SAN FRANCISCO
I have received many inquiries from Bay Area actors, asking when I might be teaching again in San Francisco. I promise to make that a priority this year, at least for a limited-time workshop. It would be a joy to see some of my Bay Area friends again. Keep an eye on this newsletter.

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
DIANE TASCA (s.stdy -00) plays Eleanor of Aquitaine in "Lion in Winter" with Palo Alto Players, opening January 18th. JEANETTE HARRISON (f/tv '99) shot an indie entitled "The Claim", portraying a woman of multiple personalities. . She also recorded an industrial for World Savings plus several webcasts for Sun. ROCKY LAROCHELLE (f/tv '00) recently finished a run of "The Laramie Project" at Las Positas stage and scored roles in two indie films: "Save it for Later" and "The Right to Remain".

CHICAGO CLASS SCHEDULE

ONGOING SCENE STUDY
We have two classes of scene study, which is where we work on acting as an art form. Monday night or Wednesday night, 7-10:30. On-going, start at any time, free audit, 16-week commitment. $135 per month.

COMMERCIALS WORKSHOP JANUARY 18-19
Excellent and fun on-camera class for anybody that wants to get into commercials or to improve their batting averages. 9-4 Saturday and 10-5 Sunday. $250 ($175 for current scene study students)

FILM DEMO WORKSHOP STARTS JANUARY 21ST
Tuesday nights, 7-10:30, four-week session, work on your own demo scene. Shoot and edit digital video. Intended for experienced actors. $250

PRIVATE COACHING
$75 per hour

CRAFT NOTES
"STARDOM"

At least five times a week, someone writes to me about wanting to be a movie star. She will tell me of her dreams, confess secret hopes and maybe explain that she receives little support for this dream at home. These messages are touching to be honest, and I always try to respond to them, but the truth is that there is nothing much one can do about becoming a movie star. I'd like to speak to that subject in this month's craft notes.

Acting is an interpretative art. It is a joyful and honorable thing to do with your life, but it is a tough way to make a living. Eighty-five percent of the members of Screen Actors Guild earn less than $5,000 a year from their craft. There is only a sliver of middle-income performers on the pie chart. Most actors are working job-jobs, parking cars and waiting tables, while chasing gigs. The ones that are waiting for stardom are the most likely to be frustrated. The ones that pursue the art of acting are most likely to find satisfaction.

There is not a correlation between talent and stardom. Talent is desirable of course, but stardom is even more a factor of timing and a fool's good fortune. If you want to be a star, the only thing you can really do about it is stay out in the road. Keep acting. Look for good and worthwhile projects whether they be stage or film. (That's another thing. Many of those people that dream of stardom say they only want to work on film, not on stage. Big Mistake, IMO.)

I remember being in an off-off Broadway play with John Lithgow years ago. One night he came into the dressing room and said that a friend of his from college was going to make a movie and wanted him to star in it. He did the movie, and that led to representation by a top New York talent agency, and the rest is Lithgow history. He's a certifiable star now and has earned millions of dollars and a room full of awards. Would he have become a star without his friend tapping him on the shoulder? Maybe, maybe not. That was for him a stroke of good fortune, and he had the talent to take advantage of it. But I remember other actors who were in that same off-off Broadway show, and some of them were just as talented as John and have never achieved stardom. So goes show biz.

In 1977, Heather Locklear walked into my Los Angeles commercials workshop. With her mother. She was eighteen years old and had done nothing except a beauty contest somewhere in Orange County. I began working with her, saw that she had electricity in front of the camera and invited my agent at the time to come and have a look. She did take a look and ultimately became Heather's agent and later her manager. She (Joan Green Management) manages Heather today in fact. Would Heather have become a star if I had not acted on her behalf? Hard to know. We'll never know in fact. I was in a position to put the right people together, and magic happened for them both. But I'll wager there were other actors in that class with Heather who had just as much talent but have not become stars.

In fact, I have personally known a number of actors who have become stars, and I have seen first hand how uncontrollable are the elements that lead there. My fervent advice therefore, to anybody who dreams of stardom, is that you not come into acting on that basis. If you love acting and want to be in front of an audience, that is good. If you want to act in movies, that too is good. There is nothing wrong with acting in movies, God knows. Do it all!

At the end of the day though, acting is about communicating with people. Actors are shamans. Acting is an emotional embrace and an acknowledgement that we are all pretty fragile on this planet. The tribe is in trouble in 2003, and the world is facing the prospect of wars wherever we look. We need actors. We need shamans. We need artists of vision and insight and courage and integrity and a desire to connect the dots of humanity. We need to know how to get through the tough winter.

Artonin Artaud explained that "actors are athletes of the heart." Stardom has very little to do with that pointedly correct characterization. So, yes, please act. But do not think much about stardom. Think of the tribe.

P.S. I now publish a monthly current events newsletter entitled ED HOOKS: ON TOPIC, and you are welcome to subscribe for free. ON TOPIC is not the warm-and-fuzzies. It is a place where I can speak to the troubling and complex issues as I see them facing an ever more war-like America and the world. If you are interested, simply send me an e-mail and ask to be included. Specify ED HOOKS: ON TOPIC.