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Community Community Nicholas Nepali Negroponte, expatriates P10a US inventor, P16 in Qatar hold professes that music and cultural connectivity programme to should be seen celebrate as a human right. New Year. Friday, April 20, 2018 Sha’baan 4, 1439 AH DOHA 23°C—34°C TODAY PUZZLES 12 & 13 LIFESTYLE/HOROSCOPE 14 A helping hand Jenna Fischer dishes survival tips in The Actor’s Life. P2-3 COVER STORY 2 GULF TIMES Friday, April 20, 2018 COMMUNITY COVER STORY If at first, you don’t make it…shift style PRAYER TIME Jenna Fischer says her book really is for aspiring Fajr 3.48am Shorooq (sunrise) 5.07am actors and is not a memoir. “It’s the guidebook Zuhr (noon) 11.33am Asr (afternoon) 3.02pm Maghreb (sunset) 6.01pm I wish I had when I started down the path of Isha (night) 7.31pm USEFUL NUMBERS being an actor,” she tells Jane Henderson Emergency 999 Worldwide Emergency Number 112 Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 Local Directory 180 International Calls Enquires 150 Hamad International Airport 40106666 Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 Qatar Airways 44496000 Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 44593363 Qatar Assistive Technology Centre 44594050 Qatar News Agency 44450205 44450333 Q-Post – General Postal Corporation 44464444 Humanitarian Services Offi ce (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, 40253369 Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 Qatar Airways 40253374 ote Unquo Qu te The quality of a leader is refl ected in the standards they set for themselves. — Ray Kroc Community Editor Kamran Rehmat e-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 44466405 Fax: 44350474 CANDID: “Acting in the entertainment business is about typecasting and gut reactions, especially when you are starting out,” says Jenna Fischer. Friday, April 20, 2018 GULF TIMES 3 COVER STORY COMMUNITY “I’m often most inspired by stories of people who just wait everyone else out and wear them down. That’s sort of my way of going through” — Jenna Fischer, actor the entertainment industry. She was working as a receptionist and had to fi le a claim against a co-worker (“I think that comes from my feisty Nerinx Hall-powered education,” she says. “I report things. We don’t like to be quiet about things that seem unfair or unjust.”) “I’ve had close calls. Like accepting an audition at an apartment and then learning you should never do that.” Another time, a playwright at a party asked her if she’d consider being in a fi lm, warning that there n one of her fi rst headshots, cleared plates while working as a fi elding questions.” So she started Anne and Jim Fischer’s examples were “raunchy sex scenes.” Jenna Fischer looks like a restaurant server. recording the sessions, which helped rubbed off on little Jenna, she writes: Fischer jokingly responded, “Well, chipper teenager in overalls. But Fischer says her book really defi ne what actors wanted to know. “From a very young age, I inherently I wouldn’t want to do anything In another, she has a seductive is for aspiring actors and is not a By telling them some of her own knew I had to follow my bliss.” I wouldn’t be proud to show my gaze and a gaping, spaghetti- memoir. “It’s the guidebook I wish I stories, she had a ready supply of But while she auditioned for parents.” Istrap top. had when I started down the path of examples. school plays at Nerinx Hall High He told her she wasn’t a “real Although the aspiring young being an actor,” she says. What students often asked was School in Webster Groves, Mo., actor.” “He said, ‘You should actress liked the “fi erce, sexy girl” Some of the messages are also “how do I get an agent?” and “how “they mostly ended in failure,” she probably just go home.’” picture, it didn’t lead to many jobs. appropriate to other artistic pursuits, do I persevere through rejection?” writes, then proving it with four That was really mean, she says. Problem was, it wasn’t really her. she says, or anyone “striving for So Fischer goes into those things, blurry pictures of her as a barely But “I somehow was able to know Finally, she fi gured out what she a particular goal. There’s a lot of including telling them that most new recognisable chorus girl or the guy that was wrong.” was selling: “sweet, trustworthy, general encouragement in the book actors aren’t ready to get an agent. with a violin in Fiddler on the Roof. It upset her, but she saw that his open, cute, and vulnerable.” In other about not giving up.” It also should “You need to do a lot of work on “Of course in hindsight, my old criticism (and off er) probably had words, an actress who was more like be of interest to parents of creative your own before you’re really ready theatre teachers are happy to discuss nothing to do with professional her, a 20-something Missourian kids who may have their own tough for an agent to take you on,” she says. my ‘obvious’ talent from a young acting. who graduated from a Catholic High climb or to people just generally Getting an agent isn’t addressed age,” she writes. “I’m still close to Now, Fischer is 44. She and her School and state university. curious about actors’ lives. until Chapter 3. many of them and I fi nd it hilarious husband, writer and actor Lee When she found a photographer Fischer wanted to go in-depth Much of the introduction and when they tell me how they ‘saw Kirk, have two young children, who could convey that image, it about steps she couldn’t fi nd in Chapter 1 is about how she did not something in me.’ Yes, you saw me in Weston and Harper. She doesn’t helped lead to her fi rst big job: nice other books. grow up in a showbiz family: “My the dance chorus!” fi nd it worthwhile to accept certain receptionist Pam Beesly in The “I spent seven years on the parents weren’t actors or musicians She also didn’t attend Juilliard projects that might take her far from Offi ce, Fischer writes in The Actor’s book from the time I had the idea,” or writers. My father was a plastics or Yale’s drama school. She went home. Life: A Survivor’s Guide. she says. “I had been speaking to engineer and my mother was a to “a tiny liberal arts college “My passion is my family,” she “I know what you might be acting classes for many years for school teacher. Both are now retired, called Truman State University in says. “I love being a homemaker.” thinking: ‘I can play anything! free. Most of those talks regarded but they both loved what they did.” Kirksville, Missouri,” she writes. Which doesn’t mean she isn’t I’m a trained actor!’” she writes. And she seems to have loved it. “I working. Currently, Fischer stars “But acting in the entertainment got a great education, and I didn’t with Oliver Hudson on Splitting Up business is about typecasting and leave school with a giant debt.” She Together, an ABC comedy about a gut reactions, especially when you still recommends getting a good couple separated (barely). They co- are starting out. If you look naturally “I spent education but not acquiring a huge parent in the same house — the one sweet and naïve in real life, you student loan before trying to make it off -duty stays in the garage. aren’t going to be cast as a drug- seven years as an actor. “I actually really love the show addicted career criminal. At least While earning her theatre degree, because I feel like it is such a not at fi rst.” on the book she had many chances to play roles positive and responsible portrayal That frank talk and advice make from the against type and even be part of the of divorcing parents who are putting up much of The Actor’s Life, along fi rst class at Kirksville to create some their kids fi rst and being responsible with many personal examples and time I had original TV content. (Their comic parents.” stories from other actors. Fischer sendup of NYPD Blue was shown on Fischer doesn’t yet know whether talked by phone from Los Angeles the idea. I the college’s TV station.) it will be picked up for a second about her book, her own missteps Her background can be an season. In fact, that kind of news and whether she has had to navigate had been inspiration, she admits. No usually comes in early May, possibly any of the harassment issues that speaking Hollywood relatives, just working ruining her Mother’s Day, she says. have plagued Hollywood. hard and, maybe, getting a bit lucky. But rejection isn’t quite as hard as The missteps are probably the to acting “I get things stuck in my craw. it was when she was younger. most fun for the average reader who I fi nd a way to make them happen “I have all these other roles that wouldn’t dream of running off to classes for somehow,” she says. “I’m often most feed my life in a deep and meaningful Los Angeles and living in a hovel inspired by stories of people who way.

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