SAG Awards Recap pt 2

Picking up where the last one left off. Been really busy because Pilot season has been starting and I've been getting a lot more auditions. That and I'm shooting Hand Fart this weekend, which will be the biggest shoot I've done in pretty much my whole life. Anyways...

So, the award show kind of starts. I hadn't really watched award shows lately, so I didn't really remember what to expect. But when people ask me what it was like to be at the actual award show, I mostly just tell them that it's like watching it at home except you get to eat really bland food. I would say that only about half the people there were eating the food. The portions were really small too. I actually finished all of my food before the first award even got announced. I remember Steve Carell's wife, Nancy Carell, immediately noticed and asked if I wanted her food because she wasn't going to be eating it and I said no I shouldn't. Then she just plopped her plate down on top of mine and I was like ok....

Awards show food... Disappointed.

A photo posted by Stanley Wong (@swong37) on Jan 30, 2016 at 7:14pm PST

Apparently the big moment when The Big Short was announced as a best cast ensemble nominee, the camera did a sweeping pan on everyone at the table. I didn't even realize it was going on so I was just eating at the time. A lot of my friends said it looked rehearsed, but even if it wasn't, it was so "me" that they thought it was the great moment of the awards for them.

My big moment at the SAG awards captured in motion.

A video posted by Stanley Wong (@swong37) on Feb 4, 2016 at 9:40am PST

An interesting thing, I remember the first time I left to go to the bathroom and came back there was this guy that was sitting at my seat. I didn't know what was going on so I asked him what was up and he said "Oh, someone told me sit here." I didn't know if I was being relocated or something, but we had assigned seats and my spot had my name on it and everything. Eventually I figure out that every time you get up they have professional seat fillers to take your spot. I was kind of wondering why when I first sat down the guy who was sitting at Ryan Gosling's spot was definitely not Ryan Gosling....

During commercial breaks is when people tend to get up and start talking to everyone else. Considering I don't really know that many other people in this elite crowd, I was mostly talking to Jeffry and the people at my table. At one point Steve Carell and I talked a bit and I mentioned that I ate his wife's food and he offered me his food, which I tried to refuse again, but then he put his plate on top of mine so I just ate his plate too. I made a point to try to talk to people who I knew were originally from the New Orleans area so I went up and talked to Anthony Mackie (Captain America, Hurt Locker) and Jay Duplass. Both were super nice and happy to see that another Louisiana guy was around. I introduced myself as Stanley, but they made a point to ask for my full name. I guess hopefully in the future we'll run into each other again. They were both disappointed to hear that I was actually from the Mandeville area instead of the "proper" New Orleans area though. I tried talking to Ellie Kemper since we both worked on 21 Jump Street together, but she was too busy talking to Tina Fey for me to get a word in at that time. Jeffry wanted to get a word in with Leonardo DiCaprio, but he usually had a line of people trying to talk to him during breaks.

What you see when your speech is going on too long. This was for Leo's speech #sagawards

A photo posted by Stanley Wong (@swong37) on Jan 30, 2016 at 8:20pm PST

So coming into the award show, I had read some predictions on who would win the big award. The Big Short was favored, but it was still a bit of a coin toss between it and Spotlight. Unfortunately the award was announced and Spotlight got it. It was a huge disappointment because I was really looking forward to being able to go up on stage. Once that award was announced, it ended pretty quickly and everyone started shuffling towards the after party.

I'll make a pt 3. Too long again.

SAG Awards Recap pt 1

So this whole experience was pretty amazing. It had it's share of disappointments, but obviously overall it's just incredible to just be a part of. So, I got a call on Thursday asking if I was available to go to the SAG awards. I was allowed to invite a guest, so again I asked Jeffry Griffin (Ryan Gosling's assistant in The Big Short) to go with me. When they found out that I was asking him to be my guest they actually offered to buy his flight from New Orleans to Los Angeles and they thought it was awesome that we were keeping in touch. They told me they were providing me with a private car and I should dress up etc. It was all happening so fast.

The next day I was scrambling to get a haircut and grab a tuxedo. I personally thought that it seemed weird for me to rent a tux for the event. Or at least to rent the same kind of suit everyone else was wearing to look like I fit in. The stylist there recommended that I wear a white jacket with a black shirt and black pants. I showed a picture to my sister and she said it was a "hard no" and that I looked like I was going to prom. I took a look at the time and realized I was already running late for the hair appointment. The stylist assured me that it will catch people's eye without being too bold, so I decided to just go with it.

