Laura Ramsey Interview

Actress Laura Ramsey poses for Twenty Seven and a Half Photography

Being an actress is a most unusual job. Chris Neumer speaks to up-and-coming actress Laura Ramsey to get the inside scoop into her rise to fame and path in the future. Together, the two discuss spring break, the casting couch and losing out on roles because you’re too good looking.

by Chris Neumer

Extra Information

CHRIS NEUMER: All you good-looking actresses who are all about the same age, it’s like this weird tangled web. I’ll talk to Meagan [Good], and she’ll tell me, “Oh yeah, you have to talk to this girl.” And this girl ends up being best friends with that girl, and then she says, “Oh my God, I have this friend from New York, you have to take a look at this.” I don’t want to say it’s incestuous, but it is incestuous… in the most positive meaning of the word.

LAURA RAMSEY: (Laughs) Right.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, so that’s what it is, just sort of talking about the experiences. The only reason that topic came up was because I googled your name, and one of the top thirty things was something from The Real Cancun, and you were quoted as saying, “I’m really naughty. And the people back home, it doesn’t mean I have sex with everyone, but I’m naughty!” They had a couple of different things like that, and I thought, “Okay, that’s interesting.”

LAURA RAMSEY: It’s very interesting, I was also 18 years old, so the thing is, I’m from such a small town of 800 people, where it was so boring and there was nothing to do.  I seriously think I was trying to find ways to be creative. So I got into naughty things, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking, going to parties, experimenting with different things.

CHRIS NEUMER: Basically you were being 18.

LAURA RAMSEY: Exactly.

CHRIS NEUMER: Good Lord, I can only imagine what my life would be like if I was on film at 18.

LAURA RAMSEY: Exactly. So that part of my life, it was a very crazy experience.  I got the opportunity to go to Cancun for free, everything was paid for. But you don’t realize, there’s cameras in every single part, everywhere. So you don’t even realize, the things that they tell you that are going to be on camera, but you don’t realize every place there’s going to be a camera. I told my family to go and see that movie.

CHRIS NEUMER: Now, I haven’t seen that movie, but is it something like I’m going to see and be like, “Oh my God I can’t believe she did that!”

LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah. I mean, we’re all 18, there was free alcohol, and we were in Cancun. We did what any teenager would do if they’re 18 and in Cancun on spring break. That’s basically what the movie is about, and it gave me the opportunity to go to a premiere here, and it gave me the opportunity to meet people out here, not as business but as a friend. After everything was said and done and I went home, I had to deal with my grandparents, my parents and family being disappointed in the way that I acted in the movie and its reality.

CHRIS NEUMER: How do you act in the movie?

LAURA RAMSEY: I act like any other 18 year old in Cancun.

CHRIS NEUMER: Is there any description you can put to it?

LAURA RAMSEY: Not really, no.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. I’ll just have to take artistic license after seeing it?

LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah. So it was fine, whatever. I went home –

CHRIS NEUMER: Let me ask you this, is it almost like you were a reality TV star who is breaking it into the business?

LAURA RAMSEY: No. The thing is, that movie did nothing. It was a total flop, thank God. People don’t really know that I’m in it, or if they do they just ignore it. Because it’s not acting, it’s reality. I like to talk about the things that I’ve done that I’ve actually acted in. The craft, and being artistic, and making up my own characters.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’m realizing now that when you got back and your parents saw the movie, you should have been like, “I was acting, Mom.”

LAURA RAMSEY: Right.

CHRIS NEUMER: “Dad, seriously, I was just acting with that guy!”

LAURA RAMSEY: (Laughs) Yeah.

CHRIS NEUMER: Hindsight.

LAURA RAMSEY: But that gave me the opportunity two weeks later, I got a call from a friend asking me if I wanted to move out to California.  I’d wanted to do that my whole life: move to California and be an actress.

CHRIS NEUMER: Was this a female friend?

LAURA RAMSEY: No, a male. He lived in Miami and he was actually one of the cast members, we were friends. He came from Miami to pick me up and I was going to go and I had no money at all.  I had my best friend, an art student who totally understood my passion. She was my best friend in high school, went to college for art. She understood my passion for acting and wrote me her last check in her checkbook for $100. So I went to California with $100 and a friend who I lost along the way. It was crazy when I first moved out here.

CHRIS NEUMER: Where did you live when you first got out here?

LAURA RAMSEY: When I first got out here, I stayed with a friend of his, his girlfriend who he was seeing. So I stayed on their floor, because there was another person living there too. So I stayed on their floor, and then eventually I got a job.

CHRIS NEUMER: It wasn’t in North Hollywood was it?

LAURA RAMSEY: No, it was right here in West Hollywood.

CHRIS NEUMER: There was one guy who was like, “I’ve suffered. I lived in North Hollywood.” That about says it all. So, for starters, I was looking at some of the bios that people sent me on you, and they’re all sort of the same, but it seems as though, you see the stereotypical film version of the actress. You have a small town girl, who comes out to LA, gets a job waitressing and then makes it big.  It was then that I realized,”This is as damn close to that story as you can get.”

LAURA RAMSEY: I know. It’s so weird when I really think about it. I must’ve had some angels or something guiding me, because the shit that I went through when I got here, not having a place to live, and girls are so mean here. I’ve never met girls like that before. Just random people that are desperate and they’re sad, and it’s a very depressing place. I actually had my first anxiety attack after I got here. I had no idea what that was. It’s very depressing.

CHRIS NEUMER: Are the LA girls getting bitchier now that you’re meeting with a moderate amount of success, or are things becoming easier for you. You said you came out here and girls were mean.

