as promised...a post devoted entirely to my recent days filming the short film, LOVE NATURALLY! in this film, i play the lead role of darlene harris, "a small town Southern girl who, in order to avoid her fate as an old and very alone cat lady, begins her search for love. Her dysfunctional family and quirky best friend lend their helping hands to Darlene’s dire situation by setting her up on blind dates. Darlene goes through these men like a knife through butter, to no avail. Finally giving up on love, Darlene accepts her destiny as a librarian spinster whose only friends are covered in fur and lap milk from a bowl. BUT, then along comes a Stranger who has the power to change all that if Darlene will only be brave enough to give him a chance."

intrigued? shooting the past two weekends has been so amazing, and i can't wait to have some of the footage and of course to eventually see the final product (which will most likely be in a couple of months)! the rest of the cast and crew members are such a pleasure to work with, and make the long days on set totally worth it. it's just been great to be a "working actor," and i feel very fulfilled and affirmed doing what i love to do. plus, i love being darlene, she is a wonderfully rich character, and i'm happy to get to "be" her so much lately! she's pretty great :) although, without giving too much away, i've basically sworn off powdered donuts and iced tea, considering i've eaten and drank so much of both of those in recent days on set!

below are several awesome stills from the footage and some behind-the-scenes photos! for more, check out the LOVE NATURALLY facebook page HERE and become a fan!!!!

darlene and her bff, sara sue, stamping books in the library



some....ahem...interesting dates?





movie stars (amelia and me)



darlene all done up!



i'm so excited about the potential that this project has! i'm very proud of it so far, and can't wait to watch its progress (and darlene's progress from frumpy to fabulous!). again, i'd really appreciate if you check out the rest of the info on the facebook fan page. and let me know what you think!!!

after a long day of shooting yesterday (look for another post very soon, with photos and behind-the-scenes details of my film, "love naturally"), i went to night church at mosaic with parker and friends. due to a celebration downtown, church was "on location" at the key club on sunset in hollywood. so, after church, we went to a little hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant just down the street called el compadre. unbeknown to us...this restaurant must be a haunt for the actor crowd, because in our short dinner, we saw three name actors!! crazy, that might be an off-set record!

1) Leslie Bibb--The Skulls, Popular, Iron Man, Talladega Nights, Confessions of a Shopaholic



2) Sam Rockwell (also at the booth with Leslie Bibb. I recognized him, but didn't know his name. Thanks to Johnny for that!)--Charlie's Angels, Frost Nixon, etc.



3) Daniel Franzese--Mean Girls



again, these celeb sightings don't happen thaaat often. it's just right place, right time, so if you come to la in hopes of that, it doesn't always happen! maybe someday, people will say, "ooo, is that lauren parrent?!" :) here's to hoping!!

i was just about to try and come up with a catchy, clever title for this post, and as i signed into blogger, i noticed it said i had 99 posts! so that makes this very post my big ONE HUNDREDTH! i feel like that is a milestone worth noting, right? kind of a big deal. a nice, even number at least. i'll sing a song of centennial celebration and pretend that i have streamers and noisemakers and i'll even throw a little imaginary confetti in the air. woo hoo! congrats to "for your consideration" for having such a great run so far! and thanks to all you dedicated readers, of course, for making me want to keep writing :)

so...now that that's taken care of! i actually have quite a meaty post!!

the biggest news of the day was an unexpected celeb sighting! on our way to our usual tuesday night book club (see more below), karla and i were driving up wilshire through beverly hills (same ole, same ole, right?). i rolled the window down, looked out at a restaurant called "the blvd," and said to karla "i just love beverly hills..." and right at this exact moment--we were stopped at a light--i saw ryan seacrest sitting outside at one of the cafe tables!! he was in a suit and looking very tan! i've since been informed by my american idol fan friends that he must have had just left tonight's taping of the show to be there for dinner at the time we saw him. what a busy guy! but, a pretty cool sighting--pop culture relevant, at least!



