{"id":3647,"date":"2015-04-07T15:47:08","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T19:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=3647"},"modified":"2015-04-14T09:48:48","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T13:48:48","slug":"katz-has-an-early-brush-with-show-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2015\/04\/07\/katz-has-an-early-brush-with-show-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobbies & Hidden Talents: Katz Has an Early Brush with Show Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Childhood<\/a>Imagine being seven years old, going to PetSmart to buy a fish and leaving as an actress. For Elizabethtown College student Carly Katz ’17, this isn\u2019t so far-fetched.<\/p>\n

Katz, her sister and her father were shopping at the pet supply store to get fish for their aquarium. \u201cSome lady was following my sister and me around. We knew at 7 and 8 years old that it\u2019s weird for someone to be following you, so we kept moving away from her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, the tall red-headed woman approached the sisters and asked, \u201cHow would you guys like to be actresses?\u201d Katz couldn\u2019t contain her smile as she remembered the moment. \u201cSo, we obviously said, \u2018Yes! Definitely’!\u201d And the girls took the talent scout, Meghan, to their father, where they exchanged information.<\/p>\n

“We kept saying, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re going to be famous’,\u201d Katz said. Though the girls were excited, their parents were very skeptical, especially due to the location. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty small town, so stuff like that doesn\u2019t happen often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katz explained that her parents have friends in California who are involved in the business. Her father\u2019s best friend is a producer, and his wife is a talent scout for models. The friends ensured that it was a credible company. Once it was verified, the family settled in for a discussion.<\/p>\n

Her parents warned that it would be a lot of hard work, adding that the sisters would need to keep up with their school assignments, as well. When the girls showed a desire to pursue acting despite the difficulties, their parents agreed to let them try it.<\/p>\n

They went to the agency to sign a bunch of papers, which gave the company permission to \u201cchange our hair, place us and \u2026 put us in specific clothes,\u201d Katz explained.<\/p>\n

The company also required that the girls stay in school and continue their education. There were documents that needed to be signed by the elementary school principal, too.<\/p>\n

After everything was signed, the company held a meeting for everyone who got scouted. Katz estimates that there were around 200 kids present. After the meeting, modeling pictures were taken, and the company recorded the ages and heights of the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually had a broken leg when we were modeling,\u201d Katz remembered. \u201cI was not happy, but I pulled through for the pictures. They did our hair. They did our makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sisters attended an acting school in Philadelphia. There, they took classes where they were taught how to do voice overs and script reading. The classes met once a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo months later, I got called to do a movie called \u2018Hide and Seek\u2019 with Dakota Fanning [and Robert De Niro]. They wanted me to be her extra,\u201d said Katz. Unfortunately, the call came on a Jewish holiday, and they wanted the youngster in New York immediately. \u201cMy mom said, \u2018I can\u2019t pack up a seven year old and get to New York \u2026\u201d said Katz, adding that their house is located more than two hours away… \u201cI was very upset, ya know? It was the first time I got called to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next call was to be extras in an episode of Law & Order, also being filmed in New York City. Filming took all day long. \u201cIt was a really long day for a seven and eight year old. We were there until probably two or three in the morning.\u201d The Katz sisters were able to choose their own outfits because they were extras, but they had to bring a change of clothes and show the outfits to a producer who then decided which he liked best. \u201cI remember crying because it was so late at night, and I was tired and hungry. There was no food there.\u201d<\/p>\n

After filming was completed, they were told when the episode would air. \u201cWe watched the beginning scenes where we were throwing balloons and playing. It was supposed to be a little kid\u2019s birthday party,\u201d Katz explained.<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s something to share and to tell. You tell people, and they\u2019re like, \u2018What? You were in Law and Order?\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Katz\u2019s sister Jessica got to do a movie called \u201cLittle Manhattan\u201d with Josh Hutcherson, Bradley Whitford and Cynthia Nixon. She played \u201cLibby,\u201d the main character\u2019s best friend. She was supposed to have a speaking role, but she was too shy to do the scene because the director wanted her to yell at an elderly woman. Jessica ended up being in 10 or 11 scenes.<\/p>\n

When the movie came out, Katz\u2019s parents took family members and friends to have a viewing party at the local theater. \u201cWe were screaming and cheering every time she would come on the screen,\u201d Katz said. \u201cThere was this kid who had a huge poster of the movie, and his dad made him give it to my sister, so it\u2019s now framed in my house.\u201c<\/p>\n

The sisters also did a voice-over for Ovaltine chocolate milk powder.\u00a0 \u201cWe sat in room for hours going over and over the script,” said Katz. “It didn\u2019t have to be memorized, but they didn\u2019t want you to stumble over it.\u201d The process was especially difficult for the sisters, but at the time they didn\u2019t know why. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know we had learning disabilities,\u201d Katz said. They only knew it was difficult to read and memorize the script.<\/p>\n

Though she liked acting and it would have been a dream to continue, Carly and Jessica eventually had to bow out of acting. “I knew I loved doing it,\u201d Katz said. \u201cMy sister was upset, but she didn\u2019t necessarily like it as much as I did. I wish we had kept going with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Katz thinks the experience had a positive effect on her. \u201cIt\u2019s something to share and to tell. You tell people, and they\u2019re like, \u2018What? You were in Law and Order?\u2019 At the time, I liked getting the attention from people. Now it\u2019s just a fun story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katz said she now wants to be a talent scout. \u201cIt changed my life because I never would have experienced what I did …\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine being seven years old, going to PetSmart to buy a fish and leaving as an actress. For Elizabethtown College student Carly Katz ’17, this isn\u2019t so far-fetched. Katz, her sister and her father were shopping at the pet supply store to get fish for their aquarium. \u201cSome lady was following my sister and me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":3655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[885,197,886],"class_list":["post-3647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-carly-katz","tag-elizabethtown-college","tag-gwen-fries","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3647"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3705,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3647\/revisions\/3705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}