Talent agent Donna Massetti, a native of New York City with a soft spot for musical theater, takes her seat for a revival of the 1960s musical Do I Hear a Waltz? at the Pasadena Playhouse.
She’s there for the entertainment, but scouting for new talent isn’t just a 9-to-5 job for Massetti. She’s been told by her business partner at FMS Talent Inc., Marilyn Szatmary, who already has seen the show, to keep her eyes on the blonde who plays the part of Jennifer.
Actress Annie Wersching, whose voice can be heard on the Do I Hear a Waltz? soundtrack, had made a recent move to Los Angeles in 2001 after touring with Anything Goes, which closed there. Wanting to see whether she could make it in Tinseltown, she took on work as an extra and auditioned for local shows.
“We thought she was lovely and found out how to get in touch with her,” Massetti says. “She certainly had a good look for this town… a commercial look.
There are a lot of good actors, but when you see the commercial look and talent together, you say, ‘That’s someone you want to work with.’”
That blonde – now a redhead – has joined the ranks of elite actors represented by FMS, including CSI: New York‘s Anna Belknap, as well as Emmy winners David Hyde Pierce of Frasier and Zeljko Ivanek of Damages. At 32, she is entering her second season as Agent Renee Walker on the 20th Century Fox Television drama, 24.
Easin’ down the road
To those who know the only child of Frank and Sandy Wersching, Annie’s theatrical success comes as no surprise.
“She is very organized about auditioning and getting ready… She treated this as a job. A lot of people treat this as, ‘Oh I’ll be discovered,’” says Sandy, an elementary school teacher who went on to own Surprise! Florist. “I still have friends who are 65 years old waiting tables waiting for it to happen. I didn’t want that for her.”
Acting, you might say, is in Annie’s blood. Her father, an instructor and director at Washington University, was a singer and actor who owned the St. Charles Theatre and Opera House before his daughter’s birth. As a result, she knew what an acting career entailed, says Sandy, who in 2008 moved to L.A. to be closer to her daughter.
“It’s really fun and a continuation of what he did,” she says. “What’s really fun is she’s met some people he worked with.”
Annie says her first memorable acting experience was as a Jellicle cat in the musical Cats when she was a fourth-grader at New City School in the Central West End where her family lived.
“Our music teacher was very ambitious,” she says, laughing. “It was literally like kids crawling around.”
But it was in sixth grade when the acting bug bit while performing a school-based production of Broadway hit, The Wiz. “It was so fun. I loved the community of theater,” she says.
Annie was introduced to Irish step dancing by Kay McWilliams, a native of Galway, Ireland, who helped care for Frank Wersching, who died when his daughter was 12. McWilliams, who Annie likens to a second grandmother, had a daughter who performed with the The Mayer School of Irish Dance’s St. Louis Celtic Stepdancers. Annie joined, too.
Performing, competing and winning trophies for 14 years, she qualified to compete several times at the Midwest Oireachtas in Ireland, ending her career in Irish dancing at the championship level. Those skills would come in handy later when she performed in And They Called It Ireland at the Fireside Theatre, a dinner theater in Fort Atkinson, Wis.
Annie says her dancing experiences helped her build the confidence she needed to perform before a live audience.
“I think it definitely, definitely helped with stage presence in general,” she says. “Back then no one smiled in Irish dance, and I was the one little girl who smiled.”
At Crossroads College Preparatory School, Annie continued acting, taking on bigger roles and eventually playing the leads.
A place for her
Wanting to study musical theater after high school, Annie found it difficult to find a degree program. It was while performing West Side Story in summer stock at Jefferson University that the young thespian decided where she wanted to attend college: Millikin University in Decatur, Ill.
“The guy who was playing Tony was currently going to Millikin, so that’s how I heard about it,” she says. “It was great because it was away from home but not too far ÐÐ about an hour and a half.”
In college, Annie broadened her performance horizons. In addition to acting, she studied voice; ballet, jazz and tap dancing; and took a class in stage combat. By the time she’d earned her bachelor’s of fine arts in 1999, Annie had loaded down her resume with a variety of skills such as burping on cue, facial contortions and several dialects, including Cockney, Southern and Slavic.
Annie says her mother always supported her choice of studies, and she didn’t worry much about being a waitress waiting for her big break as she went from audition to audition. In fact, she’d lined up her first post-college job, touring with Anything Goes, before graduation.
“It’s hard to remember what my mindset was back then. You get comfortable with rejection. You try out and just move on,” she says. “It’s a necessary skill to have in this business or else you’ll be very, very defeated.”
Annie’s first real role after settling down in California was as Swing in A Class Act at the Pasadena Playhouse. Do I Hear a Waltz? soon followed.
“When I got out here, I didn’t have one on-camera credit on my resume,” she says. “I think I’d done one Sears commercial in Chicago, which doesn’t count.”
But when she went to see a live taping of the short-lived NBC sitcom Stark Raving Mad, starring Tony Shalhoub and Neil Patrick Harris, Annie knew she wanted more. The ability to do a sitcom would satisfy her desire to act before a larger audience, but the live taping provided the immediate gratification of the audience’s applause.
“I was like ‘Oh my God, this is exactly it!’ I was doing TV, but there was still a live audience because you came out and took a bow, and this was like the perfect melding of the two,” she says.
Live well and prosper
Annie held in her hand the envelope. It was like so many mailed to her through her agent from fans wanting an autograph.
The difference was this envelope contained a trading card with her likeness as the waifish Liana from the “Oasis” episode of Star Trek Enterprise. That guest appearance had been Annie’s first television role, and holding the card gave her a thrill.
“”I was like, “Where can I get one of these for myself? Where can I get one for my mom?’ I don’t think I ever was able to hunt one down,” she says, laughing.
Trained as a stage actress with no real television experience, Annie had to remember to project less because she wasn’t trying to be seen and heard by people in the back of a theater.
“I kept telling myself, ‘Keep it smaller, smaller, smaller,’” she says. “You just have to be smaller with your face. You’re much bigger on the stage.”
Television also forced her develop an awareness of the camera.
“The camera sees every teeny tiny thing you do… I think the camera can see it even if you just think it,” she says, laughing.
It was enough to get noticed. Annie started making the rounds of popular network and cable programs, appearing as a co-star or guest star on Friends, Boston Legal and Cold Case.
Annie further built up her screen credits with film work, taking on supporting, lead and feature roles in shorts and full-length films, including Veronica’s Veil, Birdkeeper and Bruce Almighty.
“I used to love days when you had four auditions… I love the fast-paced part of that,” she says.
In 2007, she became a series regular on the popular soap opera General Hospital. Annie had tested for a role three years earlier. Never one to follow the soaps, she started watching and learned her best friend was a real fan.
“That’s when you find those people in your life, those closet soap opera watchers,” she says, laughing. “I have to say, I tune in now every once in a while to check up on my friends in Port Charles and what’s going on.”
The pace of her role as television producer Amelia Joffe really helped prepare Annie for the rigors of series television, she says.
“It was definitely one of the hardest thing I’ve done,” she says. “I don’t think people realize how much work it is. They shot 60 pages a day, which is crazy. Twelve pages on a TV show would be a lot. And they only shoot it once and move on. You really have to know your line, know your intention.”
The producers of General Hospital tried to persuade Annie to sign a four-year contract. “I was like, ‘Uh, I kind of want to keep the doors open,” she says.
Taking advantage of her freedom, Annie auditioned for the Fox pilot Company Man by the producers of 24. Taking two weeks’ leave to shoot the pilot, another actress played her General Hospital role. The pilot, however, was not picked up.
Where did we go right?
It wasn’t the first time she’d been on television. But there was something special about her latest role. Annie invited a couple hundred of her closest family members and friends Jan. 11, 2009, for a private screening at the Tivoli Theatre in University City of 24‘s two-hour season premiere.
Though the Company Man pilot was a bust, Annie’s acting was a hit. When the producers of 24 had a difficult time casting the role of Agent Renee Walker, one of them suggested testing that actress from the pilot.
“I know I wasn’t everybody’s first choice,” Annie says, adding Emmy Award-winning director and producer Jon Cassar really went to bat for her.
Once she landed the role, however, there was no real expectation it would last. And there still isn’t, she notes.
“They kill a lot of people off on this show,” she says.
Whether being buried alive or being thrown off a boat into a replica of the Potomac River wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket, the role of Renee Walker has been her most demanding to date, challenging her not only as an actress but also physically.
“I love it, love it, love it, love it. I’m constantly begging them for more,” she says.
Another challenge is the shooting schedule. Because each episode of 24 represents an hour of the day, half of the nine-month shooting schedule takes place during the day, and half takes place at night.
Between the schedule and her inability to change her looks to maintain the continuity of that single day’s events, Annie has little opportunity to pursue other acting possibilities. She’d love, for instance, to return to her musical theater roots and play Satine, the role made famous by Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge.
Another opportunity she’d love to explore that wouldn’t interfere with her looks would be a Disney princess, she says.
Still, she’s grateful for the extraordinary opportunity she has now.
“Career-wise, it’s such a huge thing. It’s such an incredible role, being such a strong woman,” says Annie, who by her own admission typically was cast as the meek, quiet wife or mother.
Though many actors, like her co-star Kiefer Sutherland, eventually move behind the scenes, Annie says she has no such desires.
“He has such a good eye if something in the scene needs to be tweaked or fixed, he knows how to fix it. I can tell when things are a little off but I’m not sure how to fix it,” she says.
Like Annie’s mother, Massetti isn’t surprised the actress is making her mark.
“I’ve always thought she was special. I always knew something would happen for her. Some people get lucky, but with some people, it takes time,” Massetti says.
Though many agencies will drop a client who is unable to produce at the level they want within a certain timeframe, Massetti says she believes Annie was like a fine wine that would get better with age.
“She would never be an ingénue. She was always more of a leading lady,” Massetti says.
The agent says she wouldn’t be surprised if her client lands a few big-screen roles after being seen on 24.
“The film business is a little anemic right now because of the economic downturn. But I do think she will have those opportunities once this cycles through,” she says.
Even so, the competition is incredibly fierce, first to get an agent, then to get into a room with a producer or director, Annie says.
“Once I was able to play the woman – instead of the girl and my hair was darker, I started working more. I was never the same as the other young chippies,” the natural blonde says.
One of her frustrations, Annie says, is how casting directors have a preconceived notion of a character’s look and cast close to type. Sometimes, she’d go to an audition with sandy blonde hair and told to go lighter. Other times, she’d go with long hair and be told to go shorter.
“It’s frustrating you can’t just go into the room and you’re the best actor for the job. There never seems to be an imagination for things. It has to be the exact thing as they envisioned it,” she says. “You can tell when you get immediately typed out.”
And unlike many young celebrities clawing their way onto the A list, Annie, who is single, avoids being caught in indelicate situations that make their way onto the covers of supermarket tabloids. She prefers to spend time with her mother, who lives next door to her, visiting friends and family in St. Louis several times a year, and playing with her dog Sandy, whom her mother isn’t certain is named after her or after the dog in the musical Annie.
“I think that’s definitely a choice you kind of make… As far as your personal life, you can have a pretty big hand with what you let out there,” the actress says.
Still, Annie says she believes with this new role comes wider recognition.
“I also know in this town you can be the hot new thing this second and be out of favor the next week,” she says. “I think I’m slowly climbing that hill. I think more people know me as the redhead from 24 as opposed to knowing my name.
“I just want to be known as a really good, really fine actor.”
Source: St. Louis Woman Magazine
