Speaker 1: How you doing.
Speaker 2: This is Freddy Rodriguez and I'm about the rama. Welcome
Speaker 2: to those amigos today. Uh three amigos and Gus, yes,
Speaker 2: the little it's you know, introduced our incredible guest today.
Speaker 3: Well let's see here we have esteemed comedian, former NFL cheerleader,
Speaker 3: former Mad TV cash member, Angela Johnson.
Speaker 1: And come on, come on, I mean we have such
Speaker 1: a big audience here. They told that to cheers much.
Speaker 4: It's Angela Johnson Rays. Now I added my married name
Speaker 4: name in the game.
Speaker 1: We all appreciate that at.
Speaker 5: Those Yeah, yeah, yeah, I took about ten years of
Speaker 5: us being married before I was like, all right, well
Speaker 5: you had it for ten looks like you're sitting around so.
Speaker 2: So, you know, here at the Amigos, we we love
Speaker 2: asking the way back questions, you know, like where you're from,
Speaker 2: you know where you're parents from.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm from the Bay Area, from the Bay Jose,
Speaker 5: San Jose. My dad grew up in LA And funny story,
Speaker 5: when I first moved to LA to pursue my dreams
Speaker 5: to be an actress, if I would get lost going
Speaker 5: to auditions. And again this is before you know GPS
Speaker 5: on your phone. This was the Thomas Guide and everything
Speaker 5: like that, and I would print out my map from
Speaker 5: the computer at home, my my Yahoo maps, and I
Speaker 5: would print it out, and if I ever got lost,
Speaker 5: I would call my dad and tell him what street
Speaker 5: I was on, and then he would navigate me to
Speaker 5: get to my.
Speaker 6: Audition from memory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, from memory wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So he'd be up in San Jose and he
Speaker 5: would navigate me to my audition in LA. But my
Speaker 5: dad grew up here in LA and then moved to
Speaker 5: the Bay. My mom's from the Bay from San Jose.
Speaker 6: Ethnically, where are your parents from?
Speaker 5: I'm Mexican and Native Americans, fourth generation my dad, yeah,
Speaker 5: and they both have Native blood as well, mainly my
Speaker 5: grandpa my dad's side, but both my parents do have
Speaker 5: Native blood.
Speaker 4: But I'm fourth generation.
Speaker 5: My my grandma was born here, I think in Utah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, what tribe?
Speaker 5: If I may ask, Tigua Tigua, and I don't know
Speaker 5: too much about it.
Speaker 4: I wish I knew more.
Speaker 5: I wish, And then I would ask my grandpa. Anytime
Speaker 5: any of us asked our grandpa to give us like
Speaker 5: answers on things, it was always different answers. He's since passed,
Speaker 5: but we all got different answers. How we got the
Speaker 5: last name Johnson, We all have different answers. He told
Speaker 5: us something about a Swedish ship came here one day,
Speaker 5: hooked up with a Native American person something whatever. He
Speaker 5: told us so many different stories of our origin. And
Speaker 5: then I I just I wish.
Speaker 4: I knew more.
Speaker 5: Like our family reunion when I was young, was on
Speaker 5: a reservation in Phoenix, in Arizona when I was a
Speaker 5: little kid.
Speaker 4: But I don't know anything about it. I wish I did.
Speaker 6: And both of your parents are from the same tribe.
Speaker 5: No, I don't know what my mom's bloodline is.
Speaker 4: Connected to. I only know from my dad's side.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And so you lived up in the Bay And when
Speaker 2: did you decide to come down to Los Angeles two.
Speaker 5: Thousand and three, I moved here. I was a cheerleader
Speaker 5: for the Oakland Raiders.
Speaker 6: Before you came here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was twenty And the
Speaker 5: only reason why I auditioned to be a cheerleader for
Speaker 5: the Oakland Raiders is because I wanted to be an actress.
Speaker 5: And I was using that as my sign if I
Speaker 5: should pursue the entertainment industry, you know, And at first,
Speaker 5: the entertainment industry was just a fantasy, a very far
Speaker 5: fetched fantasy. That's that's not for people like me. That's
Speaker 5: not for people where I grew up.
Speaker 4: That's for them. You know, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: know how to I don't even know how to do it.
Speaker 5: And then I remember when the Internet first came out
Speaker 5: and everybody had AOL dial up. I remember logging onto
Speaker 5: AOL dial up and trying to search how do you
Speaker 5: get an agent? And being in San Jose and I
Speaker 5: was like trying to search how do you start being
Speaker 5: an actor?
Speaker 4: And I found like an acting school in like a
Speaker 4: modeling agent.
Speaker 5: They're like, okay, send your resume, and like what resume?
