Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Becky Reilly She Has A Talent For Finding … Talent

She’s the wife in the Ziggy’s commercial, installing kitchen cabinets with her “husband.”

He’s the young man in the Northwest Rent to Own commercial, being questioned by a police officer.

Becky Reilly landed those actors their jobs.

Within six months of opening her talent agency, Big Fish NW, she’s signed up 141 aspiring actors, booking them into 90 different jobs.

Some of them have no experience. Others have extensive resumes. She’ll take any non-union actor - people of any age, size, shape, race or sex.

“I’m dealing with real people, people the average person can relate to,” said Reilly, 34. “Commercials try to appeal to a mass (audience).”

She places the actors in company training films and local, regional and national commercials. Their faces have appeared on billboards and in advertisements. Their voices have recorded messages on company phone mail systems.

The actors range in age from 6-month-old babies to 70-year-old men. The majority are between 25 and 35 years old. Some are middle-aged women; others are budding teen idols.

“I see an average of five new people a week. I’ve had people walk in off the street that haven’t been in a school play, but they get it,” Reilly said.

By “getting it,” Reilly means that the actors know how to behave in front of a camera. They know how to talk to the camera as if it were a close friend, even when they’re saying the lines: “I’m basically a healthy person, so when I developed hemorrhoids, I was pretty upset and embarassed,” in a commercial audition.

Reilly said her ability to get along with almost anyone makes her a good agent because she’s able to calm the nerves of aspiring actors.

“The hardest thing for anyone to do is walk through that door,” she said, motioning toward the entrance of her modest two-room suite in a restored building at 628-1/2 N. Monroe.

“I’ve had people come in and say, ‘I was so nervous and you made it so easy.’ That makes me feel good.”

Reilly is new to the Northwest but not to the talent business. She operated a talent agency in Denver, Colo., for seven years before packing her bags and moving to Cheney to care for aging relatives. She was in Spokane for two years before opening Big Fish.

Within a year, Reilly said, she’ll represent everyone in Spokane “worth representing.”

Though confident in her abilities, Reilly doesn’t glamorize what she does. She said she’s in the business for the fun, not the fame.

“Some agents really get into being an agent,” she said, raising her chin and mocking an English accent. “I’m a glorified data entry clerk and a glorified dispatcher. I can’t work with anyone with an ego.”

Reilly’s actors fill out a form, detailing hobbies, talents, languages they speak, height, weight, hair color, eye color - anything that’ll help Reilly fill casting requests.

The computer, which she calls “her savior” sorts that information so precisely that Reilly can put in a request for a 5-foot-2 blond woman with hazel eyes who plays piano and it will churn out a name.

Reilly works strictly on commission, taking home 20 percent of her actors’ earnings. She said she’s almost made back the $4,000 she invested in the business.

Reilly’s rates and terms are negotiable, but some guidelines apply. A principal speaking part in a local commercial can bring in about $200. For the same part in a national commercial, the fee is about $650. Actors with speaking parts in company training films make about $300 for a half day.

Rates for non-union acting jobs in Spokane need improvement, Reilly said. “I have turned down one job because it was for too little.”

Still, she added, it’s an agent’s job to get the actors as much money as she can. “Actors will do anything and they’ll work for nothing. For that reason, they need an agent.”

Reilly hasn’t placed any Spokane actors in movies yet, but she sent information to production companies handling Kevin Costner’s new film, “The Postman,” which is being filmed partly in Metaline Falls, and Robert Redford’s adaptation of the best-selling novel “The Horse Whisperer,” which is being filmed in Montana.

Reilly has a lot of fun with her company name, Big Fish. Her phone number is FAT-FISH. She’s planning to send clients live tropical fish as a marketing scheme. And her office is adorned with fish pictures, fish magnets and, perhaps most special, a wooden “Gone Fishin” sign hanging on her door.

That sign was given to her by a former client from Denver who is now a teenage movie star. Kyle Howard, 18, recently co-starred in “House Arrest,” with Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Pollack. The movie, about a group of teens who lock their parents in the basement, bombed, but Reilly says Howard is on his way to stardom.

“I got Kyle his first-ever job and watched him grow up. I watched him buy his first car and put the ‘Gone Hollywood’ plates on it,” Reilly said.

Reilly doesn’t have any desire to follow Howard to Hollywood, though.

“I don’t want to go to L.A. I think I’d get eaten alive,” she said. “I’m far too easy-going.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo