We recently connected with Cazzey Cereghino and have shared our conversation below.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Oh wow. This could be a long answer, and I don’t want to bore readers with a long, loquacious answer, as I have a tendency to do. My name is Cazzey Louis Cereghino. Although I got into the entertainment industry originally as a singer-songwriter and musician, I began veering into writing in other forms, mostly writing fiction novels. While working as an intern for my literary agent at an across-the-board talent agency, I began getting asked if I’d be interested in being submitted on acting jobs. I hesitated, feeling that I wasn’t an actor or model, and didn’t want to pose as something that I wasn’t. But after some time, I agreed, and I am sure thankful that I did. I still write novels and play music for enjoyment, but make my living as an actor. And I really couldn’t love it more. Essentially, I get paid to do dress-up and make-believe. Can’t beat it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A big lesson which I have had to unlearn is that making a living really ought not be focused nearly as much on the financial aspect of things, as the joy of it all. The years will go by very swiftly, and you can burn a lot of them doing things you loathe just to try and get more financial rewards. In the past 25 years in this industry I’ve seen a lot of friends and peers come and go. Most left because they weren’t getting their, “Big Breaks,” nearly as swiftly as they’d hoped. Like me, they’d moved to Hollywood, with this idea in mind that they were going to get famous, seen, known and wealthy. But after a certain amount of years, were still struggling to make ends meet. In some cases they were even relatively known and steadily working, but the industry hadn’t paid them back the way that they thought it should when they moved out here. One by one, they all left, citing different reasons as to why the industry stinks and they want to get out of it. But mostly it was due to the fact that they weren’t financially hitting it as big as they had dreamed they would. And I myself have been there many times. Wondering when I was going to be able to make enough financially from this crazy business to be able to buy a house in LA, have steady income, get married, have kids, and pull this all off while still getting paid to do dress-up and make-believe in Hollywood. Problem was, I was not seeing just how blessed I was just to get to do the work I was, no matter what the pay was. It was a consistent thing for me to go home and be asked by former classmates or childhood friends how they too could have my life, and get into the business the way I have. But I’d look at their lives, with all the aforementioned things I wanted to get, the wife, kids, nice house, steady life, ect, and think, “You want my life? Really? I never know when I am going to book again, or have any income again. I have none of the things that you have.” I had to realize that I had something none of them had, and that was a really dreamy job that I actually loved. When I get to work, its just about the greatest thing ever. Maybe it’d be different if I was doing it every day, but for most actors, when we wake up and know we have/get to go to set and work, its not looked at the way a person usually views going to work. My friend Gonz, who is also an actor, once said to me that between “Action,” and “Cut,” there is no better job in the world. And that is what people are trying to get to. But what most don’t see is all the time, sacrifice, effort and heartache that often comes in the time outside of action and cut. You really can’t just pick this job as a career. Its more about making a life choice–and one which will ultimately affect every other aspect of your life.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Yes. I think that people who aren’t in this industry get the idea that entertainers are flakes–that we’re non-committal. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, will we bail on plans if something better comes along? Absolutely. But if you put yourself in our shoes, you likely would too.

For instance, when people ask if I’ll RSVP for their event, or be at their party, or be in their wedding, or even officiate it, I’ve grown accustomed to responding that I’d be happy to, but that they ought to book a back-up just in case. I don’t want to be a flake, but if I book an acting job, you never know how that job ends up. It could be a National Commercial which airs for the next couple of years. Or it could be a tv role, which may end up becoming a recurring or regular character on the show, ultimately being the closest thing you’ve had to a “Big Break.” And lets say you’ve been auditioning over and over for months, running across town, memorizing scenes and lines for casting directors, using your own fuel money and time, and not booking anything, and now you’re wondering if you’ll be able to pay bills in the upcoming months because you haven’t had a booking in a while. And then, the weekend of the said wedding you committed to, you get a booking, which films on the same day as the wedding, or in another state, and you can’t do both. And that project may end up being your only income for the next six or seven months. Its gonna’ make it very difficult to still commit to your friend or family member to be in their wedding. I mean, if any person who is not in the industry were told by their boss, “Hey, half of your years income is going to be paid to you if you can be here on one random select day of the year. But if you’re not here that day, you get none of that income.” Well, then you’re going to do everything you can to be there on that day of the year. And if you don’t know when that day will be, well then you have the dillema all of us actors are always in. And why we’re non-committal and flakey. Its different when you’re Tom Cruise or Dwayne Johnson or some A-Lister who can say, “Well, my sister is getting married that day, so can we reschedule?” They’ll make accommodations to fit you. But when you’re a regular lower level working actor, if you say you can’t be there, they usually just say, “Ok. No biggie.” And it is no biggie to them. You’re expendable. Hate to look at it that way, but they probably had 6,000 other actors submitted on that role. They probably actually looked seriously at 600 of them, and they probably brought a 100 of them in to read. And they all looked very similar to you. And many had just as good of readings as you. So if you can’t be there to film the role? No big deal, there is some other actor readily willing to take the role for you.

Most actors learn this right away when they move to town. They were the biggest deal in whatever town they grew up in. They were the handsomest, most talented, most popular, ect. Then they moved to Hollywood, and they walked into their first auditions and looked around the room and all the most handsome, talented and popular people from every other town in America, or across the globe were also all in the room with them. I’m now a big, burly hairy guy, and I read against a lot of other similar looking actors. But when I started out, I was very lean, cut up, chiseled, close cropped hair and looking good. But when I’d walk into a casting, there were dozens and dozens of guys who looked just like me. It was deflating. When I got into the music business it was the same way. I reckoned that I was going to blow the socks off people when they heard my stuff. I got some gigs playing in front of or behind other artists, who also were also thinking the same thing. Pretty soon I realized that I was surrounded by so many really good musicians, singers and songwriters. And most of them couldnt pay their bills without other jobs that had nothing to do with entertaining. Its humbling when you realize how totally expendable you are in this industry unless you’ve achieved that very top of the upper crust.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: funcle_caz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CazzeyLCereghino/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CazzeyLCereghino
• Other: Imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3040172/

  Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cazzey_Louis_Cereghino