Karen Carbone - Actor, Silver Spring

It's funny that I had to dress up as a gypsy today. Because that's exactly what you have to be to make it as an actor in this town: a gypsy. My bag of tricks is always packed and waiting by the door. I'm a foot model, an extra, a stand-in. I'm the host of Fairfax County's "Parks Plus" TV show. I'm the woman wearing the too-short miniskirt in the training video. I'm whatever it takes to be a working actor that day. Ninety-nine percent of it is rejection, so you better really appreciate that other 1 percent. You just go to the audition, be thrilled that you even got it, and immediately forget about it. If you don't, you'll end up in therapy you can't afford. You have to be thankful for every job, every "third woman on bus" in an HBO movie, every book on tape, even the smoky-voiced heroine in a romance novel.

White trash or soccer mom. Those are the roles for the small, athletic white woman. I get beat up a lot. I've been on "America's Most Wanted" several times because a lot of victims are young white women. The killer's girlfriend's sister's best friend, that's me. Being a victim over and over again can be exhausting, but it's always just a job. In one scene, I was handcuffed with my feet tied with electrical tape and my boyfriend was about to light me on fire. I'm supposed to grab a fire extinguisher under the bed and spray him, but he ends up spraying me. The fire extinguisher was filled with whipped cream. We do about eight takes and come back the next morning. No one put the extinguisher in the refrigerator overnight, so I was covered in rancid whipped cream. But I'd take rancid whipped cream over a five-foot cubicle any day of the week.

When I tell people I act, the reaction is almost always: "Why are you here? Why aren't you in Los Angeles or New York?" Here, I can be a big fish in a small pond. Here, people know me. Now, if one day I'm standing in for Sissy Spacek while she gets her hair and makeup done, and the next day that movie's director calls me, I'm there. No more little pond. But if I were in L.A. right now, I'd just be another short white chick.

-- Interview by Amanda Long