Speaker 5: Like I don't have yeah, And then so I remember
Speaker 5: I just made up a resume.
Speaker 2: What you put in the resume because I have, you know,
Speaker 2: I put the most unnecessary stuff and the special skills?
Speaker 1: How did you fill your out?
Speaker 5: So my first resume, before I knew anything, I don't
Speaker 5: even know. There was not even a proper like structure
Speaker 5: to it. It was just like what school I went to,
Speaker 5: and then any kind of acting. I wasn't even an
Speaker 5: acting class in school, but I just like made up
Speaker 5: stuff and put on there. I was like, I can
Speaker 5: do this accent, I can dance. I can't.
Speaker 6: And you did absolutely no acting before.
Speaker 1: You did no, zero, nothing. You were just like I
Speaker 1: want to be an actress, like high nothing like that.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 4: Wow you I didn't do any of it.
Speaker 5: And I remember I printed it was like in purple
Speaker 5: ink and I printed. I was like, let me at
Speaker 5: least make it pretty.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I just mailed it out to a bunch
Speaker 5: of people, and of course I didn't hear back from anybody.
Speaker 5: And so I ended up having a friend, a friend
Speaker 5: of a friend at the time, who had moved to
Speaker 5: LA from San Jose, and she was in a Ross commercial.
Speaker 4: And she was in an instinct.
Speaker 1: She was doing she was doing it.
Speaker 5: She was I knew somebody famous was this is just
Speaker 5: like how how do I do.
Speaker 1: Holding up the rasher? Tell you I'm such a similar
Speaker 1: moment to yeah.
Speaker 5: And I remember I get on the phone with her
Speaker 5: one day and I was like, hey, I want to
Speaker 5: do what you're doing, Like how do I do that?
Speaker 5: And she was like, okay, Well, if you ever moved
Speaker 5: to LA, I'll help you. I'll help show you the
Speaker 5: ropes I'll help you get started.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And I was like, hmm, all right. Now
Speaker 4: it's like I have an actual past.
Speaker 1: You have some kind yet.
Speaker 5: Exactly exactly if I want to, Like I've been trying
Speaker 5: but I don't know what I'm even looking for. But
Speaker 5: now I have a girl saying well, if you come
Speaker 5: out here, i'll help you. So right around that same time,
Speaker 5: I ran into an old friend who I grew up
Speaker 5: doing pop Warner cheerleading with since I was eight years
Speaker 5: old and hadn't seen her in years, and we were
Speaker 5: at some club.
Speaker 4: We were dancing.
Speaker 5: We're like, oh, yeah, how you been, and she's like, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm a raiderete now and I'm like, oh, good for you.
Speaker 4: And she's like, we have tryouts next week. You should come.
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh no, that's not really my jam.
Speaker 5: And of course, because i'm like tomboy, you know, and
Speaker 5: when you think of like raderets, you think of like
Speaker 5: sexy pretty And I'm like I'm good, thanks, and she
Speaker 5: was like, no, you should come try out, and I
Speaker 5: started to think about it.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Go try out interesting challenge, like yeah.
Speaker 4: Not even because I want to be a cheerleader for
Speaker 4: the Oakland Raiders. But I'm going to use it as
Speaker 4: my sign.
Speaker 5: If I make the squad, right, then I'll go to
Speaker 5: LA and my friend says she would teach me how
Speaker 5: to get started, so then I'll do it. But if
Speaker 5: I don't make the squad, I'm gonna use it as
Speaker 5: my sign that the entertainm ministry is not for me,
Speaker 5: and I'll just figure something else out.
Speaker 1: So Unfortunately, if you hadn't made it.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you what was.
Speaker 1: The tryout?
Speaker 4: Like what did so it was in Oakland.
Speaker 5: There was seven hundred girls at this open call audition
Speaker 5: the first.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone wanted to be a Raider girl dude
Speaker 1: like in the day dooms.
Speaker 5: There was like it was kind of costumes like cats,
Speaker 5: like just why anybody came. Everybody came, whether you were
Speaker 5: mentally healthy or not. Everybody came to this audition.
Speaker 1: They're hanging out sandwiches. Everyone shows up.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, there is over seven hundred girls there.
Speaker 5: In the first round of the audition is really just
Speaker 5: you stand on a stage with like twenty other girls
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 4: They break it down in groups.
Speaker 5: And then one at a time, you like step forward
Speaker 5: and you answer a question and then you step back
Speaker 5: and that's it.
Speaker 4: That's the whole first call.
Speaker 5: And then so I made it past that round, I'm like, oh, okay, great,
Speaker 5: this is good. And the next round was you had
Speaker 5: to learn a routine and perform the routine in front
Speaker 5: of judges. Now it's down to like maybe three hundred girls.
