The Journey of a Working Actor

Quiet camera and action. Welcome to Media and Monuments presented by women in film and video in Washington, DC Media and monuments is Conversations featuring Industry pros, speaking on a wide range of topics of interest to media makers. Welcome everyone. I am your host, Tara Jabari, and today I speak with Flora Mendoza.

She is a singer, political advisor, nomad, and also an actress. We will speak with her about her time in the arts, specifically how she got her SAG card and being an extra in projects in New York City. Welcome Flora. So Flora, just to let people know how did we meet? Yeah. Uh, well we met at the beginning of the new year.

We both did a program called Remote Year with between 20 and 30 people. I can't remember exactly how many, but we all were living in a shared complex with many apartments and, uh, shared workspace, and we all got to know each other and hang out in Dakar, in Senegal, in West Africa. So we had a adventurous start to the new.

Yep. And we did lots of adventures together. And then I found out that you are an opera singer, a singer, and, and then you were based in DC like me for many years, and then started moving around. And then more recently, like after we said goodbye, I found out that you were on Saturday Night Live on a regular basis as an extra.

And I'm like, wait. And then learned a little bit more, and I thought, well, this could be really useful for our audience on media and monuments specifically about extra work and the process of getting your SAG card. Should you get an agent, should you get a manager? All that stuff. So thank you for coming on and sharing your experience.

Let's start from the beginning of like, how did you get started? In acting and then getting your SAG card, what made you decide to do that? Yeah, so I got involved in, I guess community theater in middle school, and I actually was really lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Charles Morr, who was kind of an old guard innovator in television.

He worked on all the, the. Cartoons and TV shows that came out in the fifties and sixties. And in his retirement, he actually started a film and television workshop for young kids in the New York metropolitan area. And I got to work on camera really, really early and got some really good training starting in like, I don't know.

12, 13, 14 years old acting workshops. And it was just really fun and I kind of pursued that and music simultaneously, I was taking voice lessons and piano lessons and flute lessons, but I really stuck with singing and took. Acting and singing throughout my life and in college. And then after college, I decided I just wanted to do it full-time for a few years.

I knew that it probably wasn't gonna be a like a full-time forever thing for me, but it also energizes me and drives me to be in the performing arts. And so I promised myself for the first three years, After college that this would be what I would do and I would go full in and all in and just see how far I could go.

And so my first national television experience was actually during the writer strike in 2007, and all of these shows got canceled because there wasn't, people write the series and so reality. TV was just emerging around that time, and they basically started creating all of this programming to kind of fill in the time one of these reality shows that was like essentially a time filler, but in primetime it was called Clash of the Choirs.

It was actually a one month special. It happened during the writer strike. This was when Glee was really, really popular, so everyone was wanting show choirs and people who were like triple threats. So as someone with like singing and dancing and acting experience, I had auditioned for this show and I was literally in college in New Haven, Connecticut.

And I remember seeing this like. Sign and all these people on campus where I was at school were like, oh look, there's some kind of reality show audition here. You just need to know how to like sing and dance. I was like, I can do that. I'm gonna go audition. And so this is true story. In the fall of my senior year, I.

Went to Toads, which is this club in New Haven, Connecticut. It's like a dive bar, but they had the stage, Michael Bolton was hosting these auditions and they were basically having these like celebrity musicians kind of host, uh, a choir or show choir from their home state. So there was Kelly Roland from Destiny's Child who's representing Texas.

Patty LaBelle was representing Pennsylvania, Nicholas, she was representing. Ohio. Mm-hmm. Who's that guy? That country singer that's on every reality. Blake Shelton, he was representing Blake, Oklahoma, and then Michael Bolton was representing Connecticut. Oh. And so, um, I made it through like several rounds of auditions and got selected to be in the show choir.

It was really fun. We basically lived in the Brooklyn Navy yards where they were shooting this for about like three, four weeks. We had rehearsals all the time. It was fun. We went on like TV and competed and people voted. So that was like my first kind of like television experience on this like music reality TV program.

And then, yeah, I moved to New York full-time shortly after graduation, and I was just basically doing anything that I could to pay the bills. I think with your SAG or with any kind of membership card, it's like no one wants to cast you unless you. But then you're like, well, how can I get that in order to get this?

