Meet Ellen. She moved out to L.A. back when she was 20 (longer ago than she admits to in interviews). When she arrived she was starry-eyed and STD-free. She lived in some shabby apartment building with a bunch of other up-and-comers that you've now heard of. She took improv classes, she waited tables, she slept with bartenders and casting agents. She took more improv classes and acting classes. She went on more auditions than she can ever recount. Finally she landed a role on a sitcom in 1996 playing the role of Tanya, the bratty but hot girlfriend of the precocious lead character, Mike. Pretty soon she landed another sitcom with a larger role, followed by small movie roles, then bigger movie roles. Ellen continued to work her way through the who's who of LA through the years, sometimes at parties and sometimes on her back. But she was determined!! Now Ellen is an established Hollywood actress who refers to acting as her "craft" and her "practiced art form". In interviews she recounts name after name of show runners, producers and directors - all names that none of the audience is familiar with but that somehow gives her more street cred. She has now been nominated for an Oscar for her performance as a mentally disabled, alcoholic lesbian single mother in the US on an expired visa, who is battling breast cancer and has overcome a stutter. It was the performance of a lifetime.
