Getting To Know The Actor Ray Buffer

Ray Buffer: Well, I mean, I’d changed over time, but the funny thing with me is I was playing older roles when I was your age. So when I was in my twenties, I would play 50 year olds. So the joke I make frequently is that I’ve got 35 years experience playing 50 year old men. You know, which is good because now that I am and that means, you know, maybe it gives me a leg up over an average 50 year old actor, you know, because. 

[Music]

Zeke: I like to welcome everyone to another episode of the Let’s Gather Podcast.

Zeke: I’m your host Zeke and in this episode I have Ray Buffer to speak about being an actor. You can find more information about him by clicking the link in the description below. I like to give a content warning for any strong language used in this episode and hope you have a nice day and enjoy the show.

Zeke: And I give you the floor to introduce yourself to the audience. 

Ray Buffer: Thanks very much Ezekiel. My name is Ray Buffer.

Ray Buffer: I’m an actor out of Long Beach, California. I am originally from Florida. I grew up there and left Florida for California in 1999. I’ve been out here since just working in the arts industry in one capacity or another. Just before the pandemic, I decided to focus more on my personal acting career. So I’ve been not not directing and producing as much as I was before.

Ray Buffer: Now focusing more on just acting. 

Zeke: Cool so we can get into the first question, what got you into acting and like the performing arts in general? 

Ray Buffer: Sure. You know, I have to credit my teachers. You know, I was I was like a lot of kids, I think in junior high, high school, you know, not really sure where you fit in, but what you should do and something about music attracted me initially.

Ray Buffer: So I was compelled to play violin in fifth grade in a feeder program in elementary school. And then when I went to middle school, that same teacher was there and I continued in orchestra that led me down a road where I was introduced to singing choral music. And by the time I got to eighth grade, that’s where I was introduced to drama and theater and and the concept of musical theater, the combination of two things that I was beginning to really like music and theater.

Ray Buffer: So by the time I got to high school, that was kind of the pivotal point where I decided, okay, this is what I want to be when I grow up. I want to work in musical theater. I work as an actor.

Zeke: Nice. And what about acting keeps you in interested? 

Ray Buffer: Well, I mean, there’s always something different as an actor.

Ray Buffer: You know, a lot of kids, I think they grew up saying, Oh, I want to be a cowboy or an astronaut when I grew up. Well, when you’re an actor, you can be a cowboy and an astronaut. You can be anything you want to be on any given day. So I think I think it’s afforded me a lot of expression, a lot of a lot of ways to express creativity over the course of the past few years.

Ray Buffer: Not to say that, you know, actors typically have a type. And so I will typically to get certain types of roles. I don’t think I’ve ever played an astronaut yet, but, you know, typically I’ll get bouncer roles or security or cops or villains because I’m a big guy, tall and I’m wide, and I have a deep voice. I tend to get those kind of roles.

Zeke: And with those roles, do you bring anything from yourself into them or do you go into it each role completely different, and try to figure out what to do for the character? 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, I think it’s a mixture of both. I think you kind of want to approach it from the idea that you want to make it different from yourself.

Ray Buffer: You want to you want to see what, what, what the story is expressing this character is and kind of use that as a framework. But I think once you’ve created that framework, then you let yourself ooze into it. So, you know, maybe maybe there are certain phrases the character’s scripted to say that don’t fall off your tongue quite the right way.

Ray Buffer: But, you know, if you yourself were saying it, it might be a little bit different. So you start to put some of those nuances into it and typically directors are pretty flexible. They like they like you to bond with the material and kind of, you know, merge a little of yourself in with the character so that the character comes across more natural and not so regimented and robotic, you know, because sometimes you know, depending on the experience of a writer, all the characters might sound like they’re speaking with one voice because the writer might not be really delineating the characters a lot.

Ray Buffer: So. So the actor, the personality of the actor is sometimes what makes those characters a little more different and separate. 

Zeke: Got it. And with acting, do you ever get self-conscious, like stage fright or you just it just kind of comes naturally to you? 