The next day Jeffry came in and I helped him pick up his tuxedo. Then we went back and got ready for the private town car to pick us up. Apparently there was some mix up and while we were sitting around waiting for the call to come on my phone, Jeffry realized that the driver had contacted him 20 minutes earlier. So we went outside and got in the car and started heading out there. The driver was nice and related to us because she has a lot of family from Louisiana as well. The drive took a long time though (about an hour), and we ended up getting to the venue about 4:00 PM.

As we got out of the car I could see a crowd of people already screaming at some of the other people coming out. I spotted Susan Sarandon, Jim Parsons, and a few other people getting out the same time as us. I didn't really have any idea what we were supposed to be doing so I called one of the paramount publicists and she told us to just walk up and try to find them. So we ended up checking in through security and then started approaching the red carpet. From my experience from 22 Jump Street, you still needed a publicist to get you through it though so we waited around for them to find us. When they eventually got to us, they told us that unfortunately there wasn't enough time to walk us down the red carpet anymore and we had to go around the side into the venue because we needed to be in our seats by 4:30 PM. It was pretty disappointing, but we just walked through the side and went inside.

In the shit.

A video posted by Stanley Wong (@swong37) on Jan 30, 2016 at 4:13pm PST

Once inside, we were asked to show and scan our tickets like three times. We had assigned tables and seats and I was surprised to see that our seats was literally right up front next to the stage. I was sitting at the head of the table right next to Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Christian Bale, and Steve Carell. I had a more prominent spot than even the director and some of the other main co-stars. We were also seated at the table in front of the Game of Thrones table, but I don't watch the show so I didn't really recognize too many of them. I got to meet with Bryon Mann and Christian Bale for the first time and I had short conversations with each of them. Soon after the awards started and we were all asked to sit down



I'm going to make a pt 2 because this is taking too long. To be continued...

Awards shows and Now You See Me red carpet story

I got invited to go to the SAG awards tomorrow. I will do a write up on that when I get the chance. I was talking to my friend about all the weird celebrity stories and he encouraged me to write them out so I thought this would be a good place to do it and this one was a good one to start off on.

Even though I was in 21 Jump Street, I wasn't able to go to the premiere because I had just gotten a small role in the movie Now You See Me at the same time the premiere would have happened. I had already bought my plane ticket to Los Angeles, rented a car, found lodging, and everything. But then I found out I booked this role and I was on the fence on whether or not I should go to the premiere for the potential to network, or take on an actual role in a movie that was waiting for me in Louisiana. I asked for advice from Phil Lord (one of the directors from Jump Street), Henry Griffin (my screenwriting teacher from UNO), and my co-stars in Jump Street. All of them said I should just take the work. There are always more premiere to be had and honestly they're not very cool anyways.

So I did take the role and it did end up being a great experience. I did want to follow up on going to other premieres so I asked early about going to the premiere for Now You See Me. At the time, I was already living in Los Angeles, but not actually working that much, and I found out that the premiere would actually end up being in New York. Because my role was really small, I felt like it would have been kind of a waste to fly out to New York for the premiere. However, they did tell me that I could go to a press screening that was happening in Los Angeles. I figured a press screening was just a small screening for people in the press to watch and give reviews or something, which isn't glamorous but I could at least watch the movie.

I rolled up to the movie theater wearing my office clothes because I had come out of working as a temp in the HR department of some office in Koreatown. As I walked up to the entrance of the theater I noticed that there was a red carpet with a line of photographers and everything. Apparently, even though it's a press screening, it's still a red carpet event and was actually pretty much another premiere. I got nervous and hung around the sidelines because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to just walk in like everybody else or if I was even allowed to go on the red carpet. I was also by myself because I invited my friend Brett (who was also from Jump Street) and he told me last minute that he was bailing out.

So as I'm hanging on the sidelines, I see the director (Louis Leterrier) also standing around the side. I was debating on whether I should go up and talk to him, but was worried that he might not even remember me since I had a pretty small role. Eventually, he caught a glimpse of me and walked straight up to me. He definitely remembered who I was. "I've been editing this movie for months! How can I not remember you?" He asked if I was living out in L.A. and about how I was doing etc. Then near the end he asked if I got a chance to walk the red carpet. "Am I even allowed to walk the red carpet?" He then told me of course I was. I was in the movie. Why wouldn't I be?

So, I decided to try and make my move. After all, the director told me I can go up right? I started walking up to the red carpet. I noticed Jesse Eisenberg had just started walking down and I was going to go in right behind him. I stepped up to the entrance of it and this big guy stops me and asks what I'm doing. "I'm in the movie. The director said I'm allowed to walk down the red carpet." The guard kind of scoffs a bit and just says "Yeah right" then gets some people to escort me away into the theater.