so back to life before seacrest...as you may already know, i meet weekly in a small group with my girlfriends that we fondly call "book club." we all go to church together, and our little gathering has morphed from just a group of friends to now a sort of bible study. tonight, however, we had two members missing, so the four remaining girls decided to meet up for dinner at a restaurant in hollywood called "toast." it's a trendy little bakery that's evidently been featured on shows like the hills, and often a hot spot hit up by some celebs. the food was yum (which i love! do i post about food too much? lol). i even had a mini red velvet cupcake (one of their specialties) for dessert. it was tasty, with mmm mmm good cream cheese icing (although, not even in the same league as my grandmom's red velvet cake!). here are mj, karla, ali, and me at toast.





after dinner at toast, we decided to head to the grove--an outdoor shopping area that's super cute, and often a prime location for celeb-spotting. we've been having a heat wave in southern cal the past few days, so the nights have been retaining some of the warmth, which made it a lovely evening to stroll along outside with the gals. we decided it couldn't be a legitimate book club meeting without a book, so naturally we stopped in at barnes and noble to pick one out. i know it's a slight departure from our usual read, but it was clearly endorsed by "parker," so...



that's all for now. check back for an update soon about my role as darlene in the student film. i've been collecting photos from on the set, so hopefully after this weekend, i'll have a lot to blog about...shooting is going well so far!!

alright, bedtime. parrent, out!

i was supposed to be on set all this weekend shooting "love naturally," the student film in which i have the lead. however, today the crew ran into some speed bumps with our location, so we rescheduled. we shot yesterday and it went really well, so i can't wait to give you a complete blog update after we wrap next weekend!

so, as unfortunate as this was, it allows me some blogging time this morning to write about my fun easter weekend last weekend!

last saturday, we took a group up to santa barbara and its surrounding wine country--a trip long overdo for me, since i'd missed the last couple tasting trips that my friends took. the weather was perfect and the countryside was so beautiful. yet again, california's natural beauty astonishes me! we started the trip off with a stop at stearns wharf in santa barbara, where we had a picnic of bay cities italian deli (a famous deli in santa monica scoped out by planner justin!) which was YUM!

roomies

justin and seth

chowing down on some "godmother" sandwiches


after lunch we made our way farther north to our first stop, sunstone winery, a quaint gardenesque vineyard overlooking lush green hills. we tasted a few wines and soaked in the scenery.


justin stealing me from parker



then we went to gainey vineyard, where we enjoyed the scenery and exploring the winery. here's a pic of the whole group of us!



we had another big day, because sunday was obviously easter, and we had decided to encore last year's successful day at manhattan beach. we had a wonderful easter church service at ecclesia and then went to the beach! here are some pics of our bEaster-day antics! the second annual bEaster was just as lovely as the first!

parker riding the cooler down to the beach


a greek god, i tell you!

matty

zak and his polaroids

cute ali

josh

jon

pete and puffer giving a glimpse of the gun show


fun group. fun day. here's to next easter!

hey guys! well, sorry this is belated now, but hopefully some of you guys got a chance to go online and vote for which cover photo of me working nurse magazine should use. the photos, as well as the voting, and a video blog about the decision is still up on their site at: http://www.workingworldblog.com/ so check it out if you interested and can't wait until the may cover! thanks to all of you who did vote!




in other exciting career news--i got the lead role in a student film! yay! the industry, following other economic trends, is very slow right now, so i'm grateful for even little things like this, to keep getting experience, and footage for my ever-growing reel. i film all of next weekend, and i play darlene, a librarian in a small southern town. i really like her and i think the script is cute and poignant, so i'm really looking forward to it. i'll let you know how it goes, of course.

speaking of the bad economy, i'm enjoying having a roommate who got laid off, and happens to now be pursuing her own photography career. holland and i get to do photo shoots pretty much every day if we want to and have the time--some for fun, some headshots. below are a few pics (and i included some lovely outtake shots, heh heh) that we've done so far. if you want to see more of her stuff, check out her photography blog at hollandmichaelphotography.blogspot.com.








pretty good, right?