Ed F. Martin has been a willing slave to performance since the age of seven when he sang in a statewide vocal competition, coming in second place for his riveting rendition of “The Cowboy Mouse.”
After graduating with a BFA in Theatre from the University of Arizona, Ed worked at the Arizona Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center in DC, and Westside Arts Theatre in New York, mentored along the way by such talents as Ed Sherin, Linda Lavin, Domini Blythe from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Sandy Dennis at HB Studios in New York.
Since his move to LA, Ed’s stage credits have included Rob in Twilight of the Golds, Newman Noggs in Nicholas Nickleby, Erik Larsen in Enigma Variations, Paul in the Odyssey’s world premiere of Soundings, and award-winning productions The Nerd; You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; and Clutter. The recipient of the Robby, Dramalogue, Garland, and LA Weekly Awards for various roles, Ed is most proud of the Ensemble Ovation Award he received for his part in the Colony Theatre’s hugely successful run of The Laramie Project, through which—with the help of audience donations—Ed and his cast mates raised over thirty-thousand dollars for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Other credits include an encore run of The Laramie Project at the Laguna Playhouse and Lisa Loomer’s Living Out at Theatreworks in Palo Alto.
Television credits include Life with Roger, Chicago Hope, The Bold and the Beautiful, Family Law, Strong Medicine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the TV-movie Annie. Fluent in Spanish, Ed has appeared in numerous commercials for the American and Hispanic markets. Films include Josh Schiowitz’s Even Stephen and Crimes Against Charlie. He will next star in A Convoluted History of the Natural Biological Need to Be Loved by Somebody as Examined through the Courtship of Bentley and Max. More information is at https://imdb.com/name/nm0552232.
Ever since I was a child: five, six. My family is half American, half Mexican and the Mexican side of the family is very, very dramatic—although none of them are in the arts. My sister and I are the only ones. But we were always singing and acting as kids at Christmas and Easter. I started primarily singing when I was like six or seven. I would say, by seventh grade, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I had just moved from Mexico and I still had a very heavy Spanish accent. In seventh grade I played George Washington, powdered wig and all. I’ve been hooked ever since.
Was your family supportive?
My parents were always very open-minded about it. I acted or sang all through high school. When it came time to go to college, my father said, “You can do whatever you want, but you should think about a grounding job.” We considered maybe business and foreign language to work at the UN or that kind of thing, and a major in Theatre. But as soon as I got into Theatre classes, I started getting cast immediately. Everything else went by the wayside because I had no time: class nine to four, rehearsals four to eleven. There was no time for a double major or anything else.
Because we lived in Mexico so much during my childhood, my parents didn’t really push the Ivy League schools. After I got out of college, I thought they were very important to an actor’s career. Now there’s much more perspective on what works and what doesn’t. We were living in Georgia at the time I was choosing college and I went to Auburn University because that was my grandfather’s alma mater. They had a Theatre department but no graduate department. So, it was a very humble beginning, but I started getting cast right from the first semester there and it never stopped. As far as an academic environment goes, I was always a big fish in a little pond. I was never told: “You should do something else,” by anyone, ever. I’ve always had confidence because of that. There’s lots of things to be insecure about, but I’m not insecure about my craft or my choice of it. That’s a very comforting thing to keep me going at it.
What was your first paid gig?
That very first year of college, I went to one of those American College Theatre Festival things. And my first paying gig, for eighty bucks a week, was The Lost Colony, an outdoor drama, in Manteo, North Carolina. I had a part and I was one of the dancers. It all takes place on the sound in North Carolina about the first colonists ever to be in the United States. It was not as cheesy as they said it would be. It was actually a lot of fun. My first broadcast gig was a sitcom here in LA.
What made you choose Los Angeles?
I got out of college and went straight to New York and lived there for four years and couldn’t get arrested. I tried everything including the Spanish. It’s a much smaller competitive market. But, my father being American, I don’t “read” perhaps as Hispanic as I should. I used to go out to Lynn Kressel for the first Law & Order a lot, but I didn’t book it. I have a beautiful sister who is an actress here in LA who said, “Stop it. You need to come to LA. You’ll start working immediately.” She skipped the whole school route so she was already here. When I got here, I started working immediately. I started with Spanish commercials and that has been solid the entire time. Spanish and English, really. I keep my day job—working in finance for a major concert venue—because it’s very flexible. I get to go on auditions and do whatever I want, and I can’t really rely on commercials and television shows being steady. I would say that my income is eighty percent actor income and twenty percent day job.
What are the differences between Spanish-language and English-language auditions?
The difference is inherent in the copy. I work a lot as a dad: middle-class, middle-aged dad. The quality of a father talking to his fifteen-year-old daughter in English won’t read the same in Spanish. Perhaps it’ll be an eight-year-old boy. It’s more the differences in the cultures and the way the ad agencies approach the material. Your acting is the same because they’re approaching the Hispanic market in the United States. It’s not a different culture that you’re approaching, necessarily. It’s really an American voice and an American product. I mostly go out for Spanish-language commercials.
