Hidden Talent

You can't judge a book by its cover

Pen and ink on metal work table, by Jason Gunn

(Note: Here’s another from the Wayback Machine that didn’t make the cut, but rings as true now as it did back in 2009)


After so many years toiling in the trenches of Hollywood, I’m no longer surprised at the wealth of talent among the ranks below-the-line. It often remains hidden, but sometimes that talent is fueled by sufficient drive to propel a grip, juicer, or prop person up through the glass ceiling into the rarefied air — and much fatter paychecks — above-the-line. I know of at least one juicer who rose from the low-budget, non-union jungle where so many of us started to make the quantum leap of becoming a writer/director. On my first show at CBS Radford, much of our initial season was guided by a director who’d begun his Hollywood journey behind the wheel as a teamster. The industry is peppered with examples of below-the-line frogs who morphed into above-the-line princes, with or without the kiss of a princess.*

There are a few below-the-liners talented enough to write professionally while working in the trenches with the rest of us. While day-playing on the HBO drama Tell Me You Love Me, I got to talking with one of the first-unit juicers who, it turned out, had written and published several books, including Time after Time, the novel from which the movie was later made.

All that and a good juicer too: Karl Alexander was one talented guy.

I’ll bet the show runners of Tell Me You Love Me had no idea that the graying set lighting technician on their hard-working crew (all of whom were slaving for HBO’s cheap ass cable-rate wages) had more real-world experience crafting stories than they did.

As the exception-that-proves-the-rule: I know one successful screenwriter who grew weary of the boom-and-bust insanity of constantly trying to land another writing gig, and came below decks to become a juicer. She enjoyed the physicality, camaraderie, and relative stability of working below-the-line, and had a great attitude. I was always happy to be on a crew with her.

A few of my fellow below-the-liners had been touring musicians who finally opted for a more stable, family-friendly life working below-the-line — and the irony in that tells you all you need to know about the hard realities of being a touring musician. The Best Boy on several of my shows at Radford was a fantastic guitarist who ran a blues/jazz band that played gigs every weekend. While getting a flu shot at the studio clinic last year, I was chatting with the nurse about another juicer/guitarist when the doctor piped up to confess that he used to play guitar in one of Edgar Winter’s bands.

Talent is found wherever you look, often in the last place you’d expect.

During a stint working on the lamp dock a couple of years back, I noticed the small painting above (done with colored pens used to label equipment) on a scarred metal work bench, an image drawn by a lamp dock life who’d been in a few South Bay punk and reggae bands during his younger years. That tiny painting might not be a Rembrandt or Picasso, but consider the context: in the midst of a ten-hour day working on concrete floors loading and unloading heavy lighting equipment — essentially a warehouse job — coming upon this little jewel was like being beamed from some dark sweaty prison to a sun-splashed tropical beach. The joy of such discovery takes only a moment, but is enough to carry you a long way away … and that’s a good thing.

Such is the transcendent power of art.

My guess is that talented people are all around us, in every walk of life. I run into them in Hollywood because that’s where I work, but I have to believe they’re everywhere — cops, nurses, postal workers, cabbies, bank tellers (hell, maybe even lawyers) — people who toil for their daily bread in jobs that offer little opportunity to display their inner selves.

Discovering that one of our fellow workbots has more to offer the world than the ability to lug hundred-pound rolls of cable helps restore one’s faith in humanity: these hidden reserves of talent reveal the capacity in all of us to be pleasantly surprised, which means there’s hope — and right now, we need all the hope we can get.


* The high-octane career of a least one very successful modern mogul might never have happened without the help of a very powerful woman. Although making the leap from hair dresser to big-time producer is no simple task, it’s easier when a major Hollywood powerhouse kicks the door open for you.