Hands Down, Career Up

Nashville native Jenny Rainwater tried out the L.A. acting market a few years back and didn't get very far: a few community theater productions she didn't even want to invite friends to.

Her subsequent move back to the Nashville area might have seemed like a retreat, but in fact it turned into another route back into the business. She was doing commercial and voiceover work in the Nashville market when she had "the most unstressful audition in the world": a hand model gig for a commercial for the U.S. military.

"I was so ho-hum about the whole deal," Jenny recalled. "I got to the set and saw that they had wardrobe and hair/makeup people. I thought, Hmmm, something's up."

Up indeed: A production manager came with her Taft-Hartley form to upgrade Jenny to an on-camera principal. (The Taft-Hartley waiver is just about the only legitimate way for non-union performers to work on a SAG project; they must join the guild on their next union job.) One job later, Jenny was a card-carrying guild member -- just before her return move to L.A.

It's almost as if this would-be hand model didn't have to lift a finger to get her break -- just move 2005.9 miles away.