Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - Many people would do anything for their 15 minutes of fame, but try to extend that into a full blown acting career and you could spend a lifetime looking for your big break.
WHAS11’s Gene Kang took an inside look at the upcoming movie, "Secretariat" and how other local stars are spending big bucks to take Hollywood by storm.
Sheri Carbone, Gregory Campbell and 16-year-old Michael Lovell are all local stars with big dreams.
Campbell is a former military man and is playing the stand-in role for Jimi Hendrix.
Carbone is a dramatic race fan in the upcoming Disney movie "Secretariat."
The movie takes you to the groovy year of 1973; the 99th Derby at Churchill Downs.
It was a time when Secretariat broke away to become the first racehorse to win the Triple Crown.
Now a glamorous Hollywood movie is expected in theaters next year.
Gregory Campbell tells WHAS11’s Gene Kang that his big break didn't happen overnight.
Campbell plays a serious judge in the upcoming local movie "Gambling for Riches and Love" by J Lee White.
Just like the rest of the professional actors, each has spent countless hours at auditions, hundreds of dollars on acting classes, resumes, head shots and the all important demo reel.
According to Sheri Carbone, a local actress and West African drummer, it takes a lot of money to put a demo reel together.
But getting it together also means dealing with the reality of rejection.
For Carbone, a former JCPS teacher, it's part of her new career.
"That's what makes the very fiber of a good actor; to take the disappointments along with the successes and being able to get the parts," says Carbone.
"You have to keep on moving forward. If you allow someone to stop us we'll always shelf a dream that we have," says Campbell.
While Campbell and Carbone realized their dreams later in life, Michael Lovell started acting as a child.
The Bullitt East High School student is a chameleon of sorts, acting in shows ranging from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to Treasure Island and everything in between.
Now he is a stand-in as Diane Lane's son in the "Secretariat."
"I have this addiction to acting. I have to attend to it. It's like a moth to the flame. I have to go into it," says Michael Lovell.
Lovell is a triple threat in the acting world. He also sings and dances.
His powerful voice landed him among the top 150 singers out of tens of thousands who auditioned in Chicago for season nine of American Idol.
"After every audition you get more perspective," he says.
Michael says that during American Idol auditions he was fortunate enough to see four judges.
But the need to be on TV came at a price.
His self-professed stage mom, Joyce, spends hours driving her teenage son to auditions.
She sometimes excuses them from class.
In this economy, making your big break means sacrificing free time for gigs, taking parts that pay hundreds of dollars and others that pay nothing at all.
"It's a learning process for him. If he realizes that if he doesn't make the audition it makes him stronger," says Joyce.
"It's scary to think that I'm 16 and in two years I may not be here, I could be up in Hollywood," says Michael.
