On-set with Coca-Cola: What to do when you have nothing to do

I recently did a Coca-Cola commercial. It was a three-day night shoot, so I got picked up every day at 3:30 in the afternoon. On day two, I arrived on set at 5, eager as a beaver. I was in costume and makeup by 6. And then... I waited. Still pretty eager.

And waited... Eager enough.

And waited... Not so eager.

At 6:00 a.m., the beaver died. I was back in the van and on my way home. I had done nothing all night.

If you're serious about on-camera work, you'd better have a lot of patience -- or at least a lot to do besides hovering around the catering table and getting your fingers sticky. Here are five productive ways to spend your off-camera time:

1. Get to know people. Never underestimate the friendships (and contacts!) you can make while waiting. Other actors and off-duty crew are usually more than happy to chat. Don't be the anti-social cast member who sits in a corner and refuses to engage; you could be missing out on a lot. On this shoot alone, I made several new friends, was invited to three performances, found out about an upcoming casting, and got plenty of tips on the local film scene. And I had fun. That said, you should also...

2. Not be annoying. Okay -- this one's not really a thing to do. But some of the goings-on during the Coke shoot reminded me of this all-important rule: don't piss off the cast and crew by being all actor-y and obnoxious. If it's a night shoot and you're all holed up in a room where elderly people are trying to sleep sitting up in wooden chairs, don't run around playing tag with the cute teenage extras. No one will like you.

Also, don't babble incessantly about how many commercials you've done, what your salaries were, and how your last role involved your being chased through the woods by a pack of wolves with a huge slab of bacon in your pocket. Even if you happen to make it interesting, we're all tired and unlikely to give a shit for long.

3. Get some work done. If you have some lines you need to rehearse for the next scene, study them. If you're in school and have homework to do, do it. If you need to learn a monologue for an upcoming audition, learn it. You get the idea. Teach yourself to concentrate even when you're surrounded by chaos.

4. Sneak around the set. But don't be stupid. Don't go where you're really not supposed to be -- it'll usually be pretty obvious what the boundaries are, and you should do your best not to cross them. You can, however, learn a lot by observing professionals, including your fellow actors, at work. If they're shooting on digital and there's monitor playback you can watch, so much the better.

5. Meditate. I'm not kidding. Teaching yourself to meditate can help you rest and clear your brain so you can focus on the work when you finally do get called on set. But keep the chanting to a minimum (see tip #2).

Very bad writing: What do you do when the script sucks ass?

Ever tried reading lines that are just awful? Clichéd, unnatural, illogical, and grammatically incorrect? Did you all of a sudden feel like a really bad actor?

Don't worry, it's not your fault.

Bad scripts are the bane of any good actor's existence. We're dependent on the writer's words, and when those words are lame, it's pretty hard not to look lame yourself.

Case in point: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio -- both excellent actors -- who were forced to speak some abhorrent dialogue in Titanic. Lines like "I'm flying, Jack!" and "I'm the king of the world!" just can't be said convincingly. Kate managed to pull it off fairly well, but Leo's miserably wooden performance almost destroyed his career.

So what do you do when you're stuck having to take your lines from a James Cameron screenplay? You suck it up, find some truth in what you're saying, and commit. Again, if you're afraid of looking stupid, you'll end up looking stupider. And think about what kind of person would say "I'm the king of the world!" Try to figure out what's going on in your character's brain to make him want to say something that asinine. There are reasons for everything people do. Our job is to figure out what those reasons are, and to use them to create believable characters. It isn't our job to rewrite the script -- as much as we sometimes wish we could.