In TV and film material, the Hispanic material is a lot more stereotypical. Commercials are addressing a sort of pan-Hispanic audience—so that’s many Hispanic backgrounds. The television and film material is very specifically Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican or whatever. Physically, I don’t come across with that edge. Although I was “Eduardo” in New York. Here’s how I became “Ed” Martin. I had a friend of mine go pick up sides for a Bob Newhart project that was being cast at Paramount while I was working. He said, “I’m here to pick up sides for Eduardo Martin.” And they said, “There will be no ‘Eduardo Martin’ reading for this role.” He literally said, “Is there an ‘Ed Martin’ or an ‘Ed F. Martin’ on your list?” They said, “Oh, yes. Here you go,” and handed him the sides. It was that black-and-white. It was as though he was in the wrong office because “it was just not possible” that “Eduardo” would read for this. I immediately changed it—and not with insulted resistance. I just thought, “Well that’s the way it’s going to be. I’ll let the fact that I speak Spanish fluently start to edge that other part out.”
I’ve been on the other side of it. I used to work with a commercial casting director. I would run her sessions. In casting, you have a preconceived idea of what you want the spot to look like and people come in and it’s very obvious, for whatever reasons in your head, that this is going to work or this is not. I don’t know if it’s the physical type or the sound of the voice or the actions themselves. There’s so much that goes into it that it’s very difficult to pinpoint. But working in a casting office was extremely helpful. It took the pressure off me, as an actor. You just do your thing with your take and if they want to see another take on the material, they’re going to ask, and if they don’t, don’t worry about it. You’re not right for it. And they’re not going to sit there and mold and mold and mold your take on it when time is money if you’re already not the right type for it. The perspective working in a casting office gave me was to not put so much pressure on the take that I choose. Choose it. Choose a couple adjustments in case they ask you for adjustments. And then go home.
Do you prefer theatre to film and television work?
Theatre has always been a passion. I think commercials and the day job have only funded that. I’m not big on acting classes, only because I’ve found through schools—going to two different colleges and HB Studios in NY—that teaching is very subjective. You are going to pick up something from that teacher that is different from what I am going to pick up from that teacher. And that’s going to make him a good teacher for you or a bad teacher for me. With all of the expense that you already put in to maintain your career, I find that theatre—and I especially support the free theatre that’s using you for slave labor—is my acting class. And, in my experience, agents and casting directors are seeing you when you’re doing that. And you’re learning as you do it. You can feel yourself burned when something doesn’t work. And you feel when something works too. You’re honing your own instincts. I’m a firm believer in that. Now, that’s not to say: Don’t take classes. If you like class and you get something out of it, take it. But waiver theatre in LA is plentiful and I’ve seen a lot of productions that I’ve found far superior to showcase productions that I’ve participated in in New York. I’ve also seen and been in bad stuff. The exposure is valuable. Work begets work. Some of those freebies have gotten me some great Equity gigs. They’re all different, but there’s value in all of them. And all the TV shows that I have in my credits are all based on somebody seeing me in a play. None of them were because of agent submissions—with the exception of that first sitcom. The Laramie Project at the Colony Theatre got me Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Strong Medicine, and The Bold and the Beautiful when I didn’t have an agent at all. That eight-actor ensemble for The Laramie Project was the best experience I’ve ever had in my whole life. That show was fantastic.
How did you get your first agent?
In New York, I freelanced, because it’s so easy to do. Here in LA, it was nepotism. The very sister that asked me to move here was with William Morris, so I got in with William Morris. They were very patient with me. It took about a year and a half before I even started getting a good callback rate. You start to get the work—especially with commercials—when you have repeated contact, so you’re not just a face. I now have a theatrical agent, a commercial agent, and a voiceover agent. The strongest way to get in, if you don’t have an agent, is to start looking primarily for the commercial agent. A lot of them will take you across-the-board if you sign with them commercially. My commercial agent—Emily Hope at ACME—is a superwoman and I can’t leave her, so when I was shopping for theatrical agents, I kept having to turn down across-the-board offers. I wouldn’t leave my commercial agent—who I’ve now been with for like seven years. She’s a machine! She’s very accessible for that one-on-one. I’ve had agents where you’re very afraid to bother them on the phone or whatever. We’re big fans of the email, but I can contact her day or night and I’ll have an answer. She’s the best.
What is your favorite thing about being an actor?
