Funny Business

Published: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 | 2:41 PM ET

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Angela McNamee

Last month, I went to Hollywood's legendary Central Casting. California's newly unemployed are flocking here to get work as extras, and make a little extra money.

One of the people I interviewed that day was Angela McNamee, a single mom and martial arts advocate who'd recently lost her job as an office manager. She's the one joking near the beginning of the story that she's maybe "the next Lara Croft, on the browner side". At the end of the story McNamee reveals that getting into the entertainment industry was something she'd always wanted to do, "but just didn't have the gumption to try it until now."

It's been a good month for McNamee, who wrote me this week that only days after I interviewed her, she landed a job on the only major motion picture being shot in Los Angeles at the moment, "Iron Man 2". "It was GREAT!" she writes. "I couldn't believe it, and only a week after registering. Hardly seemed possible."

McNamee says that gig was followed by two days on a TV show called "Make it or Break It", followed by a day on "Grey's Anatomy". Wow!

"I couldn't be happier with things," she writes. "I'm registered with three casting agencies and have a head shot done and will be sending them out to other agencies to hopefully pick up a 'home' where I can be farmed out for print ad work, commercials, etc."

Attached is her head shot.

Talk about a Hollywood ending! "It's all happening so fast, it's hard to absorb," says McNamee, though she's not sure how long her luck will last. "I did go to an open call at Central for a movie called 'Priest' that they are shooting in August about post apocalyptic vampires, so who knows? I'm not exactly pale and emaciated, but I can sure kick some vampire butt if need be."

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