Third in a series on how the economic crisis is affecting the Industry.
Though she's only in her early 30s, Christine Lakin has already spent two decades as an actor, from a run as a series regular on "Step by Step" while in her early teens to more than two dozen other series and 17 movies, including "You Again" and the upcoming "New Year's Day." (She's seen in the image below, on the far left, in the shortlived CW series "Valentine.")
But a life of constant auditions, callbacks, readings and offers has changed dramatically over the past few years, Lakin told TheWrap -- to the point where her current career path has nothing to do with waiting for the next plum role and everything to do with doing anything she can.
Which means writing a web series for herself, doing voiceovers, becoming a choreographer.
Other Voices From the Job Trenches:
Post-Production Vendor: 'All Our Business Models Went Out the Window'
Production Manager: 'I Used to Wander Through Musso & Frank’s to Get Work. Not Today'
Screenwriter: 'I Just Don't Want to Answer Phones at Some Place I Used to Pitch'
"If I just waited by the phone for the kind of offers I used to get to come in, I'd never work," said Lakin, who also serves as a member of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild board. "What I'm doing now isn't what I ever imagined myself doing, but you have to use the skill set you have if you want to work."
While she said that part of the slowdown may be due to outside factors, including a fickle Hollywood that finds "a new hot age" for actresses every year, she has no doubt that much of it is due to the slowdown in film and television production -- and the effect that has all the way up and down the Hollywood food chain.
"The economy is the most significant factor in what I've seen," she said. "In the past five or six years, studios are not doing as many films. And that means that you have more movie stars going into television -- not just to star in series, but also to do three-or-four-episode guest roles.
"And that trickles down to people like me, and pushes a lot of us into the category where we're just trying to make a living."
This year's pilot season, she said, was the slowest she's ever seen in her career. "It's shocking how few pilots were being made," she said.
During her biggest pilot seasons, "I would have three or four appointments a day for the better part of two or three months. That meant changing in the car, and running from one side of town to another for auditions and callbacks every day."