Speaker 1: Now, did you have any dancing experience, You're like.
Speaker 4: No other than the Pop Warner cheerleading.
Speaker 1: I had a rhythm, yeah, yeah, yeah, h I could dance,
Speaker 1: You could probably remember choreography and.
Speaker 5: Synchron exactly, but I didn't know technical dance moves like purowets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that that job was giving to
Speaker 1: that one person that can do it. Everybody else can
Speaker 1: do the dance.
Speaker 5: So the dance routines that were doing in Pop Warner
Speaker 5: are very like stiff I'm a cheerleader, you know, and
Speaker 5: this was more like.
Speaker 4: Purohet turn, flip your hair, yeah yeah yeah, And I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, it's a performance, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And it was a whole different vibe from what I
Speaker 4: grew up doing.
Speaker 2: Did you feel like you were getting character too, Like,
Speaker 2: were you like somehow embodying something else?
Speaker 4: I definitely it was one of those like till you
Speaker 4: make it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, think about the contrast, right, You're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: kind of like a tom girl that you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know about that.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden something else wakes up and.
Speaker 4: You're like, yeah, y, yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 5: I knew I had rhythm. I couldn't really do the
Speaker 5: move that she was teaching.
Speaker 4: We were in this like.
Speaker 5: Banquet hall of a hotel and there's a stage and
Speaker 5: the choreographer is on stage with her Britney spears microphone
Speaker 5: and she's like teaching us all the choreography and there's
Speaker 5: like three hundred us trying to learn it. And they're
Speaker 5: doing you know, like turn and slip your hair and
Speaker 5: all the thing. And I'm just like, well, I have attitude,
Speaker 5: and I have like you know, I know how to
Speaker 5: sell it, and I have personality.
Speaker 4: I know how to work it. So I was just
Speaker 4: working it and I was like, what what are I cam?
Speaker 1: As long as I enjoyed, I can flip my hair.
Speaker 5: I probably won't spot where everybody else is spotting, but
Speaker 5: you're gonna see.
Speaker 4: My hair, right.
Speaker 1: But that's what they're looking for.
Speaker 2: They're looking for that comfortability, that confidence. Yeah, the steps
Speaker 2: are the steps you can learn that. Nobody has enough
Speaker 2: time to learn them anyways. You know they're just looking for, like,
Speaker 2: who is just enjoying it, who's having.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a little bit of that.
Speaker 5: But also you gotta be in line with everybody when
Speaker 5: you're doing the performance up front.
Speaker 4: You gotta know what you're doing.
Speaker 5: So there was definitely that moment of the choreographer coming
Speaker 5: off of stage, weaving her way through the three hundred
Speaker 5: girls and coming up to me and saying, clearly, you
Speaker 5: have no.
Speaker 6: Dance experience, no way.
Speaker 4: That was.
Speaker 5: You have something that cannot be taught ah, And I.
Speaker 4: Knew exactly what she meant.
Speaker 5: She was right, I didn't have dance experience, and she
Speaker 5: was also right, I do have something in me, and
Speaker 5: I know it. I didn't have acting experience from high school.
Speaker 5: I didn't have it, but I knew I had something something.
Speaker 5: I knew I had something to offer. I knew there
Speaker 5: was something within me, and I ended up making the squad.
Speaker 5: And I remember when they called my number. I think
Speaker 5: I was like number eighty nine or something. I forget,
Speaker 5: but I remember they called my number that I had.
Speaker 4: Made the squad, and my first thought was not. Oh
Speaker 4: my gosh, I'm a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders like
Speaker 4: I made it. My first thought was.
Speaker 5: I'm going to be an actress.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this is I'm going to be an actress.
Speaker 4: This was my sign and so I did it for
Speaker 4: one year. We went to the super Bowl that year,
Speaker 4: Like what a year?
Speaker 1: Topict.
Speaker 5: So the very next weekend after the Super Bowl, I
Speaker 5: came home, I packed up my room and I moved
Speaker 5: to LA and my little station wagon, my hand me
Speaker 5: down station wagon that my mom gave me. I packed
Speaker 5: up my room, drove til the very next weekend after
Speaker 5: the super Bowl, and my friend kept her word and
Speaker 5: she helped me get started as an extra.
Speaker 4: I was an extra on Friends. That was my first
Speaker 4: Still to this day, it's my favorite job.
Speaker 1: I wait, wait, so.
Speaker 6: Talk so so walk us through that experience.
Speaker 4: Oh a magical experience, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So my friend she kept her word and she's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is what I want you to do. I want
Speaker 5: you to go sign up at Central Casting and to
Speaker 5: go be an extra.
Speaker 4: When you get there, there's gonna be a line of
Speaker 4: people out the door waiting to sign up to be
Speaker 4: an extra.
