Ever since I was a teenage gurl back at Hidden Valley Middle School I decided I wanted to be an actress. It was career day and one of the options was being in the movies as a working actor. Well, ever since then I fell in love with acting. In high school I took all the acting classes and even made my stage debut in Wait Until Dark. No, I didn’t play the lead role Audrey Hepburn plays in the movie, I played her husband the photographer. LOL Well that didn’t stop me from wanting to be a leading lady in Hollywood. When I moved to Hollywood after graduating from Orange Glen High School I started doing extra work in film/TV. Back then I worked all the teen high school shows like Sweet Valley High, Sister, Sister, Goosebumps, etc. I even got full screen time in Baywatch playing of all things, a cholo. LOL. Can you believe that? Well, I finally decided to get back into acting, my first love, and doing some extra work is the best way to get back in the game. This time in NYC!
I’ve signed up with several extra actor agencies. Desiree Agudo T.M. and Central Casting are the main ones that find me work. I love doing background work. It’s one of the best jobs anyone can have if you’re in the entertainment industry. You make your own schedule, you get a chance to work with many of today’s hottest actors, you get fed on set some really delicious food, most of the time you sit around and flirt with a lot of cute actor boys, and the best part of it all you get immortalized in some of today’s hottest films and TV shows. That’s the cherry on top.
One of my first jobs was working on Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Worked on the streets of New York City but wasn’t really familiar with the principal actors. Come to find out when the movie is finally released I was in a scene with the main actor who plays Percy Jackson, Logan Lerman. He is such a pretty boy that he looks like a lesbian. On set he had no attitude like someone might have if they were the star of a major motion picture. He was very down to earth and just seemed like a regular actor walking around. That’s why I didn’t even know he was the star. I’ve worked other films and TV shows. Some were pilots that never made it to TV, one was a Russian romantic comedy in English, an Italian film called Il Giorno, and the others I’ll tell you about.
For Rubicon the show that was on AMC before it got canceled I got to work with the main actor James Badge Dale in the middle of Central Park. It was such a hot day that I got me a nice little farmers tan out of it. Well that and getting to check out the lead actor of the show all day long. Not really my type but definitely cute. I’ve done Blue Bloods working in a scene with Jennifer Esposito and a very flirtatious Donnie Wahlberg. He was very flirty with a lot of the ladies, myself included. Worked a second scene with Nicholas Turturro and the very young and handsome looking Will Estes right in the middle of Times Square on a really busy night. It was fun having everyone watching us taking pictures and asking us questions about what we were filming.
My two favorite sets so far have got to be Law & Order SVU with Christopher Meloni, Olympia Dukakis, and a voluptuous looking Drea de Matteo, before her pregnancy was announced. No wonder she looked heavy on set. A movie called Man on a Ledge with the hot looking Sam Worthington, a better-looking in person Kyra Sedgwick, a super skinny Elizabeth Banks, an older looking Ed Burns, and can’t forget a super petite looking with a big head Ed Harris. On Law & Order I got to play a hooker. It wasn’t the first time I played one on TV by the way. I seem to get type cast in that role. LOL. And I love playing it. Me along with two other females play hookers that were arrested and are accompanied to court with their lawyer.
And then for another scene I got to sit behind Mr. Divo himself Christopher Meloni who didn’t seem to mind anyone around him. He just kept to himself and didn’t even look at anyone around him. I must say he is a hot looking older man with a nice big booty. Actually he looked like a duck butt. His ass was so big it looked like he was sticking it out. OK, enough about Christopher Meloni’s ass I also did get to work with legendary actress Olympia Dukakis, who looked so different in person, almost unrecognizable and of course the heavy looking Drea de Matteo. When the show aired you actually got to see me sitting behind Mr. Meloni in the courtroom scene. My other favorite has got to be a very memorable experience working on the yet to be released film Man on a Ledge with nice butted Sam Worthington. He was such a cutie. OMG! I worked a total of four weekends on the streets of New York City outside the Roosevelt Hotel. It was fall and the weather was beginning to get cold out. But we survived and I got to hang out and meet with a lot of actor friends and of course cute boys. The perk of the job.
The highlight of the shoot though has got to be running into Ms Kyra Sedgwick in the ladies room. My story goes: I came out of the stall and Kyra goes right in after me. I tell her to make sure she locks the door really good because the stall door keeps popping open all of a sudden while you’re sitting on the throne. She tells me, “thank you.” And that’s my story. I love working on movie sets. It’s the job of a lifetime, for now. And to this day I have no idea if they know my little tranny secret. Well, except for those lead actors on the set of HBO’s Treme. They clocked me right away. Almost always happens with black guys. They know. But hey, all Hollywood actresses have their little secrets why can’t I. See you at the movies.
—
Samara Riviera
Author/Journalist/Writer
www.VivaLaRiviera.com
www.Justin.tv/DivasLive
www.Twitter.com/SamaraRiviera
youtube.com/SamaraElleRiviera