Carson City native living her dream in Hollywood

A small town girl trying to make it big in Tinseltown.

It's a story that goes back nearly a century, when the silver screen drew as many starry-eyed dreamers to the film capital of the world as it did audiences to movie houses.

Jayme Foremaster is living her dream in Hollywood Land, remaining firmly grounded in the small town values she learned from her family right here in the Nevada State Capital.

The 24-year-old Carson City native moved away from Northern Nevada to Southern California, settling into one of the nation's largest metropolitan centers while enrolled as an acting major at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in Los Angeles.

"I knew I wanted to do film," she said. "Not New York, but Los Angeles."

New York City -- specifically Broadway -- is the hub for stage acting, while Hollywood, California, has served as the graceland of film acting for as long as the industry has existed.

One of the oldest and most prestigious acting schools in the country, the AADA was established in New York City during the late 19th Century, Foremaster said.

The school later expanded to the West Coast in 1974, its Los Angeles campus occupying a portion of silent screen comic legend Charlie Chaplin's old studios.

Its alumni credentials are luminous, too, boasting numerous Hollywood legends as graduates over the past several decades.

Foremaster graduated from the AADA in 2012 with a 4.0 grade-point average and in possession of an Associate of Arts degree that is the equivalent of a vocational credential in the film trade.

She is currently pursuing her bachelor's degree online through Harbor College in Los Angeles, making the Dean's List there this past spring.

Foremaster has been focused and driven to succeed in acting since her early years as a home-schooled youth in Carson City.

"There was no doubt about it," she said. "When I was 12, after a film audition, I knew there was nothing else I was going to be doing with my life."

At the time, Foremaster had been enrolled in a youth development scholarship program called "Cinderella Girls," an organization that helps young women build their self confidence through modeling, public speaking and the development of interviewing skills.

"When I was little, I was really shy and not very outgoing," she said.

But she received encouragement from her mother, Dee Dee, to rise above those inhibitions and find something that motivated her to do so.

"My mom was always very big on trying a whole bunch of different things to find my passion," Foremaster said.

Her debut into the world of performing arts, however, started much earlier in life more out of necessity than desire, she said.

Foremaster was enrolled in dance and ballet as early as age 2.

Dee Dee Foremaster said her daughter was born premature, and a regimen of physical activity was prescribed by her doctors, including a series of physical therapy to keep her limber as an infant.

Her foray onto the stage began at age 5 with the Back Stage Kids, now the Wild Horse Children's Theatre, Jayme Foremaster said. She was cast as a monkey in the "Jungle Book" ensemble produced through the Brewery Arts Center.

"From then on, I just always enjoyed theatre and the bonds they create for people, transporting them to a world away from their problems," Foremaster said.

Dee Dee said theatre helped her daughter overcome much of her self-consciousness because, by its very nature, drama reinforces the notion that a person can be anything and do anything they desire to.

"You can be anything you want to be in this world, and in theatre you become that character," she said.

Jayme added that theatre also affirms other positive values that are key to a child's personal development.

"There's an equality in theater, and you won't be judged for it," she said.

These days, Foremaster still lives in Los Angeles and continues to ply the trade she studied at the AADA.

But following her dream has been no walk in the park, she said. There have been plenty of hard knocks along the way since her graduation.

She spends much of each day standing in audition lines outside of film studios, waiting and hoping to get a chance to apply for a part. Even one as small as a single scene or take.

"Every day I submit for 40-50 auditions, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get an audition," she said."If I'm lucky, I might get one or two auditions a week."

When she does get an audition, Foremaster then has to perform a scene in front of the director.

The industry equivalent to a job interview, auditions are much more intense, because they require preparations that are usually last minute. An applicant isn't typically given the opportunity to review the script the night before and rehearse it, she said.

Foremaster said she has to be ready to deliver her best performance with little more than a few minutes to review the material and memorize lines.

And often all for a background part that, in the finished product, turns out to be very small.

"I do background on a lot of TV shows in Hollywood," she said.

Earlier this year, Foremaster got a break while on the set of "Girl Meets World," a Disney Channel spin-off of the nineties hit television show, "Boy Meets World."

