Waking Up in Astoria Indy Film Portrays Struggles of NY Actor and His Family with Humor, Pathos

When we think about actors, acting, and the business of making TV shows and films, we tend to see only the glamour and glitter of the entertainment world. We read in the tabloids about Hollywood marriages that have shorter shelf lives than your average gallon of milk...follow box-office grosses as though our very lives depended on it....wait breathlessly for the next big film from Jackson, Spielberg, McTiernan, and Lucas...and pretend we don't care about the sex lives of Jennifer Anniston or Jude Law while we peek at the tabloids in the supermarket checkout lines.

The reality, of course, is that the show-biz world we all know and love is merely the tip of the iceberg, and that for every Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, or Heath Ledger at the pinnacle of the thespian world, there are hundreds of actors like WakingUp in Astoria's TJ Martini, a 30-something New Yorker who is struggling uphill to get parts in everything from radio commercials to hit television series but getting nowhere fast, much to the dismay of his wife Karin.

Written and directed by Juan Carlos Hernandez and produced by Adria K. Woomer Hernandez, Waking Up in Astoria is the bittersweet story of, as the director puts it, "an actor and his family, and their struggle to keep insanity from exceeding its moderation."

Shot entirely on location in New York City, Waking Up in Astoria starts on a somewhat comical note: TJ (Hernandez) is appearing in a commercial for one of the Big Apple's most needed essentials - a tough deadbolt lock. As Martini recites the sales pitch, the lock comes apart, component by component,  in his hand,  leading the viewer to believe that Astoria is going to be a slapstick comedy.