“But you’re trained, aren’t you? I’ve worked with trainedanduntrained actors. I can tell the difference.”
“I went to Carnegie Mellon,” Dana said with a shrug.
Samara nearly choked on her food and quickly reached for her water. She coughed and took a long gulp.
“You okay?” Dana checked as she shifted over in the small booth seat along the back of the trailer and smacked lightly at Samara’s back.
“I’m okay,” she said as the coughing ceased. “That’s one of the top drama schools in the country.”
“I know,” Dana replied. “They only have an undergrad program, so I was going to go to NYU for my grad work.”
“Did you not get in?”
“I got in, but Pittsburgh was a lot more welcoming to me than New York. I went there for a weekend over the summer, and I… just didn’t feel like it was for me. I wanted to keep going with school, but it was expensive, and my parents had already helped with my undergrad. I didn’t get scholarships or anything, so I decided to pass and come home to save up some money before moving out to LA.”
“Wow,” Samara said, feeling a little stunned.
“What?”
“You went to Carnegieandgot into NYU. Both of those schools are top-notch for drama.”
“I know. I didn’t get into Juilliard–”
“I didn’t, either,” Samara revealed, interrupting her.
“What?” Dana asked.
“Well, technically, I’m not exactlytrained,” she shared. “I’ve been working since I was eight years old, so you could say I had on-the-job training, but I finished high school at fifteen, since I had tutors on set and got done early, and at sixteen, I was thinking about taking a break to go to school. I applied to Juilliard, but they were unimpressed with my body of work.”
“Oh,” Dana said.
“I guess TV shows as a kid and a few Hollywood movies weren’t enough for them to believe that I was worth their time. Did they tell you whyyoudidn’t get in?”
“Um…” Dana began with hesitation. “So, I did,technically.”
“You just said you didn’t.”
“Yeah, at first. You interrupted me when I was trying to say that I didn’t get inat first. I was waitlisted.”
“Oh,” Samara said, feeling a little like a fool now, so she looked down at her food and began pushing it around with her fork.
“I got the call after I’d already decided to come home that I’d gotten in.”
“So, you turned Juilliard down?” Samara asked, nodding repeatedly for some reason.
“My mom got sick,” Dana replied.
Samara looked up, concerned.
“She’s fine now, but after I decided not to stay in New York and came home, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. They caught it pretty early, thankfully, but she was in treatment for a while, and my sister and I both wanted to be here for her to help her and my dad. Besides, Juilliard is still in New York, and I’m just not sure I could live there full-time or even during the program. Most MFAs are at least three years; many are four.”
Samara took a sip of her water and replied, “I think you made the right decision. Family first, right?”
“Yeah,” Dana agreed. “So, where did you end up going?”
“Nowhere. I got a part and just decided to keep doing what I was doing. I can’t bethatbad if they keep casting me in movies, right?”
“Probably not,” Dana said.
