Angela Goethals is humbled to be in the company of the many amazing actors whose insights appear in this book.
A native New Yorker, Angela has appeared onstage in Blur (at Manhattan Theatre Club), The Mandrake Root (by Lynn Redgrave at The Long Wharf Theatre), As You Like It (directed by Erica Schmidt at Fringe Festival NYC, Public Theatre New Works Festival), True History and Real Adventure (directed by Michael Mayer at the Vineyard Theatre), Picnic (directed by Scott Ellis at the Roundabout Theatre), Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (directed by Sir Peter Hall at Lincoln Center), The Good Times are Killing Me (directed by Mark Brokaw at Second Stage/Minetta Lane Theatre), and Approaching Zanzibar (by Tina Howe at Second Stage Theatre), among others. She most recently felt the amazing grace of being directed by James L. Brooks in Spanglish, has appeared in such films as Jerry Maguire, Storytelling, Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (directed by Amos Poe), and just finished the creatively inspiring Behind the Mask (directed by Scott Glosserman). Favorite television credits include 24, Six Feet Under, Do Over, The Education of Max Bickford, Phenom, and the great gift that was the truly magical ensemble of The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire (created by David E. Kelley).
Angela lives in LA and feels blessed to have in her life her new house, her cat, and most of all, her fiancé Russ. Thanks to Bonnie and Blake and best wishes to all who love and dream to act every day. More information is at https://imdb.com/name/nm0324462.
I knew once I started doing it, once I’d been around the excitement and the strangeness of it. I was pretty young. I had the great fortune of growing up in New York City and being a part of this very rich theatre culture. My mom worked summers for a small company in the park and my sister and I would go and hang out and watch the women put on their makeup and we would touch all the dresses and look at the wigs. It was kind of magical to see this transformation happen in these people that ten minutes ago were smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and then suddenly they’re like princes and kings. We were just like, “Wow.” That was my first exposure and my first kind of intrigue. Once I started doing it myself, I realized it was a very good fit. It was where I wanted to be.
What was your first paid gig?
I was an understudy in a production called The Widow Claire in New York City. It was at Circle in the Square downtown. I was nine. My godmother, who is an actress out here now, used to live in New York and took me to the audition as one of many activities we did. She thought, “Why don’t we just add this as a possible fun outlet?” I never got to go on stage for that. It was actually a relief because I was so nervous and shy and scared. I loved it, but it was—and sort of still is—a conflict for me. I’m not all that comfortable with it all the time. It sort of freaks me out and can terrify me at times. I was kind of relieved that I never had to actually go up in front of people.
It’s a big-time love/hate relationship. You try and get these roles and then suddenly, if you do, it’s like, “Oh my God. Can I do this? Are they making a huge mistake?” It feels sort of complicated I guess. I talk a lot about it and I have a lot of great friends who are actors as well and friends who are not actors and family and great people in my life who are either very close to what I do or not close to it at all and therefore have a completely different perspective and different way of expressing themselves. Some people are like, “What’s your problem? Just do it!” and some people are like, “Yeah, I totally get what you’re talking about,” and are very soft and gentle. I guess it’s getting different perspectives and talking a lot and sitting with every emotion that comes up and existing in it for a little while that makes it go away.
What made you choose Los Angeles?
I moved out here two and a half years ago. Because I’m from New York City, I had that sort of “LA is evil” kind of bias. LA has been really kind to me and good to me. I’ve been really blessed and I like it so much more here than I thought I would. But I went to college on the East Coast and I grew up there. I have such deep roots there. After I graduated, for years it was kind of this specter of LA and knowing I probably should just go there and see what it’s about, figure it out, and see if I could make a life there that I was comfortable with and happy with. I was sort of afraid but I kind of had this tough girl New York attitude like, “Screw LA. I don’t need it. I’m a New Yorker!” My defenses were definitely way up.