Ray Buffer: Yeah. You know, there’s there’s there’s some schools of thought there. I was just in a workshop the other day, and the instructor was talking about being nervous and using that energy to kind of guide you and infuse you.

Ray Buffer: But no, I don’t. I don’t get butterflies anymore. And I think that’s because I’m comfortable. You know, I think I think that if you don’t feel prepared, you know, if you feel like you procrastinated and didn’t really do your homework and now you’ve got to step up and show people you know, what you know and what you don’t know.

Ray Buffer: I think sometimes that leads to butterflies in the stomach and that leads to being unsure or anxiety. So I, I just try to be very prepared so that that that is an even it’s in my mind, it should it should feel like any given day being myself, if I’m prepared enough for a character, I can walk into a room and essentially being the character is just being myself, even if the characters character’s different, you know what I mean?

Ray Buffer: It just comes to you naturally. And that’s that’s the point you want to be as an actor. You want to be able, even when you mess up, to mess up in character, in the mess up, to recover from that in character so that it’s not doesn’t look like you’re unprepared. Yeah.

Zeke: Alright. I was just thinking about if you do become an astronaut, you are a bouncer astronaut who has to protect the other like a bouncer that you have to

Ray Buffer: A bouncer astronaut. Yeah. Who throws the bad astronauts out of the capsule and lets you lets them suffocate in space somewhere? Yeah, I be the bouncer astronaut. That would be cool, 

Zeke: Nice Because me, I get on stage fright. Like managed it over time. But when I get nervous, I just lose all my emotions and just get things done.

Ray Buffer: Mm hmm. Well, that’s the adrenaline, right? And making you focus. And that’s. That’s kind of what this instructor was saying. You know, in his class, I think every person is a little bit different. You know, some people just don’t they don’t have the same anxieties that other people have. So to each their own. But if the I think the secret is that if you do get butterflies, if you do get that anxious feeling before going on that you funnel it, that you use it to focus like you say, maybe, maybe that means, you know, pulling emotion out of your system.

Ray Buffer: Although, you know, if the character needs to be emotional, you need to use that emotion. So I think it’s just directing that energy in the right place. 

Zeke: And it’s like practicing and reading a script is like, what goes is like reading a script is is like knowing the words, knowing mannerisms. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah. I mean, knowing it backwards and forwards.

Ray Buffer: I mean, you know, I’m, I’m in rehearsal now for a jukebox musical. You know what that is? 

Zeke: The jukebox, I know what a jukebox is.. 

Ray Buffer: A jukebox musical though, you know, in terms of theater. So it’s basically just a it’s a musical that uses pop songs, songs, songs that weren’t necessarily written for the theater, but were written for radio. And it uses them in a musical theater capacity.

Ray Buffer: So, I mean, I’m in rehearsal now for a jukebox musical. It’s a country Western jukebox musical. So I have three songs that are very fast patter songs that I’m having to memorize and prepare for, and there’s a variety of different methods I would use to to learn things over the next two months. One is obviously listening to the songs over and over again, trying to subliminally, you know, learn them, but also writing them out I find is helpful, like maybe having the lyric sheet near me, but then trying to do it from memory.

Ray Buffer: As you know, even if it’s very slowly writing them out, because that gets the brain working a certain way. Also, not just listening and writing, but it’s important that you develop muscle memory. Muscle memory can carry you through a performance because if your mouth knows what to do, sometimes you can zone out and just go on autopilot, but the muscle memory will take over.

Ray Buffer: So it’s important, like especially for fast songs like these that I have to do, that I do exercises, I say these songs, I sing them. Maybe I do them at double speed, even so that you’re training yourself to do them so quickly that it becomes effortless to do them in tempo. So yeah, there’s a variety of things and you know, if it’s line, sometimes I’ll record all the parts and leave a hole for my own part and use that as a way to learn.

Ray Buffer: But everyone has a different kinds of memorization techniques and there’s there’s no one way to do it right. It’s what works for you. 

Zeke: Yes, makes sense. And then with the singer part, you had to be do you had to learn how to sing or you had to know how to sing or?

Ray Buffer: Why i already know how to sing so and but but oddly enough, a lot of these songs are patter songs.

