Ana

I believe I've just watched the movie of my life: Revolutionary Road. I could try to write down why exactly, but I simply loved every single detail of each scene. I can't stop thinking about it.  

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I'm afraid I'm kinda falling in love with someone I'm totally positive I could never have a relationship with. And I was thinking maybe that's why I "chose" to fall in love with this guy, when all the other hot guys who came here were/are interested in me. Man... I'm so messed up. Better than emotionally empty, I suppose. But I hate to be this anxious... Don't I?

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I've been dancing like crazy! Portuguese traditional, latin, Brazilian, ballroom, disco and dances that I don't even know what they're called. It feels so good! (if I forget about my sprained ankles)

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We went horseback riding today!!!

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I'm making great friends here and meeting amazing people everyday.

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I'm working! I'm getting paid for learning and building four completely different characters- that's happiness.

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I'm starting to get some good stuff together for my Artist Visa. This year, there's already been an article talking about me in an Azorean newspaper and another one in a famous Portuguese magazine.

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I'm starting to miss LA so much it hurts.

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I hate Valentine's Day.

At rehearsals in Póvoa de Lanhoso we've been working on a play about Teresa, the first Portuguese Queen. It's going really well for me because I'm seeing my character coming alive without even being given a character. We're just letting the characters happen in us, keeping the interesting stuff and adding the new things we find out everyday. But unfortunately I'm now missing three rehearsals because I had to come to Lisbon to shoot my first Portuguese short since I came back from LA. 

I like my character in this short-film (her name's also Teresa), and I always have fun acting, but I honestly wish the script was better and that some of the directors knew how to get what they really want. But I'm cool, I'm used to working with young people that are still learning. And I get to finally testify the huge differences between the American and the Portuguese Film Schools. In LA (at least at the New York Film Academy), the filmmaking students start working outside school with the camera in the first week of class and each one of them gets to direct their own projects. Here, they study for a year or longer without dealing with actors, locations, team work etc. And at the end of the Program, they all write a short, but only one is selected and everybody has to work together in the same film, so each one gets to direct just one or two scenes of their final project. 

Ah... I miss Hollywood!

... can be seriously f#c7|ed up!

... can totally mess you up!

I've always complained too much. I used to be one of those annoying kids who would say they hadn't studied enough and that the test had gone terribly, but then I would get the highest grade. I still talk like everything around me is a horror movie, but the truth is I'm a very positive person. 

Most of the time I complain because I'm truly angry and need to let the negative energies out, but I have to admit sometimes I do it because I wanna control what people think about me. For instance, even when I know something I did was great, I'd rather talk about the mistakes I made in the meanwhile. There are people who can't deal with other people's success, so I guess I don't want those who haven't had the chance to work on that to say I'm arrogant or whatever they make up.

Besides putting myself down most of the times, I usually want people to believe I really mean everything I say, so if I said I'm gonna be an Oscar-winning actress, it should've been out of the question that I was OK about leaving LA. So I posted about how sad I was because my Visa was expiring soon and I'd have to leave. Anyway, the Oscar is still my goal, but if you want me to be brutally honest, I was dying to come back to Portugal. First, I needed to be with my family so so bad; second, I knew I wouldn't move on emotionally if I didn't talk to my ex face to face; and finally, I do wanna give my country a chance. I wanna see if it's also possible to do what I love here, I wanna built a career here. I wanna have that place I can always come back to, where the people I love the most are and where there will be parts for me when things don't go well in the U.S. Now it's time to work on that. While I wait for my new Visa, I wanna make my country want me. 

The bad news is, there isn't much happening acting wise in Portugal. I got here four months ago and this is the picture:

- I got four replies to the ten packages I sent the day I left LA, which led to signing with two great agencies and an image test for the biggest TV production company 

- I e-mailed 80 film directors, got 8 answers and some of them were really nice, but there are hundreds of directors and producers I still wanna e-mail

- I had three auditions and booked all of them: a music video I refused to do, a short-film I will shoot this weekend and the two professional theatre shows I've been working on during this Artist in Residence Program (I'm a working actress until April! Yay!)

- I'm waiting for the next soap operas' auditions (I heard there will be some in May)

- I shot three commercials some companies are trying to sell, here is one of them: