Matthew Porter: Actor, voice artist and singer in New York City, New York.

Congrats on the Wrap! Love the pic! Keep up posted

Awesome! Congrats!

Great News! Congrats!

Hey there. I'm looking into moving to NY soon, I've got some friends there. But do you have any advice of job/acting balance? I don't want to have to work all the time to pay rent so I miss auditions.

Terrific introduction, Matthew. You won me over completely with " I like to create my own opportunities." My kind of creative.

Hi, Katherine. I think flexibility is your greatest asset in many ways as an actor in New York. It's really not an affordable town and we must pay those bills that insist on reaching our mailboxes! So, hopefully a gig where you can carve out some time of your own to make casting appointments is ideal, though understandably, not always the case. I never worked in the service industry. I don't have the temperment for it I think. That's me. I always wondered about jobs at casting agencies which are very close to the action and can lead to things, but don't always pay so great or offer much, if any, in the way of benefits. I started doing transcription work, but soon realized I was too far away from what I wanted to do. While it was nice to be home, where I could record voice-over work on the side, it wasn't reeeeeally what I wanted to be doing with a lot of my time. It wasn't close enough for me to the action. I soon jumped into the background community and figured I might as well start working to at least acquire a health benefit and a pension in the field that I ultimately wanted to spend the majority of my time in. So, pretty early on, I was cast as a "core" member on Life on Mars, an ABC show that lasted a season or two. By the time i was fit with several wardrobes for the LOM gig, I was asked to audition to be Alec Baldwin's stand-in on the TV show 30 Rock. When I wasn't working on 30 Rock, casting for LOM was still cool enough to let me go play on their show (probably because I had just had an entire wardrobe pulled for me). It worked out great for me and I haven't looked back since. That's just how it happened to work out. I will give you one gem nugget of info though that has also served me well in making some decent side money: Focus Groups. Type into your favorite search engines "focus groups [currrent city of residence]" and sign up with as many companies as you can. You can easily make $40-$300 for an hour or two of your time speaking your mind about product or service. I actually have one tomorrow morning, that is taking place over webcam and is about a liquor. It lasts 40 minutes, but what else would you rather be doing at 8am than making an easy $60 in your pjs? Get in with a few companies and you could schedule a few a week if you are good, depending on the topic and the type of folks they are interested in speaking too. We all have our different avenues, and it's just a matter of being ready to jump on which ever one is right in front of you, calling you, and seeing where it takes you. Best of luck!