Ray Buffer: So patter songs are like mostly spoken songs, almost like almost like an early form of rap in a way. If you’ve ever seen The Music Man, Harold Hill, that character, he has patter songs. Well, we got trouble. My friends right here say trouble right in River City. They’re not sung per se, but they’re spoken in rhythm. Right? So some of the songs that I have to do in the show or patter songs, so knowing how to sing is good because there’s still a timbre to to how you speak the words.

Ray Buffer: There’s a certain pitch that you want to hit and there’s inflections you want to use. But also rhythm is important because you got to you got to fit the words in and the right amount of time. So yeah, it takes it takes practice and training. And if I were coming into the show not knowing how to sing, I think it would be challenging.

Zeke: Got it, it’s so many skills you have to learn how to have known to make it. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, and I mean, I rarely nowadays do theater because live performance takes so much time to rehearse and so much time to perform and doesn’t necessarily pay as much comparatively as the amount of time you spend filming a commercial or a TV show or a film.

Ray Buffer: But I just feel like after maybe about five years not doing a live show, that I needed to challenge myself again and kind of get out there and change things up. So looking forward, it’s a show called Heavenly Country. It opens in March, plays through for a month to the end of April in Studio City, California. 

Zeke: So nice. And you have like 40 years experience, right?

Ray Buffer: What was that happened? What was the question? 

Zeke: You have about 40 years experience, if I’m not mistaken. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, yeah, thereabouts. I mean, I was probably about 13 when I started and I’m 53 now, so, you know, not all that experience is necessarily acting. Acting, acting, acting. I did some other things in between. You know, I, I worked for other companies, you know, behind the scenes I did marketing and development for the Laguna Playhouse for a short while, worked as a general manager for Long Beach Opera.

Ray Buffer: And those experiences led me to decide to start my own arts company. So I had a company called the Relevant Stage, where I produced musical theater for about five years, and I also was in a few of those shows. And then I also had a company with a partner called Art Relation here in Long Beach where I live, and ran that for a few years before the pandemic hit.

Ray Buffer: And and like I said, I think to you earlier, that’s when I went back and started focusing more on me as an actor and less on the directing and the producing side. 

Zeke: Got it, and how to like, continue to like, find different roles and stuff when you’re in your career?

Ray Buffer:  Well, I hope that they find me, but, you know, I’m getting to the point, you know, I submit I submit for four parts every day.

Ray Buffer: I look at breakdowns and I look at things that I might be a 70 or 80% match for and I submit for it. And sometimes someone will contact me and say, You’re perfect for this. And I’ll think, Wow, I didn’t really think I had that much of a chance of being perfect for that. But they see, you know, you can’t you can’t control how someone else perceives you.

Ray Buffer: And that’s the main thing as an actor that you have to realize is that the type that you think you are isn’t necessarily the type that someone looking at you perceives you to be. And what you’re perceived to be is inevitably what you’re what the types of jobs you’re going to get offered. So as as bitter a pill it may be too, to swallow, you have to accept what others perceive you to be.

Ray Buffer: And, you know, I think that’s worked for the past couple of years for me because people see me as the villain cowboy or, you know, the the second henchman from the left or, you know, the Russian guard or the cop or the the dad. You know, I get dad roles now, so I have to accept that. And and capitalize on it and submit myself for every one of those types of roles that come along.

Ray Buffer: And, you know, hopefully I get a few. So, you know, things have been staying pretty constant for me. I can’t I can’t complain. 

Zeke: Nice is like, Oh, you guys chose, chose me. Oh, my God. Thank you. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s. It’s a lot of work. You know, being an actor. The work, the real work of being an actor is auditioning, is doing all the self tapes and submitting everything.

Ray Buffer: You know, I’ve gotten to a routine now where, you know, my girlfriend goes to sleep around midnight or so, and so the dogs are put away and then they’re asleep and the neighbors aren’t making noise. And there’s no there’s no leaf blower or grass trimmer or kids screaming outside my unit at midnight. So from midnight to 3 a.m., if I have self tapes or auditions I need to do, that’s a great time for me to videotape them and submit them.

Ray Buffer: And so, you know, you develop routines, ways to create what I call a pipeline. You know, that’s a sales term. You know, pipelines. If you ever if you ever work in sales, it’s like you you have leads and then you call them and then you have potential sales. Then you have the sales that are that are pending and then you have sales that are made and you fall of that pipeline.

Ray Buffer: And so the same thing is true with with acting. You’ve got auditions, you’ve got callbacks, you’ve got chemistry tests, you’ve got, you know, days that you’re going to shoot, you’ve got days that you shot, then you’ve got post-production, then you’ve got film festivals, then you’ve got premieres, you know, So there’s lots of little things along the way that you have to keep doing to kind of perpetuate the whole system.

Zeke: Makes sense. I was thinking about how the different roles you are getting now. Where they similar or different from when you were younger, and they’re going to be different as you get older, as.

Ray Buffer: You’re asking me what what is different? 

Zeke: Yeah, like the different roles, like as how they change over the time. 

Ray Buffer: Well, I mean, I changed over time, but the a funny thing with me is I was playing older roles when I was your age, so when I was in my twenties I would play 50 year olds.

Ray Buffer: So the joke I make frequently is that I’ve got 35 years experience playing a 50 year old man, you know, which is good because now that I am and that means, you know, maybe it gives me a leg up over an average 50 year old actor, you know, because of being a big and tall guy, you tend to get older roles.

Ray Buffer: So in theater, I would have to put age make up on a lot. A film and TV they just throw little white in your hair, you know, it’s, you know, so I, I don’t begrudge where I’m at. I never expected to be a leading man in a. So there has to be some cops that I can conceive of where the character I’m always probably fated to be a supporting character and I’m happy with that.

Ray Buffer: You know, character actors are some of the most interesting actors out there. 

Zeke: Got it. So was like working behind the scenes? Like you said before, yours was working in different jobs. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, well, that was mostly in theater. You know, I, I directed and produced some productions. What I found that I didn’t like about doing it was when I was in the production too, and directing it.

Ray Buffer: I found that very hard because you can’t turn off your ears. You can’t you can’t stop being a director when you’re on stage trying to be an actor. And what I mean by that is like, you know, you’re always listening, you’re always hearing, you know, if there’s someone that’s in the cast that’s complaining because there’s not enough water to drink off stage or someone’s complaining because they’re costume too tight or too big, you know, you hear those things and yet you’re still trying to focus and be an actor in a scene on stage during rehearsal, it becomes very, very hard.

Ray Buffer:  So I’ve I’ve decided, especially with age, that I prefer to just be the guy that shows up, is ready to do my job as an actor and just be an actor and not have to worry about all those other production issues. In terms of film, I did direct and kind of co-write a documentary back in the early 2000s, and I felt like that was an interesting experience.

Ray Buffer: Maybe down the road after I kind of worked as an actor for a while, I might want to explore directing a film or directing, doing more documentaries. It was rewarding, doing that, that, but you know, sometimes you do something and you kind of feel like, okay, been there, done that, moving on. And I think at that time that’s how I kind of felt.

Ray Buffer:  So who knows? You know, down the road things may change and I may get a desire to do that kind of work again. 

Zeke: Never know. So 

Ray Buffer: Never know. 

Zeke: Yeah, and I see it. I guess it’s more it’s it’s like it’s easier to focus on one thing than focus on multiple things at the same time. Yeah. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah. And you know, as you get older too, your, your focus is kind of strained.

Ray Buffer:  You know, it’s a little harder to memorize things now, you know, age age does has have the habits effects, but you know, drink lots of coffee. You can pretty much do anything. 

Zeke: And then during the pandemic, how did that affect your career trajectory? 

Ray Buffer: Well, you know, a lot of people that I work with or around it, it hurt them a lot for me.

Ray Buffer: I worked a lot during the pandemic, and I don’t really know why. It seemed like there were a lot fewer productions, a lot fewer commercials being filmed during the pandemic. But the ones that were being filmed somehow I got work on, you know, And so, you know, all I can do is, you know, knock on wood, that that happened and not complain, just kind of just try to keep moving forward and doing whatever I was doing, then hoping that it continues.

