Mary Holland is the greatest actress you haven’t heard of. Part Bette Davis, part Andy Kaufman, Holland is a recently graduated drama student from Galax, Virginia, home of The Old Fiddler’s Convention for 73 years. Documentary filmmaker Andrew Ferris discovers the life of an intimidating actress in a struggling city.
FERRIS: Does watching movies in Hollywood feel different than watching movies in Galax?
HOLLAND: Galax! I’m so glad you asked me about Galax... Well, the feeling is the same, if that makes sense. I go to the movies by myself, and I do it because of a specific feeling I get by going alone. I had that feeling at the Twin County Cinema in my beloved Galax and I have it here in Hollywood at the Arclight Cinema on Sunset Boulevard (my favorite movie theatre in LA). I’m sort of obsessed with going alone. I’ll rearrange plans and work it out so that I can go by myself.
In Galax, I was almost always the only one by myself in the theatre. Nobody went by themselves. It was a place in which social interaction took place; that was its purpose. In Hollywood, there are many addicts like myself, and I see people going alone all the time. People take movie-going seriously. They are there to watch the film and pass judgment and hopefully go home enriched in some way. I’m kind of watering at the mouth right now... I want to go to the movies.
FERRIS: Does acting feel as personally important to you in Hollywood as it did in school?
HOLLAND: It’s a different kind of importance. In school, I worked extremely hard and thought about the craft and the skills involved every day. I entertained concepts and tried new things and learned more about myself and the behavior of people than I ever thought I could. I tried to soak in everything and apply it to work for classes and for rehearsals. The struggle of a novice attempting to learn a complicated and elusive art. It was delightful. Painful, and delightful.
In Hollywood, I have to trust that I have the craft. That it’s in me. Because nobody wants to see you working on your “art”. They want you to do your job, and get out. I can’t spend hours musing over universal truths. I have to focus on making a living by showing what I can do. Acting will always be personal with me. It is me, it’s in my blood, you know? But I can’t be the tormented artist I had the luxury of being in school. I think that luxury will be mine again once I land a role, but for now I have to focus on landing the role, which is the hardest part.
FERRIS: Do you schmooze, network?
HOLLAND: God no. I don’t know how. You have to network out here, because it’s all about who you know and whatever, but I feel like a prostitute when I start talking to someone with the purpose of helping my “career.” It’s disgusting to me, and I can feel it when other people are trying to schmooze me. It’s the worst feeling I’ve felt out here to date.
I did this performance for a workshop a few weeks ago, a pantomime to one of Mozart’s symphonies. It went over very well, and everybody in the workshop liked it I think, and then the teacher said I should try to get it filmed and send it somewhere. The next day I heard from a guy in the class and we had lunch. After talking and having fun, he told me he wanted to get involved in one of my pantomime thingys. He wanted to get on Leno!
I had to take a shower after that lunch.
FERRIS: How do you prepare for an audition?
HOLLAND: When I first got here, I had no idea what to expect at a film/tv audition, so I overworked the script and went over every detail with a fine-toothed comb. I wanted it to be perfect. And it fell apart on me in the room with the casting director. I’ve since learned that once you get the feel of the character and the circumstance, you just have to play. That kind of freedom in acting is what I had in school, that sense of play, and it’s intoxicating to me as an actor and as a spectator. So I try to play in an audition. I don’t spend hours poring over the script now.
FERRIS: Before you walk into the audition room, is there something you always do for good luck?
HOLLAND: Um... I go to the bathroom. And I look around at things. And I try to take in everything. I try not to let my nerves get the best of me and get to my head. I tend to get overly excited and happy and shaky, and look like a crazy person. I just want to stay aware of the world around me, so I look around at everything and it calms me down.
FERRIS: During the audition, can you feel yourself switching from trying to make a good impression as Mary to trying to do a good reading as the character?