That I’m able to do it. I have a lot of friends that have left the business. I have friends that have moved out of New York and LA because they just don’t have patience for it anymore. I will confess that there was a passion in my stomach every time I would go into a dark theatre that there is less of now. When I was twenty-five, there was magic. I thought it was all a miracle. It still just completely turns me on though. It turns me on more than anything. I’m just very fortunate. I think you have to stick with it. The thing I like about it the most is that I’ve been able to sustain a career in it at all. I’ve only done two short films—no feature films—and a handful of television shows, maybe seven or eight. That used to be extremely important to me. It was such a goal, especially since I was in LA. Now, those jobs are just icing. I still pursue them, but they’re icing. If I can do theatre all the time and support myself with the commercials, I’d be satisfied for the rest of my life. I would never turn down any television show; I like it, but it’s not as fun as doing a play. I’ll be doing that forever.
What is your least favorite thing about being an actor?
It’s such an easy answer, but it’s the lack of stability. Still, don’t second-guess what’s going to happen. Just go for it. It’s just that now that I’m older, I’m trying to buy a house in this crazy market in LA and I’ve got to have something dependable. Always in the back of my head, I have, “Will I have a check next month?” I’ve been very lucky though.
How do you choose the material you work on?
When it’s original scripts and they ask me to do readings or workshops of scripts, I’ll do all of them. I’ll do anything. But material that I am interested in is kind of in balance with who the director is. I seem to be very motivated, theatrically, by who the directors are that I haven’t worked with, like Jessica Kubzansky. I would pursue working with her and would probably commit to working with her without reading the material if she thought I was right for it because I like mapping out connections with the directors in town that work really hard. You never know how material’s going to grow. I go by the author and the director more than the material, actually.
How do you prepare for a role?
I go by what the author and director have in mind. I read the script. As far as acting homework, I like to do it on my feet. In my opinion, the table work that they do the first two days in theatre always makes me very self-conscious. It’s like, I can sit in my room and write a four-page essay on what I think my character’s about, but I haven’t heard the other voices in the play or anything like that. Once you get up and start blocking and start hearing what the connections are, you automatically crave breaking down a scene into beats because you need to know why something is making sense or not making sense. That’s where the homework comes in. I like to prepare and approach it while we’re already in there, as we start to rehearse. I primarily work inside-out. Costumes, or whether the character has a limp, all that comes later. It starts with the way I approach the character and then we go from there. We braid the character traits into who I am. We braid what the director says into that. I hate it when my friends insist on coming on opening night because that show’s like an adrenaline-filled pep rally. The show’s not ready yet! The show really starts braiding “right” about a week and a half into it. Then things start to change on their own because everybody’s not scared. Everybody is out of their own way. You’re not thinking about it anymore. It’s more natural. The last three performances, a line reading comes out and you go, “Oh, shit! That’s the way I was supposed to do it!” It’s hard to leave a character. I love them all.
Who are your favorite actors?
I love Jude Law. I love Sean Penn. I love Alec Baldwin. What they all have in common is they’re very grounded. Their faces are very grounded when they’re in a close-up but there’s a lot of dramatic energy. That means to me they’re being theatrical. The same thing with Anthony Hopkins: His face looks really still but the eyes are on fire. When it’s time to break, you really feel them simmering. I think all four of them are great at that. I like what’s cooking underneath. It’s heightened language the same way poetry is heightened writing. In acting, you’re conveying something that’s bigger than just you in your living room, therefore there’s got to be something bigger going on inside your head than just being realistic. That’s why I love those guys.
What do you wish someone had told you at the beginning of your career?
You should not second-guess your instinct. You should not say no to any opportunity. You cannot second-guess your career. It takes a path of its own. You are wasting your time if you are going back and forth and really pulling your hair out as to whether you should take a gig that’s out of town or stay in this waiter job because it’s the most flexible thing. My waiter job was the least-flexible job I ever had! The nine-to-five jobs, if they understand you’re an actor, are a lot more flexible. If you’re bartending, you can’t leave the bar for an hour. If you really are serious, put the career first and then let everything that is going to fall out from it fall out. It takes a life of its own and it’s all meant to be.
I learned as an older actor that you just have to go for the big stuff immediately. I’d say: Find LA, find New York. If you’re going to go to college, value that. But you don’t really learn the business ’til you’re in it. They spend those four years of college telling you, “When you’re in the real world, this is what’s going to happen.” Three days in the real world teach you a lot faster than a whole year of school. Without saying that I don’t value the time I went to college—because all those roles, making me feel like a big fish in a little pond, gave me the confidence when I was in the real world—I think I wish I’d been told I could go for the big stuff right away: “You can be on Broadway.” If you think you’re a good actor, go audition for the Broadway plays. Avoid the advice that tells you that you have to start at A and then B and then C. Go for the big stuff and when they say no, find the one that says yes. That’ll beget work.
This interview was conducted on November 10, 2004, and it originally appeared in Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors by Bonnie Gillespie and Blake Robbins, available at Amazon.