I met Stephanie Kurtzuba twice. The first time was fleeting, in an audition room where she was trying to get a part in a movie I had written and was producing. The part, as written, was for an older, dowdy, heavyset woman, to play a crabby legal assistant. She was, it should be noted, young, sleek, and whatever the opposite of dowdy is, though she camouflaged herself expertly, and crushed it in the room. <\/p>\n
A few weeks later, I met her a second time. She showed up dressed to kill, showing off who she was, and after we got over our collective shock, she and I started getting to know each other and thus began a close friendship that has lasted more than two decades and is still going strong.<\/p>\n
Kurtzuba is an actor\u2019s actor. A chameleon who can disappear into a role and create a fully fleshed-out character that might not even have more than a line or two descriptions in a script. Martin Scorsese likes her so much that after giving Kurtzuba her big break in The Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, he brought her back to play Robert De Niro\u2019s wife in The Irishman<\/em>. She\u2019s shown up in Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/em>, The Good Wife<\/em>, Tulsa King<\/em> and Blue Bloods<\/em>, which are just a few of a couple dozen other shows. <\/p>\n Constantly in demand, her latest role is in the romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moon<\/em>, opposite Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson. She checked in from her home in New York.<\/p>\n Um \u2026 Will you believe me if I tell you I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question?<\/p>\n People have asked where I went to school, like that. <\/p>\n I started dancing at five. I remember my first dance recital was at this beautiful roadhouse in Omaha, where all the Broadway tours would come through. But of course, it sat idle most of the time. My dance teacher would have her recitals at this gorgeous theater, probably 2500 seats, very ornate, with a gorgeous marble lobby and a huge staircase. It was my favorite building in Omaha. As soon as I was backstage there, I think that’s what kind of lit me up. That was the beginning of my performing. <\/p>\n As far as moving into the current version of my career as an actor, I think I figured that out in high school. Because I had someone say to me, “Oh, you should audition for Juilliard,” and I was thinking to myself, “Am I that good of a dancer?” Because that was my focus. She said, “No, I mean for acting.” I think she planted the seed, then I decided I would audition for NYU, even though I’d never been to New York before.<\/p>\n My father brought me out to the city to audition for Tisch. Knowing nothing about New York, he had called a travel agent. Remember those? He said, “We need to be near NYU and you know, Greenwich Village,” I’m sure he called it Green-witch Village. The travel agent put us up at the Milford Plaza, which is Eighth Avenue and 44th Street, the heart of Times Square, which was still in the middle of everything, triple-X theaters, live girls, everything. To say that it was culture shock is an understatement.<\/p>\n You know what happened? A lot of regional theater. I found that for me, the path of least resistance tended to be in musicals. <\/p>\n Once I graduated from NYU, I thought I was going to be doing Shakespeare festivals and stuff like that. What ended up happening was I ended up booking a lot of musicals, because I could sing and I could dance. There’s just so much more employment, so many theaters are doing them because that’s what gets butts in the seats. <\/p>\n I was in Wisconsin, I was in Texas, I was in South Carolina, I was all over the place, building my resume. Because I was always focused on theater, there was not a lot of film and television.<\/p>\n Ah-OOH-ga! Ah-OOH-ga! (Laughs) I remember the role was described that way. Cantankerous secretary or whatever. I tried to put myself together that way and play it that way, then I came to sit dressed like me. You guys were like, “Wait, who is this?”<\/p>\n That’s what I was betting on. (Laughs)<\/p>\n I booked Annie<\/em> before Wolf<\/em> came out. It was a one-two punch. <\/p>\n In Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, besides the success and pedigree of being a Scorsese film, my part was small, but it was ultimately very impactful because it was one of the only scenes in which I think Leo’s character got to show his humanity. Then Leo spoke about me in a couple of interviews. Then Annie<\/em> came out, and people said, “Wait, she’s really funny. Who is this?” I think it was the both of them in combination.<\/p>\n I feel it’s been an honor. It has been my life’s work to illuminate whatever I do, whoever I play, and whatever character I am entrusted with, to give them a 360-degree life. <\/p>\n That whole, \u201cthere are no small parts, only small actors\u201d thing? I don’t know if I necessarily believe that, but I do believe that whatever you are entrusted with by a creative team, you have to flesh out that person and bring an entire life to them. Maybe they’re not 100% developed on the page. Well, then that gets to be my job. Sure, there are characters that people don’t think about as much as your central characters. <\/p>\n That’s the nature of the beast, right? It’s my job to show up on the day with a fully realized human being and act and respond within the parameters of who that person is, and then hope that it informs the other actors\u2019 performances, and informs the world in which the piece takes place. That’s my responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n I don’t think I can underscore how important that is in my career. We shot on Wolf<\/em> for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was there a lot, but a lot of it was Leo up front doing his thing, and then a mass of traders and people behind him. <\/p>\n I showed up every day and treated it as if this was my character and her life. I would improvise stuff and Marty would see it, or the camera would catch it, and he’d be like, \u201cHey, let’s put the camera on her! Let’s catch this.\u201d Not because I was trying to get attention, but because I was living a life and he liked it. My line in the movie where I\u2019m getting arrested and say, \u201cThis is Chanel!\u201d That was improvised. People still quote that back to me.<\/p>\n It’s funny. We’re all trained as consumers of entertainment to understand things in a certain way, and that we\u2019re supposed to focus on certain characters. The truth of the matter is, anything that you do in terms of performance, you are responsible for the full life of that character, no matter if the lens is trained on you or not. At least, that\u2019s how I understand acting. <\/p>\n I was trained in theater, and if you are on the stage, you’re part of the story. Whether or not you’re the one in the foreground, speaking the speech, you have to be full of life. No matter what, that’s your job.<\/p>\n Thinking about joining Casting Networks? Get 2 weeks free when you sign up today<\/a>!<\/b><\/p>\n You may also like:<\/b><\/p>\n I met Stephanie Kurtzuba twice. The first time was fleeting, in an audition room where she was trying to get a part in a movie I had written and was producing. The part, as written, was for an older, dowdy, heavyset woman, to play a crabby legal assistant. She was, it should be noted, young, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":135181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cn_email_teaser":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[727,720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice-filmmakers-creators","category-your-career"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow did you get into acting?<\/h3>\n
Really? Nobody’s ever asked you how you got into acting?<\/h3>\n
I’m curious about the culture shock of going from Omaha. A sheltered 18-year-old girl leaving Omaha for the big city in the 1990s.<\/h3>\n
I met you in 2003. What happened in the time between you getting out of school and showing up on that set, which I think was your first or second movie?<\/h3>\n
Then you came in to audition for us for a role that we had written as a heavy, older, dowdy woman, which is what you gave us in the room, then you show up on the first day and it was Va-va-voom! Like the cartoon where the wolf sees something he likes his eyes pop out and his tongue unrolls to the floor.<\/h3>\n
Once you were there, we couldn’t afford to fire you.<\/h3>\n
Then you kept working a ton, but it was another ten years until your big break, which was Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, then Annie<\/em> came right after, right?<\/h3>\n
I recently talked to Dale Dickey<\/a>, and you two have something in common in that both your careers took off after you turned 40, which is rare for women.<\/h3>\n
Seems like it’s a good general rule of thumb for any actor to follow, especially somebody who is not necessarily in a lead role.<\/h3>\n
Your career took off because you were present and working your ass off even when you were in the background.<\/h3>\n
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