"I was booked as a standard background that day, and they were looking for someone else to play the part of a crying girl," Foremaster recalled. "Most of the girls were too embarrassed to audition, but me being the actor that I am, you play all kinds of different roles."

So she auditioned for the part, crediting her preparation for improvisational roles with her years of training under Jerry Orton of the Tahoe Improv Players.

Foremaster said she joined the Lake Tahoe troupe at age 12 and still returns every summer to perform improvisational acting at the Valhalla Boathouse Theatre along south shore.

"Improv helps with anything in life, because you never know when you are going to be asked to do something," she said.

The part of the crying girl included no lines, but Foremaster had to be convincing as an emotionally crushed -- albeit it brief -- character who experiences the shock of being dumped by a boyfriend via text message.

"I made sure I gave the part justice," she said. "They gave me a crack at it, and the director liked me so much that I was even added into another scene."

Foremaster said her willingness to step out of her personal comfort zone and do something crazy -- like running through the halls screaming and crying -- impressed the director so much that he considered giving her a line. But that was ultimately scratched for the final cut, she said.

"For about 15 minutes, I almost had a line. But it didn't work with the sketch," she said. "It was a little bit rewarding for me, though, because I realized when the opportunity does come for me, I'm going to be ready for it."

Such opportunities don't come around every day, Foremaster said.

In fact, they are rare.

But when breaks come around, she said, more often than not they take unconventional forms that a hungry dreamer should be prepared for lest it be offered to somebody else.

"This is a process, and you're going to be given opportunities, but maybe not in the way you expect," she said.

Still, Foremaster had made her mark on the set and left an impression that she hopes may lead to more steady work with the studio.

But until that time, she assumes her place in the daily audition lines outside of the studios.

When an audition occurs, she isn't given the part right away, regardless of how impressive her performance is.

"Actors are rarely hired on the spot," she said. "You have to get the call back, which you hardly ever get. If you do get that, then you're hired."

The business of film acting adds far less to the glamour of an overly sensationalized profession, Foremaster said, and is the chief reason why so many starry-eyed young actors get their dreams shattered.

"It's a business first, and a crazy one," she said. "People don't realize just how hard it is."

If landing an audition for parts as small as background acting is hard, then being given an audition for a role with lines is much tougher, Foremaster said.

"To get an audition for speaking roles and network things, you have to have an agent," she said.

And many of them would just as soon shut the door on you as say hello, she said.

Finding an agent to represent her has been one of the most difficult experiences to-date in the business, Foremaster said. With so many actors and acting amateurs competing for parts in Hollywood, agents can be as choosy as they want.

To help give herself a boost, she joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) upon graduation from the AADA in 2012.

Besides providing labor protection for film actors, the guild also organizes events and training for members to help improve their chances of landing parts.

"They offer workshops and mixers to meet with directors, agents and other actors," Foremaster said. "The union really does try to help the actors the best they can."

But in the end, she said, actors are on their own to market themselves if they don't have an agent doing that for them. This requires Foremaster to not only be the actor she is trained to be, but also her own advocate.

"You are your own product, which is part of what makes acting so difficult," she said. "Not only do you have to be the artist, but you have to turn around and be the business person and negotiate by selling yourself."

Foremaster said her education and training give her the edge over other prospects despite not being represented by an agent, because she knows the acting techniques directors are looking for and she can fluidly improvise on the spot.

"The school taught all areas of acting, not just one, so you had a basis of what tools and techniques work best for you as an actor," she said.

Her favorite acting style comes from the "Meisner Technique," she said, which requires an actor to employ active listening skills and respond in kind.

"What you do depends on what you receive from your partner," she said. "It's all about listening and being responsive."

The technique is particularly helpful to Foremaster when she needs to improvise during an audition.

She also carefully studies and appreciates classic film acting from Hollywood's Golden Age, because actors then relied more on acting to tell a story and less on cinematography or special effects to capture and hold an audience.

"It's so pure," Foremaster said. "Nowadays, there's so many special effects for those films. It really relied on the actor and their portrayal of the character. It was a simpler time."