My agents at the time—after years of gently suggesting that pilot season might be something to try—were finally like, “All right, look, you really ought to go out and just do it.” So, the final push for me was a firm nudge from the professionals. My agents were on both coasts and they wanted me to come out. I booked my ticket, I had no job, and I was going to stay on Dan Bess’ couch. He’s really the reason I was able to do it. I credit him for that. I always tell him that, but he’s very humble about it. Seriously, if not for him, I just don’t know. I came out with my suitcases and nothing else except for Daniel every day being like, “It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”
What’s terrifying is that a week after I got here, my agents dropped me. I was like, “But I just got here!” It was a huge, crushing blow. Not only was it a big rejection but it was cutting the only line to anything potentially grounding out here at all for me. But I knew it was coming. They said they were downsizing. I’d been doing a lot of theatre in New York, not making a lot of money. I was very happy but not necessarily marketable in the way they wanted. Writers and Artists was a bigger agency than I think I really fit at the time. One agent there called and said, “I’m really sorry,” and connected with me as a person, but nobody else did, even after I had been with them for three years.
I had managers in New York who were like, “Okay, this has happened and it’s really bad. We’re going to try to do something and set some things up. It’s not the end of the world.” Lots of tearful phone calls and panic. Super Dan, again, was with Abby Bluestone at Innovative and called her. He said, “Let’s see. Maybe she’ll meet with you and if nothing else maybe she’ll talk with you.” She likes to tell this story too. He called and said, “My friend’s in from New York. Will you meet with her?” She said, “Absolutely not. It’s pilot season. Absolutely not. I am frantic. No.” He was like, “Abby, come on. She’s a great friend of mine. She just got dropped by her agent.” Abby said, “No. Dan, I love you, but no.” I’m like wandering around the living room while he’s talking to her and I’m listening to his side, pacing. I don’t know what she’s saying or thinking. Then Dan said that it was me. Thankfully—I don’t know if this was fate or what—but Abby used to be an agent in New York and she had seen a play that I did when I was 12 years old called The Good Times Are Killing Me. And it was her favorite play! So, she was like, “Put her on the phone!” I got on the phone and she said, “I love that play! It’s my favorite play. Oh my God! It’s my favorite.” We’re on the phone and I’m crying but trying to not because she’s saying all of the right things that are just touching me and making me feel like everything is going to be okay. She met with me the next day and signed me the next week. I’m still with her today. Abby rocks.
Do you still do theatre?
It’s definitely not as encouraged here in LA. I actually just had a difficult, tough decision with regard to balancing the possibility of getting a TV gig or a movie gig with the promise of some great play that I love and would grow so much doing. I was offered a part in a play that was going to go up in San Francisco. It was an amazing play. But it starts rehearsing in two weeks and it’s out of town during pilot season. I said no, but it’s not sitting well. Maybe it never will! It’s not the first time that I’ve made a decision like that since I’ve been here. I don’t do as much theatre as I would like but I know that’s not why I came here, really. So, that’s the only thing that I can say that sort of comforts me: I came out here for a very specific reason and I feel like I have to give it its due and really focus on that.
I think the timeline wasn’t so much for me that I was giving this amount of time for this to happen as I moved here kind of with one foot still in New York—my cell phone number is still a New York number—and there’s still several vestiges of my New York self that I’m clinging to. We just gave up our apartment in Brooklyn this summer. That was one of the things that we were holding on to. For me, the timeline was more about not ever really saying that I was living here and being like, “I’m going to be out here for a year and then we’re going to revisit the notion of staying or not and see how we feel,” and it went along like that. The timeline was more about checking in with our inner peace with our surroundings and what we were doing. It was more about what was working right here and now.
Everyone’s timeline is different. Everyone’s story is different. Everyone’s patience level and ability to deal is different. If you have a timeline set against the ultimate timeline of the Universe, it’s not going to necessarily work out. The Universe is going no matter where you are and where you want to be so it’s an internal timeline and checking in with it that makes you strong. I should take that advice more, I think.
What was your first pilot season like?
That first pilot season was very unique in that it was completely different from anything that I’d ever experienced in New York. The volume was so much greater. The constant motion of in and out of waiting rooms and sign-in sheets and the machine of it was something. It is a machine! I would call my mom that first two months I was out here and say that sometimes it seemed hilarious and sometimes it seemed devastating. You know how Barbies have “Eveningwear Barbie?” I felt like that. Today I’m “Slutty Barbie” and now I’m “Girl-Next-Door Barbie” and I would have all these outfits and ideas of these characters that weren’t really fleshed out but that could be in keeping with the machine. Get in the car, get out of the car, lock the door, unlock the door, park. Everything was completely strange. Since my mom had been out here with me for a show I worked on when I was a kid—for about eight months—she kind of understood more than had we, as a family, not had that experience. She was the best person to talk to during that first two months out here. She thought it was funny, so I was able to not think it was freaky and intimidating. It was all about perspective that first time. It’s so easy to lose it.