Speaker 5: I don't want you to wait in line. I want
Speaker 5: you to go to Ralph's. I want you to get
Speaker 5: a tray of cookies, and I want you to bring
Speaker 5: a raider at headshot. Go to the front window. Ask
Speaker 5: for this man. When he comes out, give him the cookies.
Speaker 4: Give me your headshot. Just say I'm new to town
Speaker 4: and I want to be an extra. That's it, That's
Speaker 4: all you need to do.
Speaker 5: And immediately I start thinking like, oh my god, people
Speaker 5: have told me about casting couches.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to be that girl one of these
Speaker 4: sleazy cookies. You try to have me drop off? What
Speaker 4: you sprinkles mean? Is that code for something?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: Thank you?
Speaker 1: But you know what, I gotta tell you something.
Speaker 2: The cookies was a real thing, dude, because all of
Speaker 2: us brought cookies to casting directors, to aid jans to
Speaker 2: like you know, yeah, like I that was the thing.
Speaker 2: I remember I brought cookies to something yeah before.
Speaker 4: So she knew what she was doing.
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 4: Show up, I do the thing. There's a line of
Speaker 4: people out the door. I'm like, oh my god, she
Speaker 4: was right. I'm walking past people with my sleazy cookies
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 5: They all know, like they're all judging me right now
Speaker 5: as I walk past them with my cookies and I
Speaker 5: go inside as you know is you know, say I'm here.
Speaker 5: I don't remember his name and say I'm here, and
Speaker 5: she's like, yeah, hold, I'll help you right out. This
Speaker 5: guy comes walking out from the back offices and he's
Speaker 5: wearing a Raiders hat no and I'm like, oh, hello,
Speaker 5: this is for you, and it's my Raider at headshot
Speaker 5: and we're fresh off the super Bowl like a month ago.
Speaker 4: We're just at the super Bowl.
Speaker 5: Immediately he's like, Raider's no way, Oh my gosh. Then
Speaker 5: we start talking about you know, Raiders stuff, and it's like,
Speaker 5: oh my gosh. So you're here, all right, great, give
Speaker 5: me your number, blah blah. Next week he calls me.
Speaker 5: He's like, hey, I have a spot on Friends. If
Speaker 5: you want to go on Friends. I'm like, oh, my
Speaker 5: favorite show in the woid world.
Speaker 6: Yeah I do.
Speaker 4: I do want to be on Friends, Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: And so I go to be an extra on Friends.
Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: It's my first time being on the set of an
Speaker 5: actual TV show. I don't know anything, Like my friends
Speaker 5: trying to prepare me like, okay, this is.
Speaker 2: What you do, you know, like live audience, the whole thing,
Speaker 2: some monsters, like.
Speaker 5: What it's going to be like just know your place,
Speaker 5: don't be trying to talk to everybody. Just you know,
Speaker 5: She's give me all the tips that she could give
Speaker 5: me to prepare me. And then at the time, I
Speaker 5: don't know if you guys.
Speaker 4: Remember this, the hustle to try to get your SAG card.
Speaker 5: But it was like being an extra. You get your
Speaker 5: non union voucher or your union voucher, and you had
Speaker 5: to get like three union vouchers in order to join SAG,
Speaker 5: right right right, But so all these non union extras
Speaker 5: were waiting for a union extra to not show up
Speaker 5: so that they could get their their vouchers. So that's
Speaker 5: how it worked. So if this union SAG extra didn't
Speaker 5: show up, now we have an extra SAG voucher for somebody,
Speaker 5: and so people would get it, and whoever the ad
Speaker 5: like the most you get the SAG voucher. Once you
Speaker 5: got three of them, then you got to join the union.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, this guy put me in the computer system as
Speaker 5: a SAG extra, So immediately I just started getting SAG
Speaker 5: vouchers right away because he just hooked me up. And
Speaker 5: then I had all these extras trying to learn from me,
Speaker 5: going how do you get to sag?
Speaker 4: How do you get a SAG voucher?
Speaker 5: I don't know how yeah, and I'm like this guy
Speaker 5: laugh and I was like cookies, just like, yeah, bring sprinkles.
Speaker 5: So I ended up getting my SAG vouchers like immediately
Speaker 5: within my first three times of being an extra, and
Speaker 5: ended up making friends with the A D. Because I
Speaker 5: was funny and I would make him laugh and he
Speaker 5: was funny and I would laugh at his jokes, and
Speaker 5: so we would just goof off with each other and
Speaker 5: he'd be like, I'm gonna bring.
Speaker 4: Friends yea, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: And so he'd bring me back and then the next da,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna bring you back again. Next you know, I
Speaker 5: was an extra for season nine and ten.
