Jason Alan Griffin :: The Blog

I had to wake up at about 4am to be sure I had enough time to shower, shave and make and eat my breakfast and be at the corner of 11th Ave and 47th St. looking to be picked up in a van and driven to a golf course in Yonkers by sunrise. My job for the day was another modeling gig, but this time I had the opportunity to incorporate another interest of mine; yoga.  I was hired to do some yoga poses on a golf course for an article set to appear in a future issue of Golf Digest about how doing yoga can improve your golf game. They started me right off right with a crow pose. And I held it for a LOOOONG time while they focused, set light levels, fussed with my clothes and made sure every blade of grass was facing the right way. Through out the course of the day I only did about four poses.  The hardest was the headstand.  Not usually a terribly hard pose for me, but they had me holding the flag in one hand and only using one arm to support my headstand! Ouch.   I needed a massage after this....

The Angelo Musco shoot was a blast, even though it did start raining and actually get pretty cold for a few minutes.  It was fun to play around in the chrome bottomed pool on top of an eleven story downtown building.  It was almost a shame that the photos were only of the underwater environment because the view from the pool was breathtaking.  The edge of the pool disappeared over the edge of the building and it seemed like you were sitting in a pool of water magically floating amongst the downtown high-rise landscape.  The sky was a steel grey and a light rain left droplets on the pools surface as we got our instructions: 1-float around, making shapes with our bodies. 2-don't make "underwater / holding breath" expressions 3-interact with the other bodies 4-entice the camera to join you He plans to use all of the images he took to wallpaper the inside of a gallery giving the viewer the impression that he/she is underwater and being beckoned to enter further into t...

About four years ago I was contacted by an artist's agent in Santa Monica.  He had seen my website where I used to have a large collection of nude photography modeling I had done. The agent told me that the artist, Don Bachardy, was interested in hiring me as a model for his painting.  He dropped the artist's name like it was someone I should have heard of -- but I hadn't.  I Googled him and found that he was a well known, established artist and one-time lover of Christopher Isherwood.  He has painted portraits of such people as Mr Isherwood, of course, as well as Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, W. H. Auden, E. M. Forester, and Igor Stravinsky.  This is a sample of his style.  And also a sample of the type of work he did with me.  Although this is NOT me.  He didn't let me have any copies of his work and this was what I could find on the Internet to give you a feel for his work. I agreed to pose for him. I was flown to LA, put up in a Four...

I had never served jury duty before last week. As a resident of California and Washington states, when I was called to appear for jury duty, I had always claimed financial hardship due to the fact that I was a freelance worker....no work, no pay. But since I moved to New York in 2000, and they don't allow you to get out of your civic duty with such nonsense, I finally appeared when I got my first summons in 2004. I, of course, postponed my appearance as many times as I could and then I finally went down to 100 Centre St.* and appeared. And, although serving on a jury isn't exactly like acting, I thought there were quite a few similarities between the two. Enough that, while I was going through the experience, I kept being struck by how familiar it was to me. And I started to notice distinct similarities which I will expound for you now. In show business, as in jury duty, there is a lot of waiting around. Arriving at the courthouse on Monday morning, we were told to go into the ...

OPENS JULY 16 I'm having such a great time working with Duncan Pflaster, playwright and director of a wonderfully, smart and zany play. The cast he's assembled is very talented and brave and really nice people, as well. I feel a little bit like I'm letting the cast down in a way, by not being as funny as they are. I try to tell myself, "My character is just not one of the wackier characters. He's largely a voice-of-reason and used heavily for exposition." But then, its hard not to wonder, "If my role were being played by Chris Cariker, would he be more funny?" In any case... Were I not in this play I would love to see it. I can't wait until it opens. The costumes are promising to be quite delicious as the Broadway Bares costumer David Withrow is on board with us. Here is a link to our media page: www.duncanpflaster.com/trevor.php The nudity doesn't bother me. I'm not embarrased or frightened by being nude or being seen nude. People oft...

Tonight is the closing performance of "Pleasures of Peace" at Medicine Show. It's been a wild ride. I came into the project 'already in progress' and had some catching up to do to get up to speed with what they had been working on. We opened the show without really feeling ready, and actually had a few performances in that first week that weren't exactly as polished as we would have liked. The show found its stride by the third performance and has been growing, evolving and improving ever since. I am particularly appreciative of Paul Daniel Cloeter, who played Franz, the Swiss Guard, to my Tim, the Buckingham Palace Guard, in John Gruen's lovely play "Guards in Love." We literally rehearsed this intricate play twice before opening night. Were it not for our strong abilities as actors to be present and aware in moments of unknowing, we could have had a disaster. Instead, we grew with each live performance as we basically 'rehearsed...

This is the final production of Medicine Show's 38th season. Which is impressive. This is the fourth full production I've done with Medicine Show. I've also been involved in a number of staged readings there. Barbara Vann is the artistic director there and has directed all of the productions I've been involved in. Barbara has a unique way of working. She loves chaos and inspiration and being fresh and always breaking convention. She has a certain genius to her work. The downside of all this is that, as an actor, one never knows from one moment to the next what your intentions will be, who your character is, or what lines you will be saying. You could be working on a scene for a week and then she can come in and tell you she's decided we've been wrong all along and its totally something else. I've seen her take whole scenes away from actors who've been working on them for weeks, because they weren't present at a rehearsal when she wanted to reh...

"Break" by J. Stephen Brantley, directed by Jonathan Warman and featuring Hunter Gilmore and myself had wrapped three weeks ago. As in any theatrical venture, this project brought together a group of disparate artists who work together and usually become very close and tight; like a temporary family. We traveled with this show to Provincetown, RI and also enjoyed an exciting run in New York as part of the EATFest with Emerging Artists Theatre. The role was a challenge and my partner, Hunter, was a blast to work with. So, when it all came to an end, it left me with an empty feeling of mourning. I was going on auditions, but three weeks passed and I still hadn't gotten anything further than a callback for "The East Village Chronicles" at Metropolitan Playhouse. Memorial Day Weekend. Within a 24 hour period I heard from Roberto Cambeiro that I was invited to participate in a short play festival at Wings Theatre, I was offered a part in Duncan Pflaster's Inte...

I got a call from my agent booking me on a job on Long Island. I hadn't auditioned for it. They booked me based on my headshot and resume. She didn't give me much information, just the time and day, the amount I was going to be paid and that the wardrobe stylist would contact me. Fine. That's what agents are great for. Jobs out of the ether. So, the stylist called, and we agreed that I would bring four different combinations of business casual clothing but I was warned to stay away from green. (TRANSLATION: I'll be working in front of a green screen) I made a slight stink about not being reimbursed for my travel since I had to take a Long Island Rail Road from Penn Station to Islip and then take a cab to the location of the shoot. It's customary to be reimbursed in these situations. But I eventually let the issue slide, thinking, "what the heck. I didn't have to audition, it's basically like I'm doing the job for $50 less than I was origina...

So. My web designer (or, more accurately, web re-designer) James Donegan suggested I start a blog. I guess he thinks -- as you all clearly do -- that the world desperately needs to know what I'm up to every minute of every day. My thoughts. My opinions. My world views. Or perhaps you just want to point and laugh.  Either way, you're here, and that's what counts! I will do my best in the days and weeks to come to keep things current. Often, this page will serve as my "what's up now" page -- so that I can get things online in a hurry without having to go into making edits on the site "proper." Be sure to comment a lot, too. That way, I don't feel like I'm writing to the ether.  And enjoy!