Ted Ferguson redefines self in variety of roles
Ted Ferguson is a self-made man, several times over.
In 1999, he ended a 40- year career in radio. He has been on the air, on the street, and behind the scenes. He quickly discovered retirement was not his forte.
“Believe me, I had the bestkept lawn in Western Hills. That means I had nothing else to do.” Ferguson said the moral of the story is to have a plan before you retire.
He then made a decision he’d been considering for 40 years: getting off academic probation at his alma mater, LSU. “So, in 2005, I enrolled in LSU Baton Rouge, took my road furniture, moved into the married student apartments on the LSU campus, and took an 18-hour workload which included improvisational acting.”
As fate would have it, during his college transcript reconstruction phase, Hillary Swank was on campus filming a movie. “I thought that would be kind of fun,” he said. Then, he spent a year as a full-time student, made the dean’s list twice and returned to Shreveport to continue his “golden years.”
By that time, Hurricane Katrina had opened the production industry’s eyes to the potential of this area as a location. Ferguson decided to see what it took to be an extra on a movie set. He tried it once and enjoyed it. Then again and enjoyed it more. He was booked as an extra on the Jessica Simpson/Luke Wilson film “Blonde Ambition” portraying one of four Norwegian priests. He found out that one role was a speaking part and was unassigned.
“So I called the Swedish Embassy in New York and asked to be helped to translate the scene into Swedish,” a language, Ferguson said, that was pretty close to Norwegian. “When I reported for work I could speak enough Norwegian to make it work. I told the extras casting director that I did speak some Norwegian. She told the director, Scott Marshall, and I got the role. Boy, was I scared, but it worked.”
Last month, he got a $400 residual check from that role, just as he has every quarter since 2007. The moral of the story, Ferguson said, is “Use your head. He who does wins ... sometimes.”
What followed was a stretch of auditions, but no significant roles. Working as an extra was a good experience, he said, because it teaches a would-be actor what goes into the process. He stressed paying attention and learning what is expected of an actor, speaking or not.
To build his “reel,” the visual compilation of his body of work, Ferguson took roles for little or no pay in independent films. He cautioned that even free work should be well-written because being in a bad film will follow an actor around like a felony conviction.
“The positive thing about this type of film is you help a student in film school move his career forward. They remember you, even if they don’t morph into James Cameron.” He added, “You helped another human being.”
Ferguson has enough experience now to have some definite opinions about how to go about making television and film a career. He’s found some success this past year in commercials. He’s played the captain of the “Titanic” in an ad for PMU France, he’s also been seen in a veterinarian’s office in a Burlington ad and played a cowboy in a commercial for Dish Network. His television credits include appearances on “Mad Men,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “The Society,” “Tales of the Frontier” and “My Haunted House.” His film appearances include “True Grit,” “Battleship,” “The Mist” and “Harold and Kumar Escape.” There are clips of his work on IMDB and YouTube, as well.
Ferguson said television and film are seasonal, shooting from the last week of July to the second week of December and from the second week of January to the first week of May. Commercials, he said, are shot year-round.
“The thing to remember if you are thinking of giving acting a go in Shreveport; Lafayette; Baton Rouge; Atlanta; Wilmington, N.C.; or Hollywood,” Ferguson said, “it’s a business, and you don’t get successful by luck. The good stuff is hard work and takes skill, craft and a devotion to developing all of the above.”
Last week, Ferguson got the word he has been cast as Al Pacino’s body double in his new film. Eventually, he plans to return to Shreveport and get his yard back in shape. Unless Pacino makes him an offer he can’t refuse.
Joe Todaro may be reached at joetodaro@scribio.com.