Zeke: Yeah

Ray Buffer: What about you?

Ray Buffer: What did the podcast affect your your I mean, did the pandemic affect your podcast at all? 

Zeke: No, it just it was in person at the beginning where I was on do people in New York, um my college, I was working there. And then when the pandemic happened, I just switched to online I was like, asked everybody if they still interested? Just in case.

Zeke: You know, you never know what happens in their life. And then from there they came back online. 

Ray Buffer: So yeah, I think for actors, the big change with with the pandemic was that, you know, we didn’t go to in-person auditions as much, you know, And that was kind of a nice thing because when you think about it, you know, you have to get in your car, you got to memorize the script, you got to drive, you got to fight traffic for a couple hours.

Ray Buffer: Then you got to find a parking space. You got to hope you don’t get towed. The parking space was legal. Then you go in, then you sit in a room with a bunch of people that look just like you, and they’re all looking at you thinking, Wow, you look just like me. And then you sit there staring at each other for like, 2 hours.

Ray Buffer: Then you finally go in. You really you do your you do your audition. It takes maybe 5 minutes to do that audition, and then you’re out. Then you’re back in your car. You’re taking the ticket off your windshield, you’re cursing life, getting in your car, you’re fighting traffic, you’re going home. So it’s a whole day wasted on one audition.

Ray Buffer: But the pandemic, I think, open things up to where we can do five or six auditions in a day. You know, we can self tape and send that in, you know, like, say, I what audition, could I go to from 12 midnight to 3 a.m.? But that’s what I can do myself right now and send them in. And then yeah, the callbacks might be in person but even a lot of the callbacks back then were Zoom and even chemistry test runs.

Ray Buffer: So I think that the industry’s changed permanently in some ways. And yeah, I do go in-person now a lot more than I did during the pandemic, but it’s nowhere near as often as before the pandemic. So there’s kind of a hybrid thing going on now where it’s a majority self tapes, but some in-person stuff. 

Zeke: How does it feel like when you go to audition in person and you see so many people who have similar features to you?

Zeke: It is like found everybody does like me. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s it’s a bad habit to play a casting director in your brain because I walked out of a couple rooms, you know, where I’ve gone and I have sat down and I see like two guys out of 19 that are in the room with me that I know are absolutely perfect for this role.

Ray Buffer: And so I tell myself, Well, really, do I want to waste time, you know, competing against these two guys, I’m just going to leave. But really do yourself a disservice in doing that because you don’t know. You know, these two guys might get in there and stumble. The the casting director might not like them. They might find out that they’re not available on the shooting dates or they have a conflict or, you know, some other issue that you don’t just see when you’re sitting in a waiting room looking, looking at them across the room.

Ray Buffer:  So you really it behooves you to follow through and not psych yourself out. 

Zeke: You never know what could happen. 

Ray Buffer: You never know. And you know, a lot of my best opportunities have come from being a second choice. So what I mean by that is someone else might have been cast initially and then a conflict comes up or, you know, they they stumble over their feet and screw up and piss off someone and get fired.

Ray Buffer:  And then I’m the guy that gets called because, you know, I was I was good. I was a contender, but I wasn’t their first choice. And that’s okay. I mean, that’s that’s the way jobs work, you know, and and then, you know, I’ll get that job and then they’ll say, Wow, we really should have picked you to begin with.

Ray Buffer: You know? And that’s nice. You know, it’s a nice compliment. And usually they mean it, but sometimes, sometimes they don’t. But but it’s always good, you know? And I don’t begrudge it. You know, you can’t you can’t you can’t take a job and then say, well, but I wasn’t your first choice, so it doesn’t matter. You got the job now.

Ray Buffer: So that’s all that matters, 

Zeke: Ha. You guys were wrong now. You’re right. I’m here. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah. 

Zeke: Nice. Do you have a favorite performance that you’ve done? 