Because I already felt like I didn't belong at all, I really didn't have the strength to try to back any of it up and I just let them escort me away. It was pretty embarrassing. He told me I don't belong there and I pretty much agreed with him. I eventually walked into the theater and just sat in my seat. I watched the movie and saw my part and my eyes lit up for a second. Then I realized my part was less than 10 seconds and before I knew it I was gone. I finished up the movie and left the theater. That was it. I guess premieres really aren't that cool.

New Podcast and Videos!!!

So I finished one of the videos that took forever. Tried handing it off to two different editors before finally just doing the final touches myself. The video came together because we all met up to shoot one video and we realized we weren't ready to shoot it at all. So we came up with an idea on the spot and ended up shooting this. Go ahead and watch it. It came out pretty ok.


I also went on a podcast today called Box Office Breakdown. It was the first time I was a part of a podcast that was at a studio so that was an interesting experience. Thanks to SchmoesJTE for inviting me on that one. Hopefully I get more chances to talk about random stuff.


Edit: I was on another episode of JTE Movie Thinks so here's the link for that one. It's the 1/26/16 episode.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jte-movie-thinks!/id955398045?mt=2

Golden Globes

So this past Sunday the Golden Globes happened. Leading up to it, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to partake in any of the activities, but The Big Short was nominated for four awards. About a week before the awards, I got an invitation to attend one of those parties where companies just give you watches and stuff to wear to the awards. I wasn't actually invited to the awards themselves, but my manager definitely me to just go to get free stuff. Unfortunately, the day before that party actually happened, I got a notice that the list was severely shortened and unfortunately my invitation was a part of that short list. It was kind of strange and disheartening, but I figured it just wasn't my time yet.

A day before the awards, I got a notice that I was invited to the Viewing and after party hosted by Paramount Pictures. I found out I was also able to bring one guest. My first go to choices were either my sister or cousin who had always begged me to invite them to something like this. Unfortunately both were busy. From there I wasn't really sure who to invite, but then I had the idea to invite my co-star from the film Jeffry Griffin since he was still in Louisiana and wasn't really getting invitations to stuff like this. So I told him he could crash at my place and he offered to fly up and the plan was set in motion.

The next day I picked him up at the airport and went straight to the party at the Chateau Marmont. This was apparently a famous party hotel for the Hollywood elite. I wasn't really sure what we were going to walk into, but I was preparing myself for what might possibly be the biggest night of my life. We dropped our car off at the valet, took the elevator to the penthouse floor, and walked into the party only to find that there were only like ten people there. I was really confused actually. I didn't really recognize anyone (though I imagine anyone I would have recognized was probably at the awards themselves). Me and Jeff got some food and sat at a table and met Emma who was the fiance of Jeremy Strong, he was in the scene with us. She knew who we were when we walked in the room and we talked to her mostly through this. The costume designer of the film and her husband were also around and talking to us. Still, this was not quite what I expected for a big exclusive Golden Globes party.

We watched the Golden Globes and ate food. The big disappointment of the night was losing best comedy to The Martian because most of the blogs and critics had Big Short favored to win. While the Big Short can't really be classified as a straight comedy, The Martian most definitely is not a straight comedy either. I imagine they'll change some of the criteria for the award in the future. Either way, once that happened the energy in the room quickly died. Once the awards were over people started leaving and we asked people what was supposed to happen and the best answer we could get from anyone was "We'll have to see. A lot of people don't even want to go out because we lost." So me and Jeff were at this party that was breaking down at like 8 PM and we were wondering if we should just go home. Around the moment that we were getting read to leave though, Brad Pitt walks through the door and someone exclaims "Oh, nevermind. Looks like the after party will be here after all."

So little by little, everyone who was at the awards starts to show up. I got to catch up with Jeremy Strong and Hamish Linklater who were really cool and excited to see me when I went to the first screening. Had a decent conversation with Finn Wittrock about what he was doing next and how he felt about everything. He was a cool guy. There came a point where me and Jeffry kept trying to find our in to talk to Brad Pitt and Adam McKay who were sitting at a couch with people surrounding them. Eventually a girl (I forgot her name) must have seen how clueless we looked and made a point to walk us up to introduce us. Had a short conversation with both. It wasn't much, but I guess we got to let our presence by acknowledged.