She follows a lot of the work of Shirley Temple, Judy Garland with Mickey Rooney, as well as Katharine Hepburn, who Foremaster said was a distant cousin.

Back in the day, cinematic camera effects were limited to the technology available, she said, so how an actor portrayed his or her character was crucial to a film.

Before there was even sound in film, expressions and emotions from an actor had to appear genuine and sincere for an audience to capture the storyline.

"The actors knew how to convey things without words," Foremaster said. "It's very truthful, the actors showing their raw emotions, showing how they are actually feeling at that moment."

Classic film acting required an authenticity that doesn't seem so present in today's films, she said. The story and the relationships between characters meant everything to the success or failure of a film.

"The way they received each other, it was about the relationship between the two of them," Foremaster said. "They did that so well in the older films. You never for a minute don't believe they aren't who they say they are."

Appreciating the classics and understanding the technical side of acting means Foremaster is prepared when a director asks for a particular style during an audition.

Still, in spite of her professional background, Foremaster also recognizes that there is a lot of luck that comes with landing an audition or a part.

"It's all chance,and being in the right place at the right time," she said.

To achieve what she has thus far in Hollywood, Foremaster said she has also had to take what she can get in order to build her acting portfolio.

She has accepted roles with independent film projects as well as collaborated on others, too.

"I just finished a short film directed by a [University of Southern California] student called 'Door To Door,' in which I play a Southern Belle," she said.

Another project, titled "Second Service," is a story about race relations in the 1950s. The film, sponsored by the American Film Academy, casts Foremaster as a tennis player.

That film is due to be featured at film festivals this fall, she said.

Foremaster is also about to start another film project titled "Match Made in Arkam," a collaboration between herself and another film professional. The genre is a superhero spin-off, she said, that tells the story of how Batman villains Harlequinn and Poison Ivy went bad.

While she hasn't landed a big role yet, Foremaster said that's less important to her than establishing herself as a professional in the industry and being able to make a living doing what she loves.

Right now, she is living her dream despite the long audition lines, the waiting, the studio background work,and independent projects she accepts.

Foremaster said she remains undeterred and steadfast in the pursuit of her dream.

"Nothing in life worth having is easy, but as long as it brings you joy, never give up, and never let anyone take that from you," she said. "There are a lot of jaded people, and you can't let them affect what you do."

Faith keeps her focused on achieving goals in the business, even when surrounded by frustrations and disappointments that come with the industry's territory.

She gives a lot of credit to her family for standing by her decision to pursue film acting as a career.

"Coming from a small town, and coming back to my roots has kept me centered as a person," she said. "The belief that my family has in me helps to keep me going."

As one who has been enduring the hard knocks of show business in Tinseltown for more than four years now, Foremaster knows what it means to hang tough and stay the course.

She has developed fortitude, a characteristic that's essential for pursuing dreams.

"You have to have enough courage and believe in yourself," she said. "It takes hard work, time, persistence and patience."

The most difficult of those traits for her to overcome has been patience, Foremaster said, because the breaks are very hard to come by in show business.

Lucky breaks are even harder.

"We all have expectations for ourselves and what we want in our lives," she said. "But you also have to know that, as much as you have goals and expectations for yourself, there's also a larger plan. Sometimes the timing that you think your life should go isn't the timing it's going to actually take."

So Foremaster stays vigilant and ready in a business that has a decades-long reputation as cutthroat, willing to take on projects and roles that may appear unconventional, but they keep her moving in the right direction.

"You have to develop as a person to be ready for the right situation," she said. "When you are at the right stage in your life, developed as you should be, and you've worked hard, everything should fall into place as it should."

Foremaster cited two important lessons she thinks every young person following their dreams ought to learn.

One is to approach life with an open mind and embrace change rather than resist it.

"The only thing that's certain in life is that it's always changing and never permanent," she said.

A second lesson is authenticity of self.

Nobody should ever feel they have to put on an act to find success, Foremaster said, especially amidst the glitter, glamour and sensationalism of Tinseltown.

"Stay true to who you are. You're enough," she said. "You don't have to be anyone else other than yourself to be successful. Do what makes you happy."

For Jayme Foremaster, success is following her dream...wherever it may lead.