Speaker 4: I'm in the background.
Speaker 1: You can see me like making a living.
Speaker 4: By the way, Oh this is my living. This is
Speaker 4: my groceries.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you yeah craft service, Yeah, that was
Speaker 5: my groceries.
Speaker 4: You better believe I came with my satchel a bunch
Speaker 4: of Wriday there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also that at that time friends had I mean yeah,
Speaker 2: they were like the biggest show.
Speaker 4: Oh, the best service.
Speaker 2: So the craft service was like you know, probably corn
Speaker 2: dogs and lobsters. Oh one night did they recorded Friday Nightdays?
Speaker 4: It was magic.
Speaker 6: Did you ever cut a reel of like all of
Speaker 6: your like walk away?
Speaker 4: I should do that.
Speaker 6: You should.
Speaker 5: I've been tagged, Like people will be watching an episode
Speaker 5: and they find you, they find me, and they'll tag
Speaker 5: me and on Instagram and I'd be like, oh, that's me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5: There was one moment though, cutting ahead a little bit,
Speaker 5: but there was one moment. I had booked a movie
Speaker 5: and it was filming in Alabama, and I'm in the
Speaker 5: gym at the hotel and I'm running on the treadmill
Speaker 5: at the gym, and I'm watching Friends on the TV
Speaker 5: screen and I see myself walk by in the background,
Speaker 5: and it.
Speaker 4: Was this magical movement yes, of like this is where
Speaker 4: I started.
Speaker 5: Yes, And here I am like on location yea to
Speaker 5: like film something where I get to say words yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, like so magical.
Speaker 4: Such a cool, cool experience.
Speaker 2: To reflect on that, right to just say, like, one
Speaker 2: day you said I just need a sign, and.
Speaker 1: God gives you the most miraculous sign.
Speaker 2: You know, I made you in the squad so you
Speaker 2: can go do your destiny, like you made it to
Speaker 2: the Raiders in the super Bowl, just so you can
Speaker 2: go your destiny. And then you see yourself and reflecting that.
Speaker 2: It's really really, really special. Going back to the set
Speaker 2: of friends. You were there for so long, like how
Speaker 2: was the cast?
Speaker 1: Was the cast credible? Yeah, there will be really cool people.
Speaker 5: I definitely had moments where I got to speak to
Speaker 5: all of them and be very like friendly with them.
Speaker 5: And and I think it's really because I knew my place.
Speaker 4: Like I wasn't trying to be friends, be friends or anything.
Speaker 1: You were there so often that at some point you're.
Speaker 5: Gonna have And then they would say hi to me
Speaker 5: because they recognized me, and you know, they would just
Speaker 5: have their moment, Hey, good to see you, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, she's happy to see And they even
Speaker 5: invited me to their Christmas party, their holiday party.
Speaker 4: I was like one of the only extras there.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: And did you did you have you bumped into any
Speaker 2: of them? Since you no interesting, I haven't interesting.
Speaker 3: Should you should invite them to one of your shows?
Speaker 3: I should, and and then and then that should be
Speaker 3: a part of your show.
Speaker 4: Done that for that.
Speaker 1: To make it happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're entire castcast too well. I do have
Speaker 4: a funny story of one time I was a stalker.
Speaker 1: Yeahed to break.
Speaker 4: News one time I was a stalker.
Speaker 5: I do have a comedy special called Technically Not Stalking,
Speaker 5: but that's that was about my husband. But Marta Kaufman,
Speaker 5: one of the creators of Friends. One time I was
Speaker 5: driving in Beverly Hills and I saw her getting out
Speaker 5: of her car and walking into a seven eleven and
Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, that's Marta Kaufman.
Speaker 4: I have to go say something to her. I could
Speaker 4: be like on her next show or something. This is
Speaker 4: like that young desperate actor.
Speaker 1: I'm like, bliss, oh.
Speaker 4: And like Martin, it's a sign. Marta Kaufman is right there.
Speaker 5: I pull into seven eleven and I follow her in
Speaker 5: to the seven eleven and I'm just like going up
Speaker 5: and down the aisle, just like fully stalking her.
Speaker 4: Then she gets to the register. I don't know what
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say, and I'm like, excuse me, are you
Speaker 4: Marta Coffin. She's like yes, and I'm like, it's so
Speaker 4: nice to meet you. And then I walked out.
Speaker 6: You didn't you didn't tell her your name or that
Speaker 6: was just a weirdo.
Speaker 4: I didn't buy anything, I didn't bite.
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 2: Nobody teaches us well say like no, I justn't what
Speaker 2: to say in that situation, you know, like what do
Speaker 2: you say?
Speaker 4: It was such a weirdo.
Speaker 3: So now you have to invite Marda Coffin in your
Speaker 3: podcast if you're watching.
Speaker 2: When from from from those moments of you know, being
Speaker 2: an extra? Why were your first auditions that eventually were like,
Speaker 2: oh I'm going for a part, like how how long?
Speaker 1: And then which ones were those?
Speaker 5: I crashed every audition I could. I my first bookings
Speaker 5: were commercials.
Speaker 4: I booked a.
Speaker 5: Sprint commercial and that was a I crashed that audition.
Speaker 5: My friend got that call and I just showed up
Speaker 5: with your.
Speaker 2: Friend that Oh yeah, I was a national car Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: yes I.
Speaker 5: I my first speaking role for an actual like show.
Speaker 5: A character that I auditioned for was the Shield and
Speaker 5: I lied on my resume. So my friend who showed
Speaker 5: me the ropes, she was like, Okay, we gotta get
Speaker 5: you a real resume. I had nothing to put on it,
Speaker 5: so she helped me put some things on it. And
Speaker 5: then I had another friend at the time, Noel Noel
Speaker 5: Googliami Noel g So he gave me all of his
Speaker 5: credits that he had ever done, and he was like,
Speaker 5: just put this on your resume. Just say you were
Speaker 5: like Yolanda or somebody. And he's Hector and everything, right exactly,
Speaker 5: So every basically everything he was on.
Speaker 4: Probably Latinos. There, there's some chola next to him, you
Speaker 4: were the chola. Just put Yolanda.
Speaker 6: I was mousey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was mousey.
Speaker 5: So I started adding all these credits to my resume
Speaker 5: that I was not on. But are you really going
Speaker 5: to go look for these two lines in this one episode?
Speaker 5: It was one of those kind of things, right, So
Speaker 5: now I have this resume of it's not extensive, it's
Speaker 5: not thirty things, there's like six things, you know, like
Speaker 5: I'm still getting started out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, a perfect heist.
Speaker 4: Oh the perfect.
Speaker 5: I go to the audition and immediately the casting Dirk,
Speaker 5: I forget what show it was.
Speaker 4: All these names leave my brain.
Speaker 5: But so she's reading my resume and she says, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna make up a show here, because I
Speaker 5: don't remember which one it was.
Speaker 4: So let's just say. She's like, oh, you were on
Speaker 4: CSI Miami and I'm like mm hmm yeah. She's like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's funny. I cast that show. I don't remember you.
Speaker 1: Ah, oh my god? Why why?
Speaker 4: Okay, just go it's weird.
Speaker 6: But did it Did it say like the actual episode
Speaker 6: you were on?
Speaker 4: No, it just said the show and my character.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I mean, but at this point, like
Speaker 2: to you and I remember everything your cast?
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty three episodes show.
Speaker 1: Did you get the part?
Speaker 4: I booked it. It's one of those things. I always
Speaker 4: remember you.
Speaker 1: But the beginning, I don't know what I got to
Speaker 1: do to.
Speaker 5: Get in here, but I got to show you I
Speaker 5: can do this. It was training, but I can do it.
Speaker 2: The beginning of this podcast, we all kind of shared,
Speaker 2: you know, the the delusion of bliss and outgoings of
Speaker 2: the hustle. Yeah, and we talked about those moments. We
Speaker 2: we just kind of hacked the game a little bit.
Speaker 2: And in order to hack the game, you have to
Speaker 2: be foolishly just optimistic about the fact that you are
Speaker 2: the chosen one, you know, and that's something that, like
Speaker 2: we all kind of you have to possess if you're
Speaker 2: going to enter like the five percent of working people,
Speaker 2: you know. And and that story reminds me so much
Speaker 2: when when we talk about like I used to go
Speaker 2: to Backstage West and go to the agent submission only
Speaker 2: auditions because we know those were the good ones. Cata
Speaker 2: Cauls were like, you know, here we go, but like
Speaker 2: agent submission. So I show up and I will memorize
Speaker 2: my auditions. I memorize from like people's shoulders, you know,
Speaker 2: and I just.
Speaker 1: Rise because I didn't get his highs.
Speaker 2: I don't have an agent, so like I look down
Speaker 2: and I just like like I'm like okay, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: and I'm like okay, he's going, and I'll go this okay,
Speaker 2: just memorized, memorized, and then I put like you know,
Speaker 2: Smiths and Associates because I thought it was like a
Speaker 2: very Caucasian.
Speaker 1: And then in the number, I like to put my
Speaker 1: pager because I was like, yeah, it was pretty it
Speaker 1: was pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: So you reminded me of that moment because that's like
Speaker 2: sometimes especially we we have to be scrappyard, you know,
Speaker 2: also like we can't. We're not gonna we're not gonna
Speaker 2: enter through the front door, you know. And now it
Speaker 2: us really into through the front door. We have to
Speaker 2: kind of bullishly get optimistic and.