You're kind of in this quagmire because you know, you're like, well, I can't get this because I don't have this like accreditation. But then no one wants to take a shot on you if you don't have the resume to get that accreditation. So I actually found like the extra work an approachable way to do it. So an snl, basically, I got the gig through a family friend and I was just emailing folks and kind of just exploring different ways that I.

Possibly get this, and through a series of getting passed along, I got connected with one of the producers who managed the extra talent there, and I started doing that pretty much right after I moved to New York. So I got to do maybe about a year to two years worth of shows there. Now they call me whenever they needed me.

It wasn't like an every weekend kind of thing. We would work basically. Get called in, I think it was Wednesdays or Thursdays, we'd be there for like half a day or a day. And then Saturday we'd be on set pretty much all day to basically with SAG you have to put in a certain amount of hours sag and after, I have since merged, so I basically actually got my after card and then, then Union merged with SAG a few years later.

So now it's SAG aftra, which is great. You know, their strength in numbers. That's how I was kind of like grandfathered into SAG, so to speak. But that's kind of. I went about getting my union card. I, I basically hit a certain amount of hours and then a union representative came on site and was like, okay, you've hit a certain amount of hours you need to join the union now.

And then being in the union also opened up a bunch of doors for me because I had also continued to take on camera workshops in New York City, and I ended up doing a few showcases in front of different agents. Major and boutique agencies in New York and I got picked up to do a lot of freelance projects through different agents there.

You know, doing voiceover work or commercial work and kind of keeping myself busy in that way. So going through the timeline, you moved to New York, you do start becoming an extra on SNL Saturday Night Live, and then that qualified you to. The SAG card, which turned into SAG aftra. Yeah, almost. So basically, you're allowed to start working in union projects without being a union member.

Mm-hmm. But once you hit a certain member of hours in a union production, you're essentially like, Forced to then join the union. And so I had put in, I can't remember how many episodes of SNL as an extra, and then a union rep was like, okay, you've qualified now to join the union, and basically you kind of have to join the union if you want to continue doing that work.

It's kind of like a, a must join situation or you can like cease to work. Why is it sort of like a mandatory thing to join the union? Yeah, so I think, you know, unions are super important for a lot of reasons. I mean, the, the main goal of a union is to protect its members, and it's supposed to help ensure certain working conditions that, you know, you're taking breaks that you're getting fed.

And then I think the, one of the key points of unions in entertainment is to make sure that you're getting not only paid for your time during. In the case of like film, television, radio, that you're paid for your time there, but that you also continue to receive residuals and royalties for those projects in perpetuity whenever they air or whenever they're broadcast or licensed and that kind of thing.

So that's really kind of the value of the union. There's a lot of non-union projects and a lot of people who are on the hiring side, right? Let's just say like a mm-hmm. Ad agency that would hire an actor or. Voice actor, you can hire non-union talent. But like the goal is, I guess the union is trying to advertise like, Hey, the best talent is in the union and if you wanna get the best talent, you're gonna have to pay union rates and you're gonna have to pay residuals and guarantee certain working conditions.

Now, some projects can't afford to like the union project. Mm-hmm. And they'll say like, Hey, this is a non-union project for non-union actors. But if it is a union gig, You can hire non-union talent, but that talent will, once certain hours are put into that project, they'll have to join the union. Kind of like a must join.

So essentially, the union is meant to look after its members, whether they're actors or other. Different aspects of the talent agency who are in the union, in the face of like the production. Cuz like sometimes production hours can be like really grueling and producers have their, they're always thinking of labor in terms of like labor costs, right?

And so the union is really meant to be there to kind of stick up for you with all the other decisions that are made by the producers. Got it. Okay. And you wanted to continue to work on S N L and other projects, so you just said, yes, I will join the union. Yeah, so I decided to join the union. Basically, once you're in the club, so to speak, it opens the door for other auditions that you can do so you can like more easily audition and get other work that's union and then you, you're qualifying essentially.

Better work because the pay rates for union members are higher. Every single major serious film or TV series is working with union actors and has union contracts. So it just, it allows you to do better work. Now, I wouldn't say like make the, like the early stage career, um, it necessarily makes sense to join a union.