LAURA RAMSEY: I’m not saying girls in general, girls who I was living with were very rude to me, and treated me like I’ve never been treated before. Girls in general here, I don’t know because I don’t have that many girlfriends here. My girlfriends are super cool.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. I thought you were describing a sort of people as a whole. So you come out here, and not that The Real Cancun is anything, but at least you have that under your belt. You come out here, you want to be an actress. Did you know anything about the industry?

LAURA RAMSEY: Nothing. It’s like starting from ground zero, because that had nothing to do with acting jobs. If anything, it would hurt me, it would be reality TV.

CHRIS NEUMER: I mean, there’s simply a process thing with acting, did you have any knowledge of that process?

LAURA RAMSEY: No. You know what’s funny? When my manager Lena asked me, I was waiting on her table, and I literally had no idea, none. She asked me if I had head shots, or a resume, or representation. And I didn’t know what any of those were, honestly. What are head shots? I didn’t know that you needed a person to represent you.

CHRIS NEUMER: This story would make a lot of people angry, let me tell you that. This is a good story.  Thomas Jefferson had a famous quote, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I’ve certainly found this with the magazine, and it helps if you have talent. But if you have the talent and you work hard, and good looks. Have you found out as you’ve gone along and put in the time that things have been getting significantly easier?

LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah, you know what I think, too? Coming from Wisconsin, I’ve been working since I was twelve years old. Babysitting and then all the way up to waitressing, just how I was raised, I’m a hard worker. So when you come out here and you audition and work, that’s really your job, is going out on all these auditions and working. But sometimes I feel like I should be doing something else, like I’m not working hard enough. I don’t know, it’s weird, but I feel like I need to go volunteer, or teach, help kids or something, because I feel like something is missing.

CHRIS NEUMER: So how important is auditioning to what you’re doing currently?

LAURA RAMSEY: It’s really important, because that gets you the job. If you don’t audition, you don’t get a movie.

CHRIS NEUMER: There’s no Laura Ramsey-type yet that people are looking for?

LAURA RAMSEY: What do you mean?

CHRIS NEUMER: Well, Jeremy Piven had a great story, where he had gone on two calls where they’re looking for a Jeremy Piven-type and they didn’t take him.  He just ended up sitting there confused. So that’s what I mean when I ask if there’s a Laura Ramsey-type yet.

LAURA RAMSEY: I don’t know what they say behind closed doors, when I leave the room. Supposedly I’m up-and-coming and everything, and the industry knows about me. But no one on the outside knows about me.

CHRIS NEUMER: I came all the way from Chicago!  You want to revise that statement?

LAURA RAMSEY: (laughs)

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, I know what you’re saying though.

LAURA RAMSEY: Well, like in the Midwest, they don’t know my name yet. Like with Jeremy, he has a name, so they can say, “Oh, we’re looking for his type.” But for me it’s like, “Just bring in the blond girl,” or “Young, nice, teenager.” And they bring in thousands of girls and you audition.

CHRIS NEUMER: Now, auditioning could be it, but so could the craft, acting, or schmoozing with casting directors. Which parts do you find to be the most important for you?

LAURA RAMSEY: I feel like just doing a good job is the most important part to me. Like studying, and learning my lines, and going in whether I get the job or not. Going in and doing a good job. Being prepared, and the best feeling is when you know you did a good job, it’s like a high, you feel really good. Whether they give you the job or not, you still did a good job, you were prepared, you didn’t go out the night before, you don’t not know your lines, and you go in there and do a good job, you know? That’s the most important to me, and that I don’t embarrass myself.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s amazing how many people don’t get that step right. I’m not saying you go to the extreme where you’re reading your lines and pacing around in the lobby–those people just drive me nuts–I sincerely hope you aren’t you one of those people.

LAURA RAMSEY: (laughs) No, I’m not.  You know what’s so funny? I think about that too. I’ll be sitting there, in my head going over the lines and you’ll see other people reading their lines out loud to the wall. I just don’t want to be that person.

CHRIS NEUMER: You think that’s bad, think about the person who’s not in the waiting room, but he’s walking around outside, yelling, “What! He said, Wait, no, smoother…”Every once in a while I stumble onto one of these casting things because I know a couple of casting people and they’ll let me sit in, and you know, it’s such a trip.

LAURA RAMSEY: Isn’t it?

CHRIS NEUMER: Oh my God! The ones I like, I’ll be sitting behind the table, and they’ll be like, “Okay, Jamie over here is going to be your reading partner.” And Jamie does it, and it’s like, “Hi, how are you?” In the most monotone voice. And the other guy says, “Hold on, I need to — and he starts saying things in different tones.

LAURA RAMSEY: Are you serious?

CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve seen people grab their skin, and I’m thinking, “I wouldn’t hire this guy now.”

LAURA RAMSEY: That’s so funny! Well, whatever works for them. Everyone has their own way, the things that they do to calm them down. I wish they had a pill to make your nerves relax. You’re putting yourself out there, wearing yourself on the sleeve of your arm. You’re sobbing and balling, and they’re watching you.

CHRIS NEUMER: Do they ever cut you off? Like you’ll be crying and then they say, “Thank you, next!” And you’re like, “I’m not even done crying.”

LAURA RAMSEY: Fortunately, I’ve never had that happen to me, but I’ve heard stories. But I’ve had some experiences where I’ve felt unimportant for sure. But I’ve never had that yet. Thank God, because that would be horrible! That would be so horrible!

CHRIS NEUMER: Now one thing when you read this, if you read this –

LAURA RAMSEY: I’m going to for sure read that.

CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. Well, I’m going to get your email, and then I’m going to email you in three weeks and I’m going to hold you to that.

LAURA RAMSEY: Okay.

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