Eventually the focus started to turn to getting into the WME party on the ground floor. I wasn't really sure if we could really get in because it seemed like we could barely get into the Paramount party. Hamish was really cool though and made a point to champion our way in. He walked with us down to the first floor and tried to starpower his way in. Unfortunately the doorperson even turned him away, which must have been a little embarrassing. He then called up his girlfriend Lily Rabe (I think?) and eventually the door person must have gotten word from someone and we were allowed into that party.

This party was absolutely nuts. Like shoulder to shoulder with people and it was crazy because every single one of those people were celebrities of some sort. I saw 2-3 people walking around with Golden Globe statues themselves. Had random mini conversation with people like Selena Gomez, Aziz Ansari, Eric Wareheim, the daughters of Eric McLeesh (one of the actual lawyers from Spotlight), Jonah Hill (who mostly wanted to talk to about my mom), Rick Famuyiwa, Sam Smith, etc etc. It was just a crazy night. Pretty much everyone who was at the Golden Globes was at that party. Not sure what else to say. Around 3 AM the party started shutting down so we left.

I came out of it feeling like I had just done one of the most Hollywood things so far in my L.A. journey, but at the same time I felt like I'm pretty much the same person the next day. Even though I got to briefly meet a lot of people, I'm not sure if I really solidified any real relationships with anyone. Maybe I did it wrong, not sure. Anyways, it was neat. I'm going to post again soon with a video I made recently. Also I'm excited for the new year. 

P.S. Hi Melanie, since I think you're the only one who reads these posts.

End of Year

Going to keep it brief cause I'm kind of lazy. My scene from The Big Short was recently released online, which left me with mixed feelings. On one end, my only scene in the movie is just free to watch so a lot of people have told me that they have no plans to see the movie or they message to ask me if I had more scenes only to be disappointed to hear that's it. But, it was easy to share and a lot of people saw it and specifically congratulated me on it, which is great. I'm not one to usually post things online, but a lot of people did it for me.

Other than that, making way on Handfart. I'm in post on two sketches, but those will take a little bit to still refine. Really just looking forward to the new year. Maybe next time I'll do more of a recap.

Whole bunch of stuff

Another monthish. A lot of stuff to cover.

So I did end up getting the Armed with a Camera Fellowship. It is for my script called Handfart so it was great to get a phone call one day asking for my thought process behind Handfart. Despite all of my friends saying that I was wasting my time submitting that particular script it actually ended up paying off. Even though last year I submitted my take on Asian Identity because I thought that's what they wanted, apparently I should have just submitted something really weird.

I recently just came back from a meeting where everyone explained their projects. Five of the eight fellows were women. Two were making something about their experience about being gay. Two were documentaries on their experiences in America as a foreigner. Etc etc etc.... Mine is about a guy who finds out he's going to die if he keeps making fart noises with his hands. Needless to say, I think everyone else there didn't seem too impressed with my proposal. But it's exciting! In the thoughts for casting now and I recently got a production coordinator from Collegehumor agree to help produce so things are on the way. This will be one of my biggest projects I've made in years.

I also decided to finish a film for the we own the 8th showcase that is happening at the end of the year. I also went to those meetings for the first time in a year and attended a screen fighting workshop with one of the current power rangers. So yeah, I have another weird video in the works. It'll involve dancing and false inspirational quotes. I commissioned my friend to do a cheesy 80's song for the video as well and he also did "Fight to the Top" for my video "The Tale of the Misfortune Cookie" and that was the bee's knees.

Never did an open mic yet. I guess I've been busy with other things lately. I did start this class that is kind of based around it and have been developing my skills on it. I just need to find the time to actually just go and do it. I'd still like to try it out, I just have to find the time.

I guess I forgot to mention I went to a private screening for The Big Short. My part is cut a little short, but thinking back on it after everything, I think it's my biggest role yet. It's also getting an awards push currently so it's getting a lot of good press. I personally found the movie to be ok. I think they should have taken more risks with the storytelling. They definitely don't try to dumb things down, which I appreciated, but it also made it drag a little bit. Definitely an interesting movie though. Unfortunately I can't go to the official premiere in NYC and I wasn't invited to the AFI Festival premiere so I guess that's my end of the run. I did get to talk to Ryan Gosling again and he congratulated me on the role as well as Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, and Adam McKay. A lot of people went up and said they really enjoyed my part actually so that's cool. A lot of other times, people don't particularly recognize me. The director even made a point to say that it gets the biggest laughs in test screenings.

So yeah, the year is wrapping up, but I'm trying to go out with a bang. Maybe I'll write more. Feel like I might have forgotten something...

Here's a cool video in the meantime that'll be a preview of sorts for the next video