Super Bowl: David Loftus

I have no plans for the Super Bowl. Not only do I not know who is playing -- although I might be able to make an educated guess, based on the names that have been bandied about by some of my Facebook friends -- but I actually had to double-check which weekend it’s happening, so I could state with certainty what I’ll be doing instead! I guess you could say I do “look forward” to the commercials as much as the game, since that amount is zero in both cases.

In my dim memory, I think I can recall watching one Super Bowl all the way through, as an opportunity for a social get-together with friends who were football fans. Heaven knows which game it was or who was playing, but I think it happened back in the mid Eighties. Football is one of those things I could entirely take or leave: if you set me in front of a game, I can get into it, but most of the time I can’t be bothered because I have better things to do. When I think of all the good that could be done with the immense piles of money that go into staging the Super Bowl, and with the energy the fans put into caring about it, attending it, watching it, arguing about it . . . it makes me kind of sad.

What will I be doing this entire weekend? Attending a seminar to advance my professional career. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? It won’t be, though: it involves preparing for a potential walk-on speaking role on the TNT cable series “Leverage.” The show, which stars Timothy Hutton (who is also executive producer), shot its entire second season in Portland last year, and is returning to do its third season of 15 episodes this spring and summer. I did some extra work on two episodes last August (one of which aired last night with guest stars Luke Perry and Jeri Ryan), and have since signed with a talent agency, which should position me for a supporting character spot. Since the show eats through dozens of such characters every week, the primary casting agency in Portland has organized a weekend-long “boot camp” to prepare local actors to audition for and work on the show, so we’ll be ready when they need bodies. The creators and executive producers, and at least one of the stars (Aldis Hodge, who plays Alec Hardison, computer/Internet specialist, hacker, and sci-fi fan) will be involved. Also this weekend, I’ll be going to a call-back audition for an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” So the Super Bowl can go suck eggs.