play someone who is 16 and they don’t have to hire you a tutor or a chaperone.”
While she has found a measure of success, Finklea’s career has had its share of ups and downs. She readily admits to crying on the bathroom floor about “once a week.” One year she was the runner-up for four major roles, but ended up with nothing.
“No one teaches you about the business side of things,” Finklea said. “At age 19 I had no idea how to manage my career. For example, I auditioned for the lead in the Twilight movies. That wasn’t smart. What I should have been doing was auditioning for smaller parts to build my resume . . . You’re going up against kids that are Disney stars and people who grew up in the business.”
However, Finklea said she has now learned to view her failures as simply “a chance to learn something” and sees herself as a business entrepreneur. She advises any budding actor with aspirations of going to Hollywood to do the same.
“There are so many actors down there. You have to think outside the box and learn the business. Be creative about how you can get a meeting with the person you want to be your manager,” she said. “You have to think like an entrepreneur. You have to know where you want your career to go, like what kind of role could I play better than any other 20 year-old, blue-eyed brunette.”
Finklea now has new management and feels like things are coming together for her. She continues to take classes to work on her craft, and she got a small part in The Roommate, a 2011 film starring Minka Kelly. While her part was small, just being cast in that movie has brought interest from casting agents and the like.
She is also, like any good businesswoman, learning to diversify. For an actor, that means finding work doing commercials, photo modeling, or “fit modeling.”
“Commercials are lucrative. You can make $70,000 if you book just one. It’s nuts. I have always hated (doing commercials) but I’m now signed with a commercial agent and have booked a Dell commercial.”
Finklea, who is a perfect size four, said fit modeling is how new styles of clothing get made.
“If you go to a casting and Lucky Jeans likes you, then you go in two days a week for three hours and stand there while they make the jeans right off you. You can make $100 or $200 an hour. It’s ridiculous.”
She has also learned to be tougher and more assertive because too many people in the industry will be “jerks to you.” Sweet and somewhat timid as a teen, Finklea has learned to command respect from others.
She has also developed a backup plan for her career, if she decides to be done with acting.
“I am taking TV & Film Production classes in college, and I would enjoy being behind the camera. You have so much control, I have done that and I love it.”
For the near future, though, Finklea is planning on continuing to work in front of the camera, and it sounds like her opportunities to act are growing.
“The last couple of months have been amazing for me. You need good representation and now I have that,” she said.
View Carrie Finklea’s demo reel at www.vimeo.com/carriefinklea and her film credits by going to www.imdb.com and searching on her name.