I was working at a bakery and at a movie theatre and had a weird schedule and was staying on Daniel’s couch and then I moved in with some friends of mine—into their guest room—and I was living out of a suitcase and it was crazy. But it ended up being great because I had that one great chance that ended up getting me onto a pilot. The biggest reward about that was having this whole series of auditions for one thing. Of course, that’s another bizarre thing to me, for my first pilot season, to have twelve auditions for one thing. You go and meet this person and this person then come back to meet this person and this person. As if it weren’t hard enough, you have to sort of think about consistency in a different way and think about not letting yourself get in your own way the further you progress. Each time I went in at a different level of the process, I didn’t freak myself out. I was so proud of myself because I’m very inclined to freak myself out and to sort of question what I do. “What did I do? How did I do it? When I went in that first time I really wanted to do more of this.” You’re in your head completely then. I was so happy that I didn’t do that.
I called Abby after the final read. I was so emotional those two months. I was always crying. I would get in the car, get lost, and cry. I would call Abby and she would compliment me and I would cry. I would talk to my family, I was homesick, and I would cry. It was all kind of brimming up. I called Abby from the parking lot after the test and I was crying, saying, “Abby, I really think that you would’ve been really proud of me because I really did what I wanted to do in that room and I don’t know what’s going to happen but I just want you to know that I really thought that it was okay.” She was like, “Okay. (Thanks, Daniel. Crazy actress. Thanks for giving me the lunatic from New York.)” Anyway, I got it and it was Do Over. It was such a great validation.
I was at an Internet café when I got the call that I got it. I got the call from Abby and Amy at Innovative and Krista LaFrenz, my manager back home. They were all on the phone and I was screaming in this public place. I was so, so happy. And strangely, they were apologetic about it. “It’s a really cute show. It’s not very challenging. So, we’ll understand if you don’t want to do it.” I was like, “I AM doing this! Dude!” I called everybody. I called my then-boyfriend, Russ Soder. (He’s now my fiancé). Called Mom. Called everybody. It was a great moment. It came right at the end of my time here. And I had a great time doing it. I had about a month and a half here of this growing sense of panic that nothing was going to happen and I was wrapping my brain around going back to New York after two months with nothing having happened. It’s not that I would have failed, but there’s so much that can cut into your self-confidence and your stability as a person here. Everything is riding on what happens during pilot season and that’s weird. It’s a loss of perspective.
I went out to dinner with a girlfriend—Alexa Scott Flaherty—after I got back and I was talking about how I was so scared that I was going to come back and nothing was going to have happened. She was like, “What would’ve happened if that had happened?” I said, “Well, I don’t know!” She said, “No, seriously. What would have happened if that had happened?” “I would’ve come back.” “And?” “I would’ve gone back to Brooklyn and given Russ a hug.” She kept on saying, “And? And then what would have happened?” She would do that for me periodically through college too. She did that until I was like, “Holy shit. Nothing would’ve happened and everything would’ve been really okay.” She still keeps me in check and she’s a wonderful actress. We went to Vassar together.
So, I had gone back to New York after we did the pilot and I didn’t hear anything for a while and kind of thought, “Well, it’s getting later and later and we haven’t heard. It’s April, May. We’re probably not getting picked up.” So, I was auditioning again for stuff in New York. I did a great workshop at HB Playwrights. And then at the last possible moment they called: “It got picked up and there’s a party tonight,” and there’s this whirlwind and I’m in New York. So, Russ and I said, “Okay, if there’s ever a time to commit to moving out there, we should do it.” I had a job and Russ had been wanting to come out. He’d never been out here before and he’s this wonderful actor with a great background in theatre and a lot of curiosity and passion about television. So, we did it.
What is it like being in love with a fellow actor?
