Lurking at the far edge of a tony shopping district west of La Brea Avenue, the office building at 8060 West Melrose was an eyesore of gray brick and yellowing white tile. Its interior was drab and airless, smelling curiously like a dentist’s office, with a collection of dead and dying floor plants holding court in the lobby. Sandra Delgado, a 27-year-old Chicago actress with impressive stage credentials, took the elevator up to the fourth floor, head shot and resume in hand. She’d flown out to LA in late January 2001 for pilot season, the first four months of the year, when new TV shows are being created and the Hollywood casting machinery goes into high gear. She’d been in town for two weeks already, but this audition was her first real shot at a series.
The blond woman returned, glanced at the sign-in sheet, and beckoned Delgado inside.
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A lifelong Chicagoan and a graduate of UIC, Delgado has honed her acting skills with CollaborAction, a tiny, haphazard outfit that’s blossomed into a respected off-Loop company specializing in new work. She’s appeared in shows at Steppenwolf and in the Goodman’s revival of Zoot Suit, not to mention a handful of independent films and a string of commercials, industrial films, and voice-overs. In 1999 she signed with Stewart Talent, one of more than two dozen agencies in Chicago. Given the limited amount of paid acting work in town, most local agencies are boutique operations, specializing in a specific aspect of the business. By Chicago standards Stewart is large and diversified, with three film and TV agents, two for voice-overs, one for industrials, one for commercial print ads, and two for child clients. It represents about 110 actors, 50 of them (including Delgado) on exclusive contracts.
“For some reason it all just came together this year that we had this group of 20 amazing actors that were ready to go,” said Kohler-Drake. “Being ready to go means you have some film experience. God willing, you have your [Screen Actors Guild] card. You have some money in the bank. And you have your head screwed on straight.” According to Kohler-Drake, Delgado fit the bill. “She’s a good person. She’s very ambitious. She has her ducks in a row. She’s young, she’s lovely, and she’s Hispanic. And there is a market for that.”
Earlier that week she’d had lunch with Matthew Lesher, a manager recommended to her by actor Hamish Linklater (who’s on Gideon’s Crossing), a friend of a friend. “It’s all about type,” Delgado explained. “Hamish’s manager is like, ‘Oh, great, I’m looking for that type. I need to represent a young Latina woman because I don’t represent one.’ So I met with him, things went well, and we’re going to talk again….My agent is resistant to it. I’m not exactly sure why.”
Delgado was still determined to sign with a manager, though Kohler-Drake refused to see the benefits. Delgado met with another one but wasn’t impressed. “He brought up Jennifer Lopez one too many times for me. I know it’s all about type here, but I kind of want to get out of the box. I’m not Jennifer Lopez. I know he would get me work, but it would be doing stuff that I would not be happy doing. You know? The Spicy Latina With Attitude.”
The first weekend in March, Delagado flew back to Chicago for a few days: her father was in the hospital after a minor surgery, and she wanted to attend the closing weekend of the Sketchbook Festival. Her determination to make a move west, she said, was beginning to waver. But when she got back, things began to pick up: in addition to a meeting Kohler-Drake had arranged for her at NBC, she was auditioning for another pilot and for a play at the Mark Taper Forum, LA’s most prestigious legitimate theater.
