The Work

The craft

People see the credits. They rarely see the part that makes the credits possible: the training, the tapes, and the auditions that did not book. This page is about the process, because there is a process, and it is worth respecting.

Where the training came from

It started in Fort Myers, Florida, where his mother lived, at the Osslin Agency, which took a chance on a marine construction worker who had never considered acting. Then MySpace did what MySpace did in those years: someone found him online, reached out, and he moved to Miami.

In Miami he studied with Ralph Kinnard at the Miami Acting Studio. In 2009 Ray entered the Model and Talent Expo in Dallas, the long running Mike Beaty event where agents, managers, casting directors and network representatives sit as judges. He took first place in every category he entered, and walked out with the trophies and a twenty thousand dollar scholarship offer to the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. Kinnard told him to go. Not for the industry, but to be around the history of the theatre.

He also met Billy Clark at that expo, the first person from the Hollywood side ever to watch him work. Years later Ray booked East Los High on Hulu, a show whose cast included Christina Milian, who is closely connected to Billy. The industry is smaller than it looks, and the room you walk into at twenty three has a way of showing up again.

He did not go. Not right away. The truth is he was intimidated by the institution, and he waited. Two years passed and the scholarship window closed with it. It is one of the few things he will tell you he regrets outright, and it forced a different path: Penny Templeton Studio first, then conservatory training at the William Esper Studio. He got there eventually. Just not the way it was handed to him.

New York meant paying for it. He worked retail for Abercrombie, Hollister, and Gilly Hicks, and was the first male model Gilly Hicks ever hired at their Aventura location in Miami. That job meant standing and flexing for five hours a day, and he has said plainly that those hours built the physical presence he later brought to Hollywood. No more marine construction, no more pools, no more marinas or diving. The work moved indoors. He tried nightlife, and nightlife nearly ate him, so he switched to catering, which paid the bills and left the days free to chase the actual dream.

In New York the work continued at Penny Templeton Studio, before any conservatory. That class gave Ray the tools he carried into the room at the William Esper Studio, where the first year of Meisner training is not about performing at all. It is about being in the moment, listening, and doing. Reacting honestly to what the other actor is actually giving you, instead of the version you rehearsed alone.

Then came a decision most actors face and few talk about. A second year in New York would have meant scene study built largely for theatre. Ray wanted technique for film and television. So in September 2011 he moved to Los Angeles to study with Ivana Chubbuck, whose work is built around what a character wants badly enough to fight for. The Meisner foundation stayed. The application changed.

The lineage behind all of it runs back through Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, and Uta Hagen. Different vocabularies, one idea: make it true, and make it specific.

The teachers and studios

Credit where it belongs. These are the studios and teachers whose work shaped this approach. Their techniques are their own, taught in their own rooms and written in their own books. If you want the technique, go to the source.

How an audition actually gets made

An audition is not a performance. It is a proposal. Here is the shape of the work, in plain terms.

1. Read everything you are given

   The sides tell you what happens. The full script, when you get one, tells you why. Who is this person to everyone else in the story, and what has already happened to them before this page.

2. Find the want and the obstacle

   What does the character need in this scene, and what is standing in the way. If the want is vague, the scene is vague. Specific wants make specific behavior.

3. Make a choice and commit

   A clear wrong choice beats a safe blank one every time. Casting can redirect a strong choice. They cannot redirect nothing.

4. Rehearse until you can drop it

   This is the Meisner part. You prepare so thoroughly that you can stop managing the scene and simply respond to your reader. The preparation earns the freedom.

5. Control the tape

   Clean background, light on your face, sound that does not fight you, eyeline just off lens, and a reader who gives you something to act against. A great performance on a bad tape is a bad tape.

6. Send it and let it go

   Most auditions do not book, and most of the time it has nothing to do with the acting. Height, look, chemistry, a role already circling someone else. The only part you control is the tape you sent.

Selected work and audition tapes

This section is being built. Audition tapes and scene work will be posted here, including material that never aired, because the tape is the work whether or not it books.

Screen credits·The full story·Back to the record