I think it’s so exciting and also just crazy. It’s so up and down. When it’s up—and really up—it’s great. When it’s down—and we’re both down—it’s pretty scary. What I’ve found is that usually we can kind of seesaw. If one of us is having one of those, “What am I doing? I’m questioning myself in everything,” days, the other is like, “You know you’re amazing. I feel stable enough to give that to you and maybe not leave as much for myself,” and vice-versa. The best-best is when we’re both inspired and working or just really feeling confident and good at what we do.
We met doing a play together but we had little or no interaction in the script. We had the very bizarre thing of making out with other people. Every night I was making out with another kid in the play and meanwhile Russ and I had a crush on each other. Every night I was making out with our friend Donovan Patton. Everyone was a really good sport about it, but it was really bizarre. It still continues to be, when I have to see him do that. I’m not going to lie—it’s weird. I understand, but it’s weird. I think being okay with the jealousy and having a little bit of a sense of humor about it helps. I think the more that it’s talked about and communicated, the easier it is. That goes with everything. It’s a really complicated thing. The connections you make with the people you’re working with are—of necessity—really intense and they happen, usually, very quickly. Suddenly you’re in this small world where these people are your closest people for a flash. That’s what’s expected of you as an actor: to be open to that kind of connection. When you see that, it’s one of the most interesting and powerful things about what we do. Seeing the connections that people can make or not make when they deal with each other—to be able to sit back and watch that happen, which is a luxury that we never really have, is this voyeuristic thing where we’re suddenly invited into this whole dance of people being with each other. It’s a very weird thing! Russ and I still grapple with it. I worked with a wonderful actress who has been working for years. She’s been married for 15 years and she said, “I’ve fallen in love with almost every single one of my co-stars to a degree. Nothing’s ever happened. But for how ever long this created reality lasts, I’ve been in love.”
It’s about perspective. It’s about not letting this job that we do become all-encompassing and become so hugely who we are that we get lost in it and suddenly that’s everything.
What is your favorite thing about being an actor?
I think I’ve answered that question in the past too quickly. I think it’s a shifting answer. It’s different things at different times. Right now, my favorite thing about it is being inspired. From the perspective of an outsider, I just saw my friend in a play at South Coast Rep. The thrill of the talent in my life and how, because you do it, you can see it and appreciate it is wonderful. You know how hard it is. So, knowing the courage that it requires is inspiring too, right now. That’s my favorite thing about it: enjoying the passion of it, the inspiration, the bravery from watching my friends, reading stuff they’ve written, being in shows.
Who are your favorite actors?
Adrien Brody because of his sort of sad, wise eyes and the fact that he played a role that primarily didn’t rely on speaking. It was just silence and things happening in his face. I really responded to that.
Cate Blanchett is just purely, gracefully wonderful. I think that her chameleon thing is quite impressive. I have to confess to having read this somewhere, but I totally agree that you can’t often recognize her in the roles that she plays. You really just don’t know that it’s her. I think that that’s quite amazing.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is so young and so amazing and so just sort of full. If things trickle out, she doesn’t try to stop them. She’s not holding on to anything. The things that are happening in her are just coming out sort of without any kind of filter, necessarily, which makes it really powerful to watch. It’s very honest and truthful.
There are a lot of others. I’m really impressed with actors that are around my age now. I feel like there are some great young actors that are navigating their careers very intelligently. I’m very impressed by that. I definitely aspire to that.
What do you wish someone had told you at the beginning of your career?
I now have this theory about relationships—and not specifically romantic ones but all relationships really—and it applies to acting. You constantly have to choose it. The responsibility of that is really just that it’s not always going to be easy or make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes you don’t feel up to the challenge. Sometimes your ego shrinks to the size of a pea. Sometimes you don’t feel safe enough in your own skin to do what you have to do, go where you have to go, or be who you have to be, as an actor. And that plain sucks. Sometimes you don’t feel inspired and that’s an important aspect of our business to embrace. I find myself constantly saying, “If this is what I choose and I’m mindfully choosing this every day, then I’m going to navigate that.” If I wake up one morning and I don’t choose it, that’s an important moment to listen to. As long as you keep choosing it, everything that comes with that is somehow okay.
This interview was conducted on January 21, 2005, and it originally appeared in Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors by Bonnie Gillespie and Blake Robbins, available at Amazon.