Speaker 5: Guests and those stories are such good reminders for us
Speaker 5: even where we are today, in our own careers, in
Speaker 5: our own lives, where we may take for granted, or
Speaker 5: we may get jaded, or we.
Speaker 4: May feel.
Speaker 5: Bummed about something, or the colors of your dream start
Speaker 5: to look a little muted, it starts to pale a
Speaker 5: little routine, right, you know, it's a little bit of
Speaker 5: of that. And then when you remind yourself of these stories,
Speaker 5: it almost like ignites something in you and then the
Speaker 5: colors of your dream start to get a.
Speaker 1: Little lights the fire up again. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But you said something interesting earlier. You said I had
Speaker 3: no experience. I did knock when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: but I knew that I had something in me.
Speaker 6: I don't know what that thing was. And the same
Speaker 6: with you, right, you knew you had something in you.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we could sit there and hack the system
Speaker 3: and crash auditions and all that, but all of that.
Speaker 1: Is but once we're rod.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's predicated you knowing that there's something there
Speaker 3: which is beyond like, oh, I just.
Speaker 6: Want to be famous. Oh yeah, or like a dream.
Speaker 6: You know, your inner self, you know you possessed something.
Speaker 2: So you booked a bunch of guest stars and then
Speaker 2: a few few guests and then you landed.
Speaker 4: What so I was went from an extra to a
Speaker 4: stand in on a different show. Yeah, So the a
Speaker 4: D once Friends was done, he left and went to
Speaker 4: this show and he brought me with him.
Speaker 6: Can you can you say what Joe?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's called Love and it was on upn Love
Speaker 4: Love Ink Loving Club Love Ink.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it was like a dating service show. Right, it's
Speaker 4: a sitcom. Yeah yeah, yeah, And so I'm a stand
Speaker 4: in now on that show. And that's where so the.
Speaker 5: Shield came after this, because this is where I got
Speaker 5: my actual first speaking role. And I was a stand
Speaker 5: in for the entire season and the very last episode
Speaker 5: they didn't cast one of their co star roles and
Speaker 5: the cast said, well, what about Angela?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's always saying the line.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what about her? Why don't you give her this role?
Speaker 4: And they're like okay, And.
Speaker 5: That's how I got my first speaking role. I didn't
Speaker 5: audition for it, but that's how I got my first
Speaker 5: speaking But.
Speaker 2: Also, you know, one thing to explain to everyone who
Speaker 2: doesn't understand what a standing is.
Speaker 1: A standing is is.
Speaker 2: Another performer who who has the job to kind of
Speaker 2: prep the scene before the actor comes in to perform.
Speaker 2: So they stand on the mark that the actor blocks
Speaker 2: when they rehearse, you know, and they technically recite the
Speaker 2: entire scene. Some stand ins, you know, choose to perform
Speaker 2: the whole scene for when, by the way, the cameras
Speaker 2: are not rolling, but they're performing this scene with the
Speaker 2: other stand ins to make.
Speaker 5: Sure the cameras can practice, the lights can get there
Speaker 5: and everything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sometimes they ask you not to perform.
Speaker 5: Sometimes they would be like, don't they don't want you to,
Speaker 5: They don't want you to like perform it.
Speaker 4: And then some they would just let you have your moment. Listen,
Speaker 4: she was a professional.
Speaker 3: Okay, why do you think they would say not to
Speaker 3: perform it?
Speaker 7: I don't know, fear they that I'd be better and
Speaker 7: then Jennifer Aniston would be no more.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they just.
Speaker 5: Want you to walk, hit your mark, say like the
Speaker 5: beginning of the sentence and then whatever and like that's it.
Speaker 5: But so that's how I got my first speaking role
Speaker 5: was on that show. So I went to be a
Speaker 5: stand in while I'm a stand in on this show.
Speaker 5: I'm going to this church and every Tuesday night at
Speaker 5: this church was their creative arts ministry night, and so
Speaker 5: they would have a dance class, an acting class, production
Speaker 5: if you want to get a production, there's production class.
Speaker 5: Because it's a church in Hollywood, so they know that
Speaker 5: most of their congregation is people trying to be the
Speaker 5: entertainment industry. So they had all these free classes that
Speaker 5: they offered. I was in their acting class and we
Speaker 5: would play improv games and I would be funny in
Speaker 5: the improv games. And then there was a woman who
Speaker 5: was there who said, Hey, do you want to come
Speaker 5: take my joke writing stand up comedy class? And I
Speaker 5: was like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Is it free?