I probably could have waited a little bit longer. To get mine. But the main reason for that is because many indie projects or many kind of look local things, where if you still need to sharpen up, build your repertoire and build your portfolio, you still kind of wanna actually take some of those entry level gigs, so to speak, to like really build up your portfolio.

And a lot of those gigs aren't union. They're not, uh, they're like too low budget to be a union project. And so I think early stage, it often makes sense to not join right away if you're still trying to like build certain roles and really kind of. Build your resume a little bit because basically once you're union, you can't do non-union projects.

Um, but a non-union person can still do union projects, basically, like the union folks can't do non-union. The non-union folks can do union stuff, but eventually they'll have to join the union. So I guess my advice would be to not join one prematurely if you're not in. Stage of your career so that you can just build your repertoire and like your resume and then when you feel like, Hey, I've got enough good like credits under my belt and I've gotten enough training under my belt, then you might be in the position of joining a union.

Because agencies tend to only work with union talent, so Right. The people who are gonna fight to give you work and like really advocate for you or gonna only want to work with union talent. Got it. You mentioned like you decided not to go with manager. But then you did get an agent. What are their jobs?

What's the difference and why did you choose what you chose? A lot of folks have both, but when you think about the Kardashians, for example, Chris Jenner, she's like famously a momager, right? And the managers have a little bit more of a like, Allegedly like a holistic role in developing talent. Their like role is to develop talent.

Now, a lot of times it's, people find this being like a, a family member. If there isn't like a conflict of interest or it can be a professional as well, but you do hear a lot of cases of like celebrities having their mom be their manager, right? The. Lines are a little blurry with the manager. They can kind of negotiate their rate directly with their client, whereas like agencies and the role of an agent, the only role of an agent is to book you and to get you work.

Usually you're coming to them already kind of fully baked. You have. The skills you need, you're developed and they're just trying to get you work. They have a very clear kind of commission structure, which is like either 10 to 15%, whereas management is a little bit more gray area. It's a little more nebulous.

Now, I had. A manager for the classical music work that I was doing in, in that space. Mm-hmm. And I was also approached for management with someone to do my legit work in the legit work in, I guess like theater speak is kind of like your theater work and that kind of stuff. But I didn't kind of like the terms of their contract.

It felt a little weird and I went back and forth with it. I had a lawyer who was a friend take a look at it, and it just never really felt right to me to sign on with a manager. It just wasn't really clear to me like how they were gonna develop me. And a lot of times, like some of the big agencies, this happens in the, the record, the recording industry, they'll like sign all these people, but they put them on the back burner and they're not really developing them.

They're kind of acquiring nice pretty things, but not fully cultivating them and making sure that they can take their artistry. To the next level and get the opportunities they need to. I was freelancing with a few different agencies and I actually found that worked really well for me. You know, some folks signed an exclusive contract with an agent, but for the work that I was doing primarily like voiceover, commercial television work, that it, it made sense for me to, to freelance.

And so I was getting sent on a lot of auditions and I figured I would only sign. If an agent, you know in particular, I started getting like a really robust amount of work through a specific agent, then it would make sense for me to sign. But since I was kind of just getting sent out for a few things here and there with a few different agents, it made sense for me to just.

Continue to work as a freelancer. I dropped my musical management from the classical side about a year into it. Cause I just didn't see the value that they were bringing to the table for me. So managers, I never really kind of, even though I had one that I signed with, one that I almost signed with, it didn't really seem to make sense for me.

Got it. You also lived in other parts of the planet and the US were, did you ever work on screen? As an actor in other places other than New York City. I have to say most of my career was in New York City. I did do a lot of video game work and voiceover work when I moved to California, so I was based in the Bay Area and I did some work there.

Most of my international work, I did a lot of musical. Stuff. So I was singing, touring in different countries. So I've done that in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Italy. So most of my work internationally was in the music, uh, side of things. I wanted to ask if you can share any fun. Behind the scenes, like experiences and stuff while being an extra on the projects.

You know, the most famous one that we've talked about is Saturday Night Live. Anything funny you can share? Um, I'm trying to think. I remember one of the episodes that I was on, I think it was Tracy Morgan's first episode as a host. He was really excited to come back because he had been a longtime cast member of snl.