HOLLAND: When I audition, I think the most important part of it is the first couple of seconds right when I walk in the door. That’s when I feel the pressure in my brain: be me, be me, be me, be me, be me. Once, I was thinking that so hard, I tripped and fell into the room and then afterwards I got home and vomited. That last part is not true.
I’m used to these auditions now, so I’m not so nervous about presenting myself. I’ve become a bit jaded. I’m so tired of rejection, sometimes I just want to walk in and show them a boob or something. I’ve stopped caring so much what they think about me as a person. I just try to relax and be me and then show what I can do, and then get out.
FERRIS: What was your last audition like? Were you happy with the results?
HOLLAND: I was incredibly happy with the results. During the strike, it was completely dead. Nothing was auditioning except for a few films, none of which I auditioned for. I had been out of practice with auditions for almost 4 months when I got a call from my agent about an audition. It’s a high school girl, and they want a character actress (which is me). So I prepare and I’m pumped and I go in and I impress the casting director. She works with me for about 15 minutes and gives me wonderful compliments and then my agent calls me later and tells me that she sent the tapes in to the director. I got so freaking excited. And then a week or so later I heard that they had found someone else for the role. They said I looked too old. It must be the wisdom in my eyes.
FERRIS: Have you ever seen another actor in a role that you auditioned for? How did it leave you?
HOLLAND: It was flattering. One role that I got a callback for is now being played by Selma Blair (the role is Molly Shannon’s daughter on a TV pilot). So I don’t know. Right now I know that I have to be in a place where if I get the role, great, and if I don’t get it, great. Once the audition’s over, it’s over. And I have to get over it right away or my life will be miserable, you know?
FERRIS: Do you have a job outside of acting?
HOLLAND: I work as a hostess at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Most of the time it makes me want to shoot myself in the face. I stand and stare for hours on end.
We’re in an area surrounded by doctors’ offices, and once a girl came in and started asking me questions about the food we serve. Something seemed off about her, and I couldn’t quite place it until I noticed the incision in the crease of her left nostril. Her nose never moved when she talked. The incision still had fresh blood that appeared to have only recently been stemmed. She saw me looking, laughed, and said, “Sorry, I just came from getting my nose done. Do you guys have soup?” We do, but I didn’t answer her. She texted her way out of the restaurant and it took me a while
to recover.
Also, I just got hired as a model. For an art class. A nudie model. I’ve done it once and it was quite scary. But thankfully the class was small, and the people in it were mostly old, so it was like getting naked in front of my grandparents. I didn’t do that much after I was 6 or so, but still...fun!
FERRIS: What does a typical day look like for you?
HOLLAND: I wake up to my kitten licking my mouth. I wish I was kidding about this, but I’m not, she’s the only lover I have. If I have an audition, I usually find out the day before, so I get up and I go over the script. I have a tendency to get a little freaked out and nervous about these auditions, so until it’s time for me to get in the shower, I do something to take my mind off it. Like make out with my cat. Not really.
Because the traffic in LA is the worst in the world, even if the audition is a mere six miles away, I time it so that I leave an hour before the audition time. I get to the studio and enjoy a few wonderful minutes wandering around the soundstages and imagining myself working there. Then I get to the audition and I try not to get intimidated by the bombshells that are in the waiting room with me, and then I do the audition.
I go home, obsess about how it went, and get ready for work. I leave an hour early for work too. I go in and change into my uniform and prepare myself mentally for a few hours of mind-numbing boredom. I check my phone obsessively throughout the night to see if my agent called me to tell me I booked the part, and then around ten or eleven, I go home.
I listen to NPR and think about things. I go down the hall to see Michael and his boyfriend and we watch Jeopardy and they make me laugh. I go to bed and try not to wonder about the scary things about being out here – is this really going to happen? Am I freaking kidding myself? I’m terrified. Please someone give me a job.
FERRIS: Is there still a certain magic in the dream factory?
HOLLAND: Yes.
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