Speaker 5: And she was like yeah, it's just in this room
Speaker 5: over here, and I'm like, oh, okay, sure. So then
Speaker 5: I leave the acting class and I go to the
Speaker 5: stand up comedy class, and that's where I first start
Speaker 5: writing jokes. And I remember at the time, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I could probably do that. I do this Nail Salon character.
Speaker 5: I'm sure I could make that into a joke, and
Speaker 5: she was like, Nail Salan jokes are so hacky.
Speaker 4: Everybody has one stay away from Nail Slan.
Speaker 1: I love it when people say that.
Speaker 5: And I was like, you know what, but I don't know.
Speaker 5: If anybody doesn't like me, I think I'll still do it.
Speaker 5: And I took this class and at the end of
Speaker 5: the class and it was like a two month class.
Speaker 5: Every Tuesday night, our graduation was we had to perform
Speaker 5: at a real comedy club and it was a bringer.
Speaker 5: Everybody had bring ten people, right, so everyone in the
Speaker 5: audience knew this was a graduating stand up class.
Speaker 4: They knew just laugh it was not funny. Is a
Speaker 4: warm wind?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Of course.
Speaker 4: We all wrote jokes and.
Speaker 5: The teacher went through everybody's set and she picked your
Speaker 5: five minute set from everything you wrote in these past
Speaker 5: two months. She picked your five minute set, and then
Speaker 5: when it got to me, she said, just do all
Speaker 5: your jokes.
Speaker 4: So I had twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I go on stage, I do my joke and
Speaker 5: my closer is this Nail Salon bit, which at the
Speaker 5: time looked and sounded a little bit different because the.
Speaker 4: Ending of that joke was a callback.
Speaker 5: This new thing I learned called a callback in my
Speaker 5: class was a callback to a joke I did earlier
Speaker 5: where I talked about me being an extra. I wrote
Speaker 5: a joke about me being an extra and how my
Speaker 5: parents were so proud of me. And so the end
Speaker 5: of the nail salon joke ended with me calling my
Speaker 5: mom saying, this girl's talking the nail salan lady's talking
Speaker 5: about me. And she goes, oh, she doesn't know who
Speaker 5: you are.
Speaker 4: Show her who you are.
Speaker 5: And then I get up and I just start walking
Speaker 5: silently back and forth because that's what I did as
Speaker 5: an extra.
Speaker 4: So that's my I'll show you who I am. Oh amazing.
Speaker 4: So that's how that joke ended. Should I bring it back?
Speaker 4: I think?
Speaker 5: So I did this stand up comedy class while I'm
Speaker 5: a stand in on this show. Then the show gets
Speaker 5: canceled and my friend the ad who basically just took
Speaker 5: me to every show he was on, now he's not
Speaker 5: on a show, so he didn't have any work either.
Speaker 5: So now I'm on unemployment and I'm waitressing at whatever
Speaker 5: restaurant I can waitress at, and I'm doing stand up
Speaker 5: comedy kinda like I didn't want to be a comedian.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be an actress. So every now and
Speaker 5: then I would go do like a five minute set
Speaker 5: at whatever bar, whatever, laundry mat whatever, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 4: But I didn't want to be a stand up so
Speaker 4: I wasn't like pursuing it.
Speaker 5: And I get I'm I'm this is around the time
Speaker 5: when I have no agent, I don't have any auditions
Speaker 5: coming in, I'm waitressing, I'm on unemployment, and now I'm
Speaker 5: at the end of unemployment.
Speaker 4: Unemployment checks run out. I don't know if everybody knows that,
Speaker 4: but they don't last for.
Speaker 5: So unemployment checks are done, and I'm kind of in
Speaker 5: this place where I'm like, oh, I.
Speaker 4: Think, excuse me, sir, she has to go. This was
Speaker 4: so fun, so much. Tune in for part two.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, very good place to uh, you know, split
Speaker 2: this one in two. We're gonna we're gonna embrace this
Speaker 2: one as our part one of our conversation with Angela
Speaker 2: Johnson Rayes. Please say tune for Part two of Those Amigos.
Speaker 3: Dose Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's
Speaker 3: Michael through That Podcast Network, hosted by me Freddie Rodriguez
Speaker 3: and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 2: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
Speaker 3: and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
Speaker 2: This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts
Speaker 2: and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by
Speaker 2: Madison Devenport and Helo.
Speaker 3: Boy Our cover our photography is by David Avalos and
Speaker 3: designed by Deny Holtz Clau.
Speaker 2: And thank you for being a third amigo today. I
Speaker 2: appreciate you guys always listening to those amigos.
Speaker 3: More podcasts from my Heart visit the r Heart Radio app,
Speaker 3: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: See you next week, MHM