And um, he came in with like this huge entourage. I mean, he's from the Bronx, which is like not too far away from Midtown Manhattan. And I just remember seeing all these like dudes with him in the hallways and I was like, why are you guys here? They're like, oh yeah. Ooh, Tracy. And a lot of them were like childhood friends, but he really did bring an entourage that happened, I think it was like a Thursday was when I first saw that crew of people, they came for rehearsal and then I think it was the.

Day or something like that. And he was all over the news because his aquarium in his apartment in New York City caught fire and the sprinkler system went off in the entire building. And so on Saturday, I remember seeing him and I was like, I have does a aquarium catch fire? Explain this to me. And he's like, this is a touchy subject.

Oh my. Um, but it was really, Because he was like dealing with all of that drama. When he did his first episode, I got to meet a few different musical guests, which I was always really excited about. I got to meet Kelly Clarkson and she talked to me for a, a quite a long time. She was just super nice and really sincere.

Continues to be a vocalist that I really respect and admire anything. She has an amazing way of connecting with people musically. I'm trying to think of some other folks. I think Blake Lively. She was on one of the episodes that I was on and actually, I don't know if you remember Jenny Slate, but she dropped the FBO on a skit that I was on.

I think Taylor Swift was in a, a digital short that I was on. Her mom was on set, which was really funny because I think she was pretty young at the time. I was like 21 and she's like three years younger than me, so she must have been like 18 or 17 at the time. And her mom was on set supervising everything, making sure everything was okay, like very protective Mama bear.

Is there anything else that we didn't really touch on that you wanna share and recommend for people who are interested in getting their card and. Even being more in extra work, were you also trying to get a foot in the door to get more prominent roles or was it always just an interest in pay the bills?

I think for me it was, I don't know. I think it was more of just, I saw as an opportunity to get better gigs and. A useful thing to have, knowing that you would eventually have to join at some point or another. What I'd recommend for like any person starting off is take a few workshops on fulfillment and television.

Take a few workshops. In theater, you can create an account called Actors Access. That's a really great way to find out about what local auditions are happening in your media market. And so that can do all free. I think your priority should be trying to get work. The agent and the management stuff will come.

But you should try to focus on just showing up and finding out like, okay, there's some events that are happening in my media market and extras often have to bring their own stuff. In the case, Nel, we didn't. There was also different types of extras. That do under five. So basically, if you have a direct interaction with a cast member, if you're not just in the background or filling up space, those are actually compensated a little bit more.

So there's different kinds of extra work available to folks, but I think the main thing is to just try to get work and get your feet wet. What's nice about the extra work is you never know who you're gonna meet on set. You can have conversations with people. I think there's a lot of dead time. You're honestly not doing like a ton of work the whole time, but you're kind of hanging out all time.

So it's a great way to connect with other actors, learn the people who are working on set. I found that was like super valuable for me when I was doing some of the mocap video game work that I just kind of built relationships with some of the folks. Were working at the studio, and because they liked me, because they thought I was professional and easy to work with, they were more likely to kind of reach out to that agent and be like, is she available?

Again? We really liked working with her, so that's another way to kind of build things. But I would say like the training, making sure your craft is solid, sign up for those classes, take those trainings, and then you have to start showing up on your own. Find out where the auditions are, and even if it's a union.

You can still audition for it, even if you're not a union talent. If they like you enough, they'll cast you. And then when the time comes where you have to join the union because you've hit a few hours, you can cross that bridge when you get there and join. And then, Once you are represented by the union, agents and managers will take you more seriously and then you can submit to different agencies.

You can get your resume and headshot together and send it to a few agents or do what I did, which is do the showcases, which is like a better way to just get in front of them. It's they either like you or they don't, and you can kind of just move more a little bit more quickly. So I, I would say that's kind of like the overall.

Flora, do you want to share? If people wanna get in touch with you, is there any way that you would like them to reach out? Yeah, I mean, you can just email me, so that's the best way to do that. My emails, flora Dund is gmail.com. I have a website, it has contact portal too, which is just smiley dot.

blinds.com. Yeah, so that's probably the the easies space. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and this was really interesting and informational. I mean, my dream is always to be an extra on Law and Order S V U and SN L, so I learned a lot, but yeah. That's so funny. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks Tara.

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