Ray Buffer: Um, I don’t really. I mean, I try to find something I really like about everything that I. That I’ve done. You know, I directed a production of Footloose a few years ago on stage, musical version, and I played Reverend Shaw, which is the father who doesn’t want to allow dancing in the town.

Ray Buffer: And he has a very interesting song’s a very emotional arc. I guess probably the roles that that that have more emotional arcs are the ones that I remember and maybe take more pride in. But I mean, again, back to musical theater. Adam Pontipee was a role I always wanted to play and I had been offered it by a producer in Orlando, Florida, many, many years ago, and I was getting ready to go into rehearsal.

Ray Buffer: And then he contacts me and says, Oh, you know, I know I told you you had this role, but Robert Goulet, his son, Robert Goulet, is a famous actor. Robert Goulet son became available and it just would be more of a marquee performer in this role. I’ll make it up to you, but I need to replace you with this guy.

Ray Buffer: And I was like, so bummed that I get to play that role. So years later, when I was producing theater in San Pedro, I programed that show and I cast myself so I could finally do that role. But it was it was a cool roles like a Mountain man role and seeing some very some very sexist songs because it’s, you know, it’s a product of its time.

Ray Buffer: It’s very chauvinistic stuff. But, but a fun role. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

Zeke: Nice. It’s it’s all fun in places that I’m in charge now. Me. 

Ray Buffer: Exactly. Well, I mean, you know, and I think the lesson learned there, too, is that you don’t have to wait for someone to give you a part. You know, if you got the gumption, you can produce it directed, be in it, you know, cast people to be in it with you.

Ray Buffer: Do the show. Do the show you want to do. Don’t wait for someone else to bankroll it. Find a way to get it done yourself. And then you use that that that tape, that that evidence that you did, that production and work begets work. You know, that’s that’s a something I firmly believe is that the more you show people your working, the more stuff you you book yourself doing, the more you’re going to book because people are going to say, Well, this guy’s working all the time.

Ray Buffer: How do I get him to work for me? You know, 

Zeke: If people it shows that people want you, then more people are going to want you. 

Ray Buffer: Exactly. Yeah. You become a commodity. So it’s just like retail, right? It’s like if you got to be going to a table full of shirts and no one’s no one’s stopping to look at the shirts or buy them.

Ray Buffer: But you got three employees standing around doing nothing in the store and those three employees stand in front of the table and look at the shirts and all of a sudden people are going to come out of them all and line up behind those three people say, Wow, what’s what’s what’s up with these shirts? Right? 

Zeke: Yeah. So before we end is there anything that you want to ask or go over?

Ray Buffer: No, I you were pretty pretty thorough.

00;30;51;02 – 00;31;16;13

Unknown

Ray Buffer: Yeah. I feel like I didn’t ask you a lot, but. Yeah, no, I’m good. Yeah. If you have any parting questions, we can cut it in half an hour. 

Zeke: Works for me or for you, Right? Cool. So if have anything you want to ask me before we end, we can do that if not we can end. Thank you. And where can people find you?

00;31;16;15 – 00;31;50;17

Unknown

Ray Buffer: Can find me online at raybuffer dot com. I’m also on IMDB. You can just type Ray Buffer into the search field for IMDB. Yeah and then I’m you know I’m happy to follow people or be followed and do shout outs on Instagram I’m there as therealraybuffer 

Zeke: Not the fake one, the real one. 

Ray Buffer: You know for some reason about a year ago there were three fake ones, so I eventually made it.

Ray Buffer: But. But I felt famous for about 5 minutes, 

Zeke: Somebody else made it.  Was like, I want to be you. I want to pretend to be you. 

Ray Buffer: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it was probably one of those one of those Haitian prince scam, you know, someone in, you know, imitates you or they they they’re an imposter. And then they contact everyone you’re friends with and try to get money from themselves.

Ray Buffer: To each their own, I guess. 

Zeke: Yes. Again, thank you. And we are done. 

Zeke: That brings another episode or Let’s Gather Podcast to a close. Again you can find more information about Ray Buffer by clicking the link in the description below. For next week I have Stranded Comics to speak about the comic book industry. I hope you continue to have a nice day and hope to see you there.

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