Role: Santa’s helper in an episode of “30 Rock”
Colin Buckingham
Colin Buckingham arrived at Back Stage’s annual Actorfest NY event last year with copies of his headshot and résumé but only a vague idea of whom he might be able to give them to. When the hopeful young actor learned that casting director Barbara McNamara, who casts background performers for the NBC series “30 Rock,” was available for one-on-one “meet and greet” sessions in the afternoon, he immediately got in line for his chance to talk to her.
Buckingham, a nonunion actor and a sophomore in the undergraduate acting program at Pace University, says he’s been a fan of “30 Rock” since the first episode. When it was his turn to sit down for a precious few minutes with McNamara, he forced himself to be more outgoing and talkative than his normally shy personality allows.
“I talked to her about the show and how I’d been watching it for a long time, and how I really loved the witty humor,” Buckingham recalls. “She said, ‘We’d love to get you on “30 Rock,” ‘ and I did a double take. I thought I had misheard her, because I’